Restaurant Musings: 3 Core Elements of a Restaurant

The key qualities of successful restaurant managers are: leadership, attitude, flexibility and efficiency. Whether you’re a restaurant veteran or novice, this set of qualities must be honed if you want your restaurant to succeed.

KA: “A lot of the things that are also the qualities of a good restaurant manager from question one – positive attitude, has a passion for what they do, humility, teamwork, patience, calm under pressure, initiative, can delegate, leads by example, great communication, time management, being proactive.”

• Customer Service + Staff. It is no surprise that customer service is important.
• Food. One of the major keys to having a successful restaurant is to choose the right type of food, the quality of ingredients as well as how to present your dishes.
• Marketing.

What Skills Does a Restaurant Manager Need to Be Effective?

• Leadership.
• Communication.
• Problem-Solving and Conflict Management.
• Positive Attitude.
• Attention to Detail.
• Flexibility.

All managers require a variety of characteristics which scream out success.

• Stress Management. This is a big one.
• Multi-tasking. Again, very important.
• Passion.
• Record Keeping.
• Inventiveness.
• Responsibility.
• Social Skills.
• Knowledge of Product.

The ability to motivate an entire group to strive toward a specific goal is a major part of what makes a good manager. Enhancing a team’s strengths and improving upon their weaknesses is how a manager demonstrates their leadership. They use fun, engaging activities to keep everyone motivated and boost team morale.

A “manager” title normally implies you can shape your team, while a “lead” is often presented with a given team he has to lead. However, job titles are not regulated. A company could appoint someone to manage the whole company all by himself and call him “senior clown” and that would be perfectly legal.

Management is more focused on controlling people and outcomes, while leadership often centers around inspiring people to think outside of the box. Leaders motivate and inspire, while managers direct. Management focuses on optimizing the execution of a process, while leadership focuses on optimizing a team as a whole.

It’s a challenging thought, but without management, you can’t have leadership. Managers play a vital role in motivating front-line employees and enacting their leader’s vision for the organisation. Managers also have the closest relationship with employees and one that has the greatest impact on engagement.