8-Week Leadership Programme for Hospitality

You Were the Best on the Section. So They Promoted You.

Nobody told you the skills that got you the title aren't the skills that keep your team. This is the training you should have had. The Fat Duck Group ran it twice.

Take the Leadership Mirror Talk to Tim
The Problem

You were the fastest. The most reliable. The one who never called in sick.

Now you're responsible for people. Whether they grow. Whether they turn up. Whether they stay. Nobody trained you for any of it.

Nobody puts a commis on the pass without training. Somebody did it to you.

52%
Annual staff turnover in UK hospitality. The highest of any UK industry. Source: CIPD
95/5
My estimate of how most head chefs and GMs split their week: 95% doing and directing, 5% developing people. The Mirror will show you yours.
From the Pass

It Wasn't About the Chips

The head chef wanted the chips dried after washing. Crisper that way. The sous chef wouldn't do it. Every service, wet chips. Every service, the same row.

It wasn't about chips.

It was about the Greek army. Conscription. A commanding officer ordering drills that made no sense. About what happens when someone tells you to do something that feels pointless and your whole body says no.

The head chef thought he had a discipline problem. He had a communication problem. Once both of them could see it, the chips got dried.

Most of what looks like attitude in your kitchen is something like this. This programme teaches your leaders to see it, and to hold people to account from shared values rather than barking orders.

The Leadership Mirror

Walk Me Through the Last Bad Service

Not the food. You. What you said, what you did, who you became when it tipped over.

It takes ten minutes and gives your leadership back to you in your own words. There's no score and no personality type. It's honest, sometimes uncomfortably so, but it's never a kicking.

It can take a minute to wake up the first time. Like most sous chefs. Trouble seeing it? Open the Leadership Mirror in its own tab.

The Programme

Eight Weeks. Two Halves. Tested on Real Shifts.

The first half is how you talk, what drives you and how you give feedback. The second half is values, accountability and what you carry forward. At the end of each half, what your team has taken away goes to the people at the top.

0
The Table
Week 0
Everyone round one table. Your challenge, your goal, what you bring. "You've got that too?"
1
First Half
Weeks 1 – 4
Communication. Balance and meaning. Motivation. Empowerment and feedback.
2
Second Half
Weeks 5 – 8
Values and accountability. Resilience. Transformation. Future planning.
↑
The Top Table
After Weeks 4 and 8
Senior leadership hears what the team took away. Themes, not names. That's where the alignment happens.
Every Week

What Runs Through Every Week

01

Who Shows Up on a Saturday Night

Controller, Firefighter, Abdicator or Developer. When it's busy, most head chefs and GMs land on the first two, and their teams feel it. First, you see which one you are.

02

Communication

You've got a vocabulary for service that could fill a training manual. And a vocabulary for developing people that fits on a Post-it note. We fix the Post-it note.

03

The Floor Is the Proving Ground

The coaching room isn't where the work happens. The pass is. The floor. The morning briefing. Everything gets tested there, with your actual team.

How It's Delivered

One-to-One and Together

Every week, two sessions.

1-to-1 Coaching

45–60 minutes per participant, weekly

Confidential. Where a leader can say "I don't know how to handle this" without having to look competent in front of their peers.

Group Session

60–75 minutes, weekly

Same room, same language. Leaders practise on each other before they try it on their teams. Some weeks are teaching. Some are Action Learning: the group brings a real problem from that week's service and works it through.

What one leader works out on their own becomes language the whole group uses. That's how a kitchen's culture actually shifts.

Week by Week

The Journey in Detail

One-to-one and group every week. Each week builds on the last, and what comes up in the room gets tried on the next service.

Week 0 Opening

The Round-Table

Four rounds, one voice at a time. Your leadership challenge. Your goal. The qualities you've got. How they meet the challenge. Everyone hears everyone.

Whole Group
Week 1 First half

Communication

One to one: what stops you taking five minutes out to see the bigger picture? You leave with one small way to buy that time back. In the group: what communication actually means in your team.

Week 2 First half

Balance and Meaning

One to one: the Wheel of Life. Where your time and attention really go. In the group: what gets you out of bed in the morning, said out loud to each other.

Week 3 First half

Motivation

What gets you going. What gets your team going. What brings your guests back. In the group, Action Learning starts: one real problem, questions before advice.

Action Learning
Week 4 First half

Empowerment and Feedback

How do you hand the work over, and how do you know it's being done? One leader brings a real feedback conversation to the group and works it through.

Action Learning
Top Table After week 4

Senior Leadership Alignment

What the team took from communication, motivation and feedback goes to the people at the top. They hear how their leaders actually lead, and start to come into the room.

Senior Leadership
Week 5 Second half

Values and Accountability

The team names its values, then we look at what kind of business those values describe. Same words, different meanings. One to one: there's a reason we wash the chips. Holding people to account with the why, not the order.

Week 6 Second half

Resilience

What you need to get through the season. Where support is. Whether you'll actually reach for it.

Week 7 Second half

Transformation

One leader's challenge, worked through in front of the group. What's in the way. What has to be let go.

Week 8 Second half

Future Planning

Everything from the eight weeks. What you'll actually do with it over the next six months to a year.

Top Table After week 8

Senior Leadership Alignment

The team presents the themes it found. Senior leadership responds. At The Fat Duck, the themes the team surfaced on its own matched the values the top were already building.

Senior Leadership
The Approach

Compassionately Confrontational

I care about the people in the room. That's why I won't let them hide.

If someone's hiding behind "that's just how kitchens are", I'll name it. If a question's being avoided, I'll ask it. I won't rescue anyone from a bit of discomfort, because that's usually where the change is.

It's never a kicking. It's what a good head chef does on a good day.

Proven Track Record

Where This Has Worked

The Fat Duck ran it twice. Three Michelin stars don't repeat things that don't work.

The Fat Duck Group

3 Michelin Stars — Two Cohorts

The Fat Duck and The Hinds Head. Restaurant managers, sous chefs, sommeliers. Leaders learned to hold people to account from shared values rather than barking orders. Senior leadership sat in on the alignment sessions. They commissioned the second cohort before the first had finished, and took it to their sister restaurant.

Mc & Sons

Five London Pubs

GMs and chefs across five sites. The owner came with operational problems. Underneath them were leadership ones. Included a two-day away day: strategy, accountability, and the conversations that had been avoided.

Your Facilitator

Tim Clements

Tim Clements

Tim still runs his own business, The Gipsy Hill Smokehouse, cooking over live fire for weddings and private events. He knows what service feels like when it tips over, because he's still in it. This programme is built from that, not from watching kitchens from the outside.

He writes about leadership in hospitality at timclements.com.

  • 35+ years in hospitality, from kitchens to leadership
  • 25+ years facilitating groups and coaching one-to-one
  • Runs The Gipsy Hill Smokehouse, premium live-fire catering
  • Certified Transformational Coach — psychodynamic foundation
  • Professional accreditations: NOCN and AIM
  • Coaching training recognised by ICF
  • Member of the Association for Coaching
  • Certified through The Mankind Project
Getting Started

How It Works

1

A Conversation

A confidential conversation about your specific challenges, team dynamics, and what needs to change in your team.

2

Programme Design

Tim adapts the programme structure to your operational reality — cohort selection, scheduling around service, and specific focus areas.

3

Delivery

Eight weeks of one-to-one and group sessions, plus the Week 0 round-table. Two senior leadership alignment sessions, after week 4 and week 8.

Start With a Conversation

Tell me what's happening in your team. I'll tell you honestly whether this is the right fit. If it isn't, I'll say so.

Cohort
6 – 10 leaders
Length
8 weeks + opening session
Where
On-site, built around your service
Investment
Quoted once we know what your team needs
Talk to Tim

You choose the level of your own involvement.

Tim Clements  ·  support@mymentalkitchen.com  ·  07944 390 309  ·  timclements.com