He said: “I am so excited to be here; I believe in and love this restaurant with all my heart. I’m also clear about what my job is, which is to do what’s best for the restaurant, not to do what’s best for any of you. More often than not, what’s best for the restaurant will include doing what’s best for you. But the only way I can take care of all of you as individuals is by always putting the restaurant first.” I loved this. It was a profoundly confident display of leadership—both a rallying cry and a way of telling the team, right away, exactly what they could expect from him as a leader. I was inspired to use that same approach as a template for my own first-day speech. Except that Christopher had worked as a server and a manager at Union Square Cafe for years before that promotion. He knew every inch of the restaurant, and every one of the people in that room, down to their favorite cocktails and the names of their pets. People trusted him. He’d earned the right to give that speech. I hadn’t.

It didn’t even matter who was right and wrong, though, because nobody was communicating effectively. The front-line staff weren’t talking to one another because nobody was talking to them, and they weren’t listening to one another because they felt like nobody was listening to them. So I spent my first few weeks sitting down with every single member of the team and hearing them out. That was a whole education in itself; I learned a lot of information about the restaurant it would otherwise have taken me a long time to figure out. Those meetings also taught me that time spent goes a long way. Sitting down with people shows them you care about what they think and how they feel and makes it that much easier for them to trust that you have their best interests in mind. For this reason, I’d later ask the managers to stop sitting together during family meal, which the staff shares together before the restaurant is open. By spreading out, they’d learn, as I had, that the meal is a perfect opportunity to gather ideas and perspectives that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

Most of us have no difficulty at all in delivering praise; that’s the fun part of being a boss. But it’s hard to criticize someone. So I spend a lot of time with my managers talking about criticism—how to deliver it, how to receive it, and maybe most important, how to think about it. We all want to be liked, and when you give someone a note about what they could be doing differently and better, you run the risk of losing their goodwill. That’s why I say there is no better way to show someone you care than by being willing to offer them a correction; it’s the purest expression of putting someone else’s needs above your own, which is what hospitality is all about. Praise is affirmation, but criticism is investment.”

People who are gifted at hospitality tend to be sensitive. They notice everything, feel deeply, and care a lot. These are superpowers, though that tenderness can also make them a handful to manage. I’ve heard many frustrated managers complain about these employees: “They’re so needy! They need so much reinforcement! I have to walk them through every decision; I have to hold their hands through every change!” But these tendencies are often what make these people so good at their work; they need to have delicate antennae. It takes compassion to know when a guest is intimidated by the room—and a light touch to dial back the formality so they don’t feel condescended to.

I knew these sensitive people needed extra time and love. But those Thanksgiving toasts created a space where the staff could be vulnerable with their peers, and they needed that, too. If you don’t create room for the people who work for you to feel seen and heard in a team setting, they’ll never be fully known by the people around them.