WOMEN AT THE TOP, continued
BACHELDER continued from page 13
Midwestern roots, our love of work,
and a common hobby—playing games.
This helped me gain confidence that I
could lead effectively. Then, watching
her in business settings, I appreciated
her understated approach. She is always neat and professional, but never
showy. Her words are measured and
thoughtful. She is very smart, but importantly, when she speaks with you
she focuses on bringing your insights
to the conversation. She is a balanced
“I encourage
women to know
themselves
well—their
strengths, their
values, their
experiences—and
then offer those
assets to their
workplace.”
leader—in competence and character
traits. I don’t think it’s an accident that
her company has a long, sustained track
record of high performance.
Advice for young female CEO aspirants: My advice to women leaders
is simple, but very hard to do: I want
you to bring your authentic self to
the table. Each woman is created with
unique capability. Her work and life
experiences develop her for leadership. Her personal values govern how
she leads. I encourage women to know
themselves well—their strengths, their
values, their experiences—and then
offer those assets to their workplace.
That is bringing your best to work,
for the benefit of the people and the
enterprise. My observation is that, too
often, women are trying to be somebody else. Women get a lot of feedback, some of it not very helpful. For
example, I can think like a man, but
I can’t lead like one. I can adjust my
ineffective behaviors, but I can’t leave
who I am at home. So I need to work
in a place that wants my talent and my
values—and helps me bring them to life
in a way that helps the organization. If
you don’t want my talent and my values, or don’t need them, please let me
know so I can work somewhere else. It
is just too stressful to work in a place
that doesn’t want the authentic you.
love learning about people and helping them learn about themselves. I love
seeing the “ahas” when people figure
out how to access their best talents and
best selves for the company. At this stage
of my career, I am motivated to help
develop the next generation of leaders
for business. And I am very blessed to
be able to do that every day in my role
as Popeyes’ CEO.
Leadership style: My leadership
How much of your time do you
spend at that, and what are you
doing to spend more? Today most
style is a strange combination of very
demanding and very caring. I think the
leader has a responsibility to stretch the
people and the organization to reach
ambitious goals. The leader sets the
vision and inspires people to chase the
vision. That means setting a very high
bar—expecting a lot of people and revealing to them capabilities they didn’t
know they had. But at the same time,
I believe the leader must care deeply
for people—knowing them well, having
empathy for them, listening to them.
I buy in to that philosophy that John
Maxwell often quotes: “People don’t
care how much you know until they
know how much you care.” Demanding standards plus caring conversations
leads to the best performance outcomes
in my experience.
Was becoming CEO of an organization part of your professional
plan? I honestly never had a conscious
plan to be a CEO, but I did have a very
conscious desire to lead. Some of that
probably stems from being the oldest
child in my family. When I was 9 years
old, I was the executive producer of the
musical my cousins performed at our
family reunion. When I was 14, I ran
a service club at my high school that
raised money for charity. When I was a
junior in college I served as president of
my sorority. As I grew older and wiser,
I realized that leadership gave me great
joy because leadership is bringing talented people together to accomplish
great things. That was my career plan.
What do you love most about being
CEO? My favorite thing is discover-
ing the unique purpose and principles
of the leaders I work with each day. I
of my time is spent developing leaders.
Once I have set our business strategies
in place, my full-time role is to help
people bring those strategies to successful results. And that means growing
their capability as leaders.
What do you like most about what
your brand/legacy represents? I
love walking into work every day and
seeing the Popeyes Purpose and Principles on the hallway wall—and then
“At this stage
of my career, I
am motivated to
help develop the
next generation
of leaders for
business.”
going through the day watching the
purpose and principles come to life in
our leaders as they make daily decisions. If
I can help leaders discover and shape
their personal purpose and principles
for leadership and then apply them to
their daily decisions, I will have advanced
their leadership journey. And then one
day, they too will be in a position to develop future leaders. That is my deeprooted conviction—that leadership is a
stewardship—of both the business and
the people. If you are a leader, the goal
must be to become a better leader and
develop better leaders. If I work on that,
I can make a difference. You can, too. n
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