The Leadership Reset: Owning the Moment, Not Just the Metrics with Christopher McFadden

“You're the only person that spends the entire day with you—own it.”
Christopher McFadden brings the heat in this candid conversation about what it really takes to lead yourself, your team, and your business with intention.

From emotional intelligence and burnout recovery to feedback culture and Gen Z expectations, this episode pulls back the curtain on what leadership actually looks like in hospitality today.

🔍 What We Cover:

• The shift from hitting metrics to owning the moment
• Self-awareness vs. self-management—and why both matter
• How Gen Z gives more feedback than you think (and how to use it)
• Rebuilding team trust after burnout
• Leadership lessons from the floor, the classroom, and the stage

🎙 Guest: Christopher McFadden
Founder, The McFadden Group
🌐 https://tmg-hospitality.ca
🔗 Christopher on LinkedIn

🎧 Host: Jason E. Brooks
Leadership Coach | Keynote Speaker | Hospitality Strategist
🌐 https://www.jasonebrooks.com/podcast

📌 The Leadership Table is a podcast for hospitality operators, executives, and emerging leaders who believe growth begins with the way we lead.

🔔 Subscribe and leave a review to help more leaders find this show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Christopher McFadden
• 9:38 COVID Leadership: Putting Staff First
• 20:16 Personal Journey Through Burnout
• 30:54 Mental Health and Transparency in Leadership
• 37:53 Building Trust Through Genuine Connections
• 42:34 Emotional Intelligence in Hospitality
• 46:12 Visual Learning with Younger Generations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Leadership Table, where conversations inspire, lead and elevate. I'm your host, jason E Brooks, bringing you insights from top leaders who are reshaping industries through purpose, leadership and culture, and today I'm joined by Christopher McFadden, a restaurant operations veteran turned hospitality consultant and speaker. As the founder of the McFadden Group, christopher works with leaders and teams to build cultures rooted in empathy, ownership and personal growth. His message is clear In today's hospitality landscape, leadership isn't about hitting metrics. It's about owning the moment, the mindset and the impact you have on others. But before we dive in, don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with someone building culture in our industry Now. Christopher, thank you so much. We met in person for the very first time at Bar and Restaurant Expo in Las Vegas. I think that we talked via online a few times, but thank you for joining me on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:19

What an amazing invitation to have, jason. Thank you very much. Yeah, bar and Restaurant Expo introduction. It was a neat moment for both of us because we knew each other and then got to know each other, which was great. So, yeah, this is an amazing opportunity, so thank you again for it.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Well, thank you for coming to the table Now. You've walked the walk from VP of operations to building your own consulting group. What inspired you to start the McFadden group and what have you learned about leadership since making that leap?

Speaker 2: 1:57

You know, I think a big, a big thing for me was 25 years in restaurants. I love this industry, I love this business, I love the nature of taking care of people, and COVID was a tricky moment for all of us, but I think a big thing that really shifted as I was still in the business and we were now reopening our doors, if you will, with half capacity and just actually a little bit less for what we could fit. And it was this moment of you know if we're going to do this again, how are we going to do it. We've seen what the corporate model looks like for COVID and again, none of us knew what to do and we went up a little bit more with some more steam on it. But our number one thing I was a partner and general manager and director of the design restaurants just outside Vancouver and the tone we shifted with was let's put the guests after our staff, because if we don't have our staff walking in the door feeling safe and sound, then it doesn't make any sense for pushing more guests in the door that are compromising the health and safety of our team and that if somebody walks in the door as a staff member, there should never be a worry of anything, that they should feel like we're just going to get greedy with how many covers we're putting in the book and how much money we're putting in the bank, but rather, if we do this in a different way, we can't have guests unless we have our staff. Unless our staff are happy, we're not going to be pushing our finances up in the market share that we need it to be. We're not going to be pushing our finances up in the market share that we need it to be, and very successfully. In September of that year 2020, we ended up doing 1,000 more covers and 100,000 more in revenue. We didn't have a single COVID case and this was with 64 seats instead of 143 seats in our original budget and we were a powerhouse and I was super blessed.

Speaker 2: 3:43

As the BC Restaurant Foundation had said. The president said you were the example that everybody should have followed and I was like holy cow, like the genuineness to that. But as that was all happening, I forgot that I should have probably taken care of myself first and that I could always put the light on and the spark on, but inside, inside, it wasn't good for really what I knew and how I looked outside and at the end of December 2021, I knew I had to step away. I just wasn't in a healthy space anymore. I quit drinking about eight years ago. I got tagged as the sober song. I started tasting wine again, thinking I had control over it, and I didn't. I went into a lost spiral and my biggest thing was that if I'm not leading myself into maintaining a healthy and confident and very structured and organized life, then it doesn't make any sense for me to really be continuing to lead people for this moment that I'm in, and that I knew that I had to back up for myself.

Speaker 2: 4:44

And end of December 2021, I left my partnership and that's when I connected with my dear friend, edwin Kumar. So it's been three years that we had launched Restaurant Leadership 101. And the two of us sat down and realized that nobody talked about emotional intelligence and soft skill development in restaurant leaders. So we built a program and it was interesting, because AI wasn't really a thing I was even aware of back then. So it was a 10 month study on emotional intelligence and building a program based upon the foundations of what was out there. And then I went after getting my coaching certifications in emotional intelligence with master class certifications as well. And then I got hospitality, leadership certification and addiction recovery actually, because now I've been eight years without a drop of hard alcohol and beer and almost three years without a sip of wine.

Speaker 2: 5:29

So, my pivot. Everything in me had to come first in order for me to be the best I could be for my teams. And I did and I worked my tail off at it. But I realized how much more inwardness I had to do to expose myself on the outside. So, yeah, the pivot happened and the McFadden group originally had launched through what I was doing a restaurant leadership, one-on-one with Edwin, but doing more one-to-one coaching with leaders across restaurants, still just more one-to-one. You know more of the hour long sessions or you know a few different single sessions.

Speaker 2: 6:04

And then it was last summer that I said I've been a professor for the last couple of years in our college system up here in Ontario. I was watching a lot of students have this gap between international students, specifically domestic students as well, but this gap between education and career and how do I fill that centerpiece to it? Well, but this gap between education and career and how do I fill that centerpiece to it? And I started helping them through career changes that they were looking at or career direction that they were looking at. But I was doing it as a full exploration of their core values and developing their Russian intelligence to get them there. And Edwin goes to me, he goes, you realize you're doing career coaching, and I said, well, no, bless you sir. I said no, I guess not, and I said my.

Speaker 2: 6:46

My attribute is what if leadership we can look at as an actionable state rather than just a positional state? And if we're and I and I love working with management teams? But what about everybody else? What about the ones that want to start growing in this business? What about the hostess that's just having a tough day and that that has to be there? But rather, what if she wanted to be there?

Speaker 2: 7:06

And creating that environment where, if you can find more of yourself to be a better version of yourself for yourself first, is it automatically translates into the people that are around you and the guests that are with you.

Speaker 2: 7:21

I think teams sing when you can see them happy and I think it changes the guest aspect of things. So my entire position was let's do career coaching from here to here and help people on those steps, on how to get there. So, whether or not it's career transition, whether or not it's looking for the leveling up in the business, whether it's maintaining the same role that they're doing I've got waiters that have worked for me for 50 years because they never wanted to manage but they were the leaders of the bunch. So I think everybody in the space needs to have an opportunity to show what kind of leadership that they can do actionably. So the McFadden group now has been about a year focused on career coaching with a leadership as an action kind of tone to it my mic was actually off, so it was off and I wasn't sure if I was.

Speaker 2: 8:45

I'm not sure if it was a thing to say or not, because I was like maybe we can cut that part.

Speaker 1: 8:50

I'll bring it back Now. There is definitely quite a bit for our listeners to unpack in that, and every single piece of that was all golden nuggets. Now, even going back to the COVID times, whenever you were viewed as that shining example from your brand owner of what you can do within your locations to not only overcome the challenges by putting the team first in order to be more effective with your customers, to to have better culture with your customers, but to also increase covers by over a thousand covers during that time frame for the year through COVID into September. Now, a lot of that, though, does cause burnout. A lot of that does cause stress, and you took from that different ways of how to view.

Speaker 1: 9:56

What am I doing? What is my personal life going through? How is that connected with what I'm doing at work? And now, how can I take what I just went through and teach others, have them skip that burnout phase that a lot of people within our industry goes through? You speak openly about mental health and burnout, which a lot of leaders avoid. Why is this a crucial conversation in hospitality right now?

Speaker 2: 10:31

I think my biggest shift was not so much of the what but the why, why, why, what's our why and our what? What is it that makes us do what we do, but why? What's our why and our what? What is it that makes us do what we do, but why? Why does it make us do that? And I think I I just I'm an advocate for transparency and I think transparency is the one thing that really empowers individuals on your team. It empowers teams is that it shifts the tone.

Speaker 2: 10:58

When you're fully trusting of an individual that works with you Um, I don't like saying for you, but with you and I think when you build that trust, it allows that empowerment. But you have to trust yourself and knowing what you're doing is in the best light of yourself. Because if you're at the top of the pedestal, even if you're at the starting point of your leadership, positionally, as a role in management roles Gosh, you really got to be good at what you do, based upon what you love to do, because you understand exactly why you want to do it. And this isn't about putting you in a spotlight to say, well, you know, I'm the manager of this room. This is well. No, it's the action of what we're doing, and I think the mental health conversation is so powerful in our entire culture today, but it's the little things that we do with it. It's the simple thing. When a staff member walks in the door and it was how are you? I would say to my team if you're not having a good day, send me a note. I don't need to know why, just if today's not your day, take it. We can figure out the section. I have to take a section for a night. I'll take a section for a night, but the best thing that can be done is where you're at in wanting to come here because you feel like you're in a good place.

Speaker 2: 12:19

I was having a conversation with a client yesterday and I said how are you with your emotions when it comes to heading into work? And it was. It was interesting because she said um, well, I'm really good at, you know, not having outside influences affect me, you know, when I come into the workplace. And I said what's funny is that I used to catch people off guard in interviews where first I would catch them off guard by flipping their resume over and pushing it to the side and they'd go oh, do you not want to talk about my resume Like that's what got you here. I know you can do the job. What'd you have for breakfast this morning? Do you have any pets? What do your parents do for a living? What was your schooling like? How did you like going to this college? And and they were like I didn't expect an interview to be like this. I said the first thing, that's the most important part to this is are we right for you? And she goes, but shouldn't me be right for you? And I said we'll get there If this doesn't seem like the right fit for you. No grudges, no like. I understand that this is how I like to do things. Is that let's just have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 13:22

Taking care of people is the starting point of having and building relationships. Selling is relationships. It's easy to sell when you're not selling. It's easy to sell when you've created a trustworthiness with your guests and with you, with your team, to feel fully protected and taken care of. And then I said at the end of the interview and that sales pitch that every and I'm sure we've, I know I've done it and you've probably done it too is that that last sentiment of trying to get the job is just to let you know I don't bring my outside problems in and I replied back and I said, sure you do. And they went what? And I was like of course you do, you're a human being, there's absolutely everything right about that. But the difference is how you are able to manage those to be able to provide the service that we'd like to for our guests, and you know the level that we'd like to be at. But if I don't recognize that when you walk in the door and just expect you to do the grind, then I haven't done my job as the leader at the top of the tier with my team by recognizing what's going on with my team and that if I'm not aware of that and paying attention to it, then I've completely deflated what the purpose of what we're doing in hospitality is.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Hospitality is the gesture of taking care of somebody. I watched something the other day where it was a documentary and somebody said thanks for your hospitality and it was great because I was watching and this was a new message that I put on LinkedIn was that hospitality is a thing that we provide. Service is a thing that we do. Hospitality isn't just food and beverage, it's not just hotels. It's not just accommodations, it's not just tourism, it's the act of looking after people. It's not just accommodations, it's not just tourism, it's the act of looking after people.

Speaker 2: 15:10

So if we do better at that but if myself as the director of the restaurant, as a partner of the restaurant or a junior manager, senior manager, it doesn't really matter or the lead server on the team, it's all about how we salute our team members, knowing that they're taken care of when they walk in the door and that we have interest in them, and I think that changes the complete tone and that's what allowed for the success with BC Restaurant Foundation's president to say you're setting the tone, you know you've done very well through this, like great.

Speaker 2: 15:32

We were also very lucky too. We had a vaccination center that was attached to us that a dear friend of ours had set up. So if there was any spare vaccines at the end of the day we got offered them. So my restaurant team in British Columbia restaurants got put beside first responders. So it went first responders to get vaccines and then restaurant and my team was the first fully vaccinated staff in all of British Columbia and it was funny enough because I was quality checking tables and actually offering vaccines to guests.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Were you administering them yourself or were you just sitting next?

Speaker 2: 16:08

door. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1: 16:12

You're going to take this right, yeah. Take this shot and take this shot. Take this shot, no.

Speaker 2: 16:20

It's a whole difference of just, you know, we did it, we just, and it's not that it was just there, it's now. What I'm doing as a coach is and a consultant is helping teams see past just the role it's positions is incredibly important, but if your people aren't built properly for it, we're satisfied or happy right. There's always a struggle in what we're doing in service because the industry still is growing back, if you will, and especially in different parts of our continent and where we see it more actively with you know being, you know, border partners here and understanding what we both do in our industry to help. But you know, I think it starts with transparency and the more honest we are with what's happening in front of us and that thing that's just in front of us instead of down the road, allows the down the road easier to get to.

Speaker 1: 17:08

So tell us. You know there are a lot of listeners from the US, quite a few from Canada and across the pond as well. But how is? How is the environment right now in British Columbia, when it comes down to the team, when it comes you seeing in your area, when it comes down to bridging that generational gap within Canada?

Speaker 2: 18:00

You know, what's interesting is that I and it's great because I bounce back and forth to BC quite a bit because I do have clients there but my wife and I had moved to Southern Ontario where I grew up because and I said this on video the other day was sometimes you have to reprioritize your priorities, and it was about me being here, because of a lot of family illness that came upon my family, that I needed to be here for.

Speaker 2: 18:18

My wife worked excessively to Prince Edward Island and it's interesting especially bringing up the British Columbia point is being removed from it as a citizen, but still being involved with it as a consultant. It's neat to now see it outside of the province because it doesn't become as personal anymore, so you have an opportunity to view it with a second set of eyes, because I know Vancouver so well I lived there for 13 years and I know the feeling of the city. It's a very relaxed city and when you see a relaxed city start to build emotions up because of the shifts that are happening and you see more anxiety, more stress, more burnout. Drinking is still a problem in restaurants, right, whether or not we want to talk about it as heavily as we used to talk about it. So, seeing it, I think now there's more of a whether or not we want to talk about it as heavily as we used to talk about it. So, seeing it, I think now there's more of a.

Speaker 2: 19:20

The hardest part was people just trying to convince themselves to stay in the business based upon the fact that technology has become super heavy. Ai has become incredibly heavy. We've been able to have these advancements in how fast we can make things operate, but we're still in the people component of the industry. We're still this person to person and that's still a requirement of what we do, and I think people feel safer today because of the shifts that are happening. But more so is that we're still growing and learning, because if something happened again tomorrow in our world, are we prepared for going in and stick handling it again, or do we remember exactly what we did, going in and stick handling it again, right, or do we remember exactly what we did?

Speaker 2: 19:55

Um, and now seeing in ontario when I moved back to here in 2022 was now seeing downtown toronto, which is much bigger than vancouver, and seeing what covid repair looked like in now, a city that's got three times the amount of citizens, and trying to pay attention to that, as I understood how it was there at the time, and I think our growth is coming along and I think there's more opportunities for people to trust how businesses and how management teams and how directorship teams and ownership teams are taking care of their teams directly. Is that there's more of an inspiration for people to realize how important the people are that work with you and not just the customers that are walking in the door, and I think that's been a huge strive in how we're growing in our industry again.

Speaker 1: 20:46

Do you think that our industry right now is probably the most battlefield tested when it comes to emotional intelligence and to things that are going on within the economy? Does it because I know. When this first happened, everyone, every study, viewed the effects of COVID onto everyone from age 10 up to age 20, even 30. And during that first three years of what that did not only to people in school but to work, to people in school but to work, especially the hospitality industry Do you feel that they are the most battle ready for the next big thing to happen, or does that emotional intelligence now? Has it been fractured some? Has the culture been fractured, and can they withstand something else similar to that if it were to happen again sometime soon?

Speaker 2: 22:00

I question, I think I think I mean the first part of emotional intelligence is self-awareness and getting to know yourself more. It's when you get to the second part of managing that that it's a. It's a, it's a process. It took three years of study for me to understand who I am today, because of knowing what, what wall I hit. And then the speed bumps that showed up even in those early times. And then me hitting a wall, and now, when speed bumps show up, the wall doesn't show up anymore, because I know exactly how to walk myself to the fork in the road If I head down the wrong way and I'm like, ah, I know how to back myself up and do it the right way. Now it takes work. It's not that I'm perfectly put together, but the emotionalness of really becoming aware of your why and to create your what. But once you get the self-awareness part and I think we're pretty confidently getting there with people is the managing part of it is where I see it happen with clients, where that's where the break is starting. But they're very empathetic and they're super motivated and energized and they love being out and about within the social skills department. But I was like but why? What happened. You missed the management part of it. You've got all this and this figured out and it's that I'm stuck in understanding exactly where I'm going with things. I'm fully aware of what's going into our industry and the emotions that are behind it and how I have to drive myself for it, but I'm having a problem managing it, and I think that's where the emotional intelligence has.

Speaker 2: 23:46

The most tricky part for people is now that you've discovered all these things about yourself and sometimes things that you go wow, this is oh okay. Like I go through 60 different core values in four different places, you know, in a work space, if you will. And it's amazing when we're going through them is that all of a sudden, everyone's still out. You get somebody who goes huh, I don't know. And I had a client yesterday that public service was not very important to them and I was like what? And as soon as they said it, I said why? Because every other core value that you had a moment ago that was important and very important is the basis point for why you do public service. Where's that gap? What's happening? Why don't you think that that's important?

Speaker 2: 24:34

And funny enough, as we work through, the entire thing went back to the personal SWOT analysis to measure their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. They didn't have any opportunities put in there. Now their opportunities started showing up in the conversation and then we went back to questions that I had had for them in their first session two weeks before, and there was three questions that they didn't answer and this this time around, they answered them, but answered them with confidence, certainty, fully understanding where they had gotten themselves to and held on to understanding that. That it allowed the entire conversation just to bloom and by the end of it it was oh, and I said, manage that you got to hold it. This is you.

Speaker 2: 25:19

You're the only person that spends an entire day with yourself, so own it and when you're having a tricky part of the day, figure out how you're going to best manage that for yourself. Everything else becomes simpler, not easy. Simpler Because you're starting to understand it in a different way, because you understand yourself more. So I think the emotional intelligence spectrum and conversation is super important and I think more people are apt to understanding it now because people have to come first and when we reprioritize that, the first people to the table needs to be yourself, and then your team, and then your guests. You'll have more guests, you'll have more staff and you'll have a better presence as the leader in the room.

Speaker 1: 26:01

It sounds like that conversation was one of those really breaking down the wall not even breaking down the wall, because breaking down the wall is a very harsh treatment that takes a hammer or explosives but it it does sound like there was a little bit of chiseling and then removing of bricks and getting down to the bare foundation and then building that back up the way that they understood why each brick was laid the way that it is.

Speaker 1: 26:34

And, speaking of laying bricks, it does take a lot for the growth aspect for that to happen. I know we just spoke through how do we think that the teams these days, how they do post-COVID, going through that, from teenagers to young adults, even to middle-aged adults as well. But there still has to be, there has to be a growth period. Even if we think we've stopped or we've paused or we're going through challenges, that causes us not to growth, there is still growth that is going on as a person. So what are your thoughts on how people grow from here internally, not just with their business, not just to make their business more healthy? How do they grow themselves?

Speaker 2: 27:39

One thing that I and I'm going to relate this actually to working with younger teams was when I was a kid. I loved it when we were hosting dinner with family over and my parents were like we're going to open the dining room and I was like great, and we had these black and white show plates and napkin rings to make your napkins look fancy on a table. And I used to obsessively love to set the dining room table at 10 years old and I never paid attention to that. Being so vivid in why the intention of making something perfect in a visual component was why I drove restaurants the way I did. But I also came from restaurants where you line tables up with a string. Every glass and piece of cutlery couldn't be a quarter of an inch off.

Speaker 2: 28:22

But now getting to see the younger generations coming into the business, a lot more openness and voices, a lot more being heard or hoping to be heard, it's that old guard leadership and young guard that they're coming in and that it's about bringing bringing your son 45 yesterday and it's about bringing myself down to a younger generation. Understand how they're thinking compared to how I was just yes, boss, sure, that's what the boss says, that's what you do. So I started paying attention to the visual component that everybody's on their phones. People are so visually heavy now and I thought what if I was to start showing them examples of how table settings needed to be based upon setting one flawlessly and one just a little off, and then presenting the same dishes of food to them, serve to them perfectly on one perfect table and just a little off on the other one, just to see how an 18-year-old was going to understand why that was so important.

Speaker 2: 29:21

And when I started paying attention to that, I started realizing how much more visual I think the world has become and what it's trying to see and hopefully have. I think the connection point is everything right. If you've got a yesterday and a today, well, it's those two things that are going to help your tomorrow. And the visual component has been a big thing that I learned that younger generations needed to have in order to succeed, and that alone inspired me to now doing things in different ways of how I manage myself through a day, how I make notes around my house on little post-it notes, right, just to do little reminders for myself. It's the visual component that I had learned that the younger generation was doing really well in their development. I thought you know what? Maybe I can continue my own development by shifting a little bit of my daily, my dailiness, in order to continue my own growth.

Speaker 1: 30:16

I'll tell you what. They've not only mastered the visual aspect, because they're always looking at the finer details when it comes down to short form content and long form content, but another thing that they've done well is that they have really grown to giving automatic feedback. Yes, it's digital, and they still have growth to do when it comes down to person to person feedback being given. But if you think about, I just did a keynote in Dayton, ohio yesterday, and one of the things that we talked about was how we look at Gen Z and how Gen Z is so accustomed to telling people how they feel, or ranking how inexperienced was automatically. If you think about Facebook a like, a love, a support think about LinkedIn. If you think about Twitter, x, instagram it doesn't matter TikTok, everything, music, netflix, you name it If you think about how much feedback they give, they give more feedback in this generation right now, all the way down to alpha and beta. They give so much more feedback than any other generation has given, except they do it digitally.

Speaker 1: 31:54

And then we talked about now we then bring in these people, these amazing people, into our businesses, and how much opportunity do you give them to give you feedback about the business, about the shift, about what works well, about what does not, and everyone got quiet like, wow, I actually don't. And I said, think about this. Think about if we gave them the space and the opportunity to give feedback. Not feedback that changes your whole brand, all the blood, sweat and tears that you put into how you do business, but just feedback on what's going well. Do you realize how much more growth, how much more opportunity and insight that we can have and then how much more we will connect with them for them to truly be a part of our business? So I definitely feel everything you slung right there. So a few more questions, a few more questions. Now you've been sharing.

Speaker 2: 33:00

If I may say, I love what you said and it's I used to have. Um, I created a front of house manual that was just every role that was in front of house, the responsibilities, responsibilities. What an open to a close theoretically looked like in that position. And it was funny because for servers, I had put their yes as your role, but not limited to, so that they understood that you still had to answer the guests and you know, no, no, I'm a server, I don't do that. We got rid of that. But the difference was when I, when we, when we bring somebody onto our team, we know what the role is that we're looking for to be filled.

Speaker 2: 33:39

However, I had a 17-year-old girl best interview ever when she walked in the door just shy of turning 16. And by 17, I made her my lead hostess. And she goes, oh, and I said run the door, you know what we do, but now let's keep growing it. And she was you're the one that runs the restaurant. I said but I'm not running the door. Hey, expo, right, expo was our front of house position. And I said what do we need to do to grow this through, now that we're doing takeout and delivery? And now guests are back in the restaurant. How are we going to make this stronger so that the flow doesn't get interrupted? And it was like, well, but you're the GM. And I was like, but you're the expo. I know what we should be doing, but if I just bring you things versus you having the opportunity to bring me things, the idea of growth doesn't exist anymore, because now you're just listening to autocraticness, which I believe needs to exist, based upon me running financials. You don't need to know that. However, when it comes to the servant side of the leadership the difference in having somebody go, you know what? I bet you we could save a bit of time and provide a better guest experience and an easier team atmosphere if we were to do it this way. Great, let's give it a shot.

Speaker 2: 34:58

And I think opening that door for your team to have the opportunity to think on their own with what they're doing allows for the growth aspect of things to scale quite quickly, because it can't just be led from the top down right, bottom, bottom up is a great way to at least open up that door of conversation to go how do you feel about this? And it catches them off guard. They're like, uh, I didn't expect to get asked that. Well, you've been working here for a while, or you just joined here after six months. How do you feel? Like? What are we doing?

Speaker 2: 35:29

Right, but the shift of making people think out their positions so that they can grow. It's great, especially with the younger generation wanting to have that feedback and conversation. And hey, can you just hear me out for a minute? Sure, not a problem, right? Is that it changes everything and it just makes a smoother service, because you have one goal at the end of the day, and that's taking care of your guests. That's what we're doing as a business. But when the team knows that they're taking care of each other, the guest relationships bloom.

Speaker 1: 36:01

It shifts the whole human connection in every direction, Absolutely. Now you've been sharing your message more from stages across the industry. What has that experience taught you about leadership, how to communicate, and even yourself?

Speaker 2: 36:26

leadership, how to communicate and even yourself. We've become so digital that Zoom and the world of Teams has allowed for us to grow. But the moment of shaking somebody's hand and saying hello in person is everything to me. I love my extrovertedness. My wife is super introverted. We were at church when we first moved back to Burlington and the pastor's, like you know, shake somebody's hand and Joe's like, do it, go for a walk? And I was like, yes, right, and all of a sudden I'm touring the church to say, hey, chris McFadden, the back of the city, kind of a moment. I really want us just to understand how important people are to what we do. But very much so as just a human being, is that I like to go out and enjoy evenings out. I like to go out for lunch. I like to go out like we all do, right. But being on the service component of it, in the actual industry of it, and now helping larger amounts of teams and now having this message to an audience that I've never met before, it's the same, it's the same conversation, it's just perspective of how it's ingested. And that moment of somebody to come up to me after the show's done or the conversation's done to say hey, that really hit a mark for me, like thanks for mentioning that. I just appreciate that and I think the more we open up conversation you know and very blessed that we can still do this very heavily through all of the technology channels but when you see a room filled and you see an expo filled and a convention filled with people that are all getting back into the, isn't it nice to be back in the people side of what we're doing. It's brilliant.

Speaker 2: 38:19

And the guest speaking spots for me is it gives me an opportunity to meet a bunch of people I've never met before and maybe not shake their hands but at least to look them in the face. And I'm one of those people that I kind of I grabbed at Gordon Ramsay. You know, nice to see you. Every time in Kitchen Nightmares when he walks into a room and I started doing that all the time and people go have we met? I'm like no, but we've just started the conversation. And they go, oh, oh, okay. I'm like, hey, nice to see you. They're like we've never met before. I'm like I know, but now right, and I would do that in the restaurant, now that I'm doing that when I'm at conventions and expos to say, hey, nice to see you. People are like what Doesn't matter, right, is that it shifts your mindset for a second, because all I did was make you think have we met before you look familiar? No, right, but I just wanted to kind of catch you off guard with a different introduction.

Speaker 1: 39:11

That shapes the energy for that conversation to move forward in ways that people cannot imagine. I love that and I'm going to have to use that as well, Absolutely so. Now I have two questions that I ask every single guest at the leadership table. Now, if you could sit at a leadership table with three others, alive or from history, who would you choose and why?

Speaker 2: 39:48

You know, what's interesting is I was thinking about this as I began my day today and I think I taught restaurant leadership at Centennial College a couple, a few semesters ago and that was a question for our students was you know who is who's your leader that you would want to sit at a table with? And you know, for me, I love, I love watching the. You know, the hierarchy of these celebrities that exist in the world are those very powerful people that made these, made these fantastic discoveries and decisions and growth aspects for all of us to be able to get where we are today, and decisions and growth aspects for all of us to be able to get where we are today. But I think a big difference for me is we've gone through a big shift of what's happened in our education system up here in Canada. Professor jobs, academic roles, admin roles are all being lost within our country because of our international student shift and I'm going to actually put my program directors and deans on my list of leadership teams that I would actually like to sit down and be at that table to understand what they actually went through when this announcement got made. I know what it felt like as a professor, but the associate dean, the deans, the program coordinators, the program directors.

Speaker 2: 41:07

If I could sit down with my team from Fanshawe, toronto and Centennial College, all in the same room, to say what did this shift look like as the top of the food chain in these schools, to be able to hopefully keep the hospitality and tourism programs alive, how pivots were going to happen.

Speaker 2: 41:25

To hopefully keep the hospitality and tourism programs alive, how pivots were going to happen. So my shout-outs go out to my wheelhouse of Damien Holborn, michelle Kane, kristen Straney from Centennial College and Nora Kuder and our Dean, tanya from Fanshawe, toronto. Those would be the five leaders that I would like to sit in a room with and hear them walk through what they had to go through that allowed for the schools of hospitality to continue what they're doing for the betterness of our businesses and our industries and our education out there. So, yeah, it's the people that inspired me to give and gave me the opportunity to become a professor in hospitality schools. Those are the five that I would love to sit down and say what did this feel like going through in the level of your roles within these educational institutes? So those are my leaders.

Speaker 1: 42:28

That's incredible, and your why is very impactful, because it's not just about you wanting to be there at the table for your own gain, it's for all of the professors, all of those that want to learn or that want to teach. So that's a very powerful answer to that question. I do have one more question as well. You know, we we we have lots of conversations that shape, shift and move us. Some of those conversations are negative ones that even we still learn from, about how we want to be like or not want to be like, and then we have those that the words are just put in place in just the right way, that it also helps to reshape how we think about leadership. So what's one conversation I know you've had many, but what's one conversation that reshaped how you show up as a leader?

Speaker 2: 43:35

I love when conversations show up and you take them. It's the ingesting ingesting what is being said instead of looking, instead of the hamster in your mind, just running and going oh, I got an answer. For that is, it's the pause. And, um, it was interesting. And I I had this conversation with somebody yesterday um, edwin and I, when we had created restaurant leadership 101, we had done a whole section on on the fight freeze, um, fear and fawn moment, and one day, I mean we had been teaching it and I think I had always lived in fear, in in just moments and always worst case scenario.

Speaker 2: 44:16

I was one of those people that tried to write the last chapter before I started the first chapter and it was always like, wow, this is probably going to happen, right, and um, when I had quit drinking, I started becoming quite confident in conversations with people and maybe a little over, a little overzealous on the questions that I was asking, and I had said out loud one day to my wife joanne, I said I've realized and learned something recently was that always ask a question? And she goes what? And I said I realized that you should always ask a question. Don't sit on something. I said it'll make me stronger at what I'm doing and how I'm growing in the changes that I'm seeing in my own life, the mistakes that I had made, going back to tasting wine and it becoming irresponsible of me, the mistakes that I had made going back to tasting wine and it becoming irresponsible of me. But my one thing that I had said was always ask a question because there's a 50, 50 shot. You're going to get the answer that you want and if you don't get the answer that you want, that means you still have 50% of a chance to reframe it and ask it a different way after you think it out, to potentially get the answer that you wanted. And my wife throws this in my face every once in a while.

Speaker 2: 45:28

She's, like you know, a wise man once told me when we were, when I started seeing that more, um, just more in my years of the last few years since I really brought that up, um more so in conversations with people, there was a day that edwin I was doing a coaching. I was sitting in one of edwin's executive coaching things just to watch how he was doing his coaching and it was a great invitation that he had sent me in and we he brought up in this coaching session with these executives and not restaurant. Uh, about the fear and fight model, and um, and I, I wrote so he says how are you doing with the whole amygdala hijack? And this is where I actually wrote. I said I'm noticing now that I'm not fighting as much is that I'm more freezing. And he wrote back to me and he goes you, you can't say that like it's not a thing that you know, right, it's just something that happened, like it's a hijack, it happens to you. And I said okay, and he goes, so just reframe, kind of how you thought that. And a few minutes later I said I got it.

Speaker 2: 46:37

And I said I'm cognitively aware of the motions that I'm going through and it's not that all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I'm in freeze mode, it's just I'm paying attention to what I'm doing differently, because it happened through my own discovery of what I needed to work on that these other things started allowing for my leadership to grow because I was able to reframe my thinking by pausing more. And he goes, that's it, he goes. You have no idea how powerful it is to be cognitively aware of what is emotionally becoming a part. You're now cognitively aware of your emotions in a much different light Changed everything. It's that now it's a reminder to slow down, that tomorrow's going to come, but smaller steps will create a better tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 47:26

If I rush things and I said this again the other day is that if you go up six and fall down four, that's a jump and it's a hard hit down. But if you go up two and fall down one, things will be fine and that if something doesn't happen, it's okay. Don't put so much into that thought as all right, let's maybe ask a question again to see if we can get the answer that we want, or maybe we can actually realize that we should just turn the page and start start a different direction. Um, and I and absolutely it was a moment with edwin that I had I had thought more things out there to become more cognitively aware of my emotions, and that's what's allowed my leadership bloom was that conversation and the conversation with my wife every once in a while, where she goes always ask a question, you'll get more out of knowing what you need to learn, based upon asking things that you need to learn and not sitting on them and then just bearing it down.

Speaker 1: 48:30

Well, you are very lucky to have Edwin as a business partner to help in your growth personally and with your business, and then your wife as well to help you on both sides. Now, before we wrap up, this conversation has been amazing. Where can listeners connect with you and learn more about the work you're doing? Through the McFadden Group.

Speaker 2: 48:52

Oh, that's great. So my website is tmg-hospitalityca. My email address is christopher-hospitalitycom. You can find me on LinkedIn, christopher McFadden. I'm more active with my Christopher McFadden account and then tie my McFadden Group account into that because I like the personalness coming from me rather than just the mentality coming from my company and on Facebook Instagram. So the McFadden Group on Facebook and TMG the McFadden Group on Instagram as well.

Speaker 1: 49:28

Well, christopher, thank you for sharing your story, your lessons and your leadership with us, to everyone tuning in. If you found this episode valuable, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone leading people first change in hospitality. And visit, of course, jason E Brooks dot com for more insights, tools and resources to grow your leadership. Until next time, keep showing up, Stay grounded in empathy and remember, manage, lead, coach, repeat.

Speaker 2: 50:09

Christopher. Thank you so much, Mr Brooks, thank you for your time.

Speaker 1: 50:11

I appreciate this, sir, very much so Excellent, and I will see you on the road. I look forward to it, my friend. Excellent, thank you, sir.