I've spent most of my career on the other side of the orientation packet. Seventeen-plus years leading teams in hospitality, running shifts, developing managers, building the kind of culture where people can do good work without being miserable in the process. I thought I understood organizations pretty well. Then I became the new employee again. And within the first few weeks, I noticed things. I noticed friction that longtime employees had learned to navigate, differences between written processes and daily practice, and routines that nobody seemed to question anymore. I didn't say anything right away. I didn't have the credibility yet. So I watched, and I waited, and I kept noticing. Then, gradually, I stopped noticing. Not because the problems disappeared. Because I got assimilated. I learned what was "just how things work here." The fresh eyes I walked in with got replaced by the experienced eyes that see most efficiently. Here's what that taught me about leadership. New employees can see parts of your organization more clearly than the people who have learned to navigate them. And you are almost certainly not asking what they see. The paradox is uncomfortable: the people with the clearest view of certain things are the people with the least credibility to change them. By the time a leader trusts their judgment enough to really listen, they may have already learned to stop questioning the very things they once saw. That window closes faster than most leaders realize. The first thirty days offer a natural opportunity to capture that perspective, before familiarity and the understandable desire to fit in begin changing what the employee sees. So here's what I'd encourage every leader to do: build a deliberate thirty-day conversation into your onboarding. Not a check-in. Not a "how are you settling in?" Not performance feedback disguised as curiosity. A real conversation, structured around one honest question: What are you noticing that you think we might have stopped seeing? Ask it directly. Make it safe to answer. Write down what they say. Then take those observations seriously enough to examine them. Fresh eyes are not infallible. New employees sometimes mistake necessary complexity for dysfunction, or overlook the history behind a decision that exists for a good reason. Leaders do not need to accept every observation as correct. But they should investigate it before explaining it away. A newcomer's observation is not a verdict. It is data. During my years leading teams, I watched new employees notice things that experienced ones had long since rationalized away. A step in a process that slowed everything down but had never been questioned because it had always been there. A gap in communication between two teams that both sides had quietly accepted as normal. A standard posted on the wall but ignored on the floor, shift after shift, because silence had made the contradiction seem normal. None of that requires a management consultant. It requires thirty minutes and a leader willing to hear something inconvenient. The people who just walked through your door are carrying something valuable: a view of your organization that has not yet been filtered by habit or buried beneath accumulated context. Ask what they see. Write it down. Investigate it before explaining it away. Because eventually, they will stop noticing. Most of us do. The question is whether you learned anything before they did.

I got into hospitality by chance. I didn't plan it, didn't study for it, didn't dream about it as a kid. But once I was in it, standing on a fast floor with a team that needed direction and a guest who needed a solution right now, I realized something: this work has a way of showing you exactly who you are as a leader, quickly and without mercy. And the question that has stayed with me ever since is this: when you're developing someone, what are you actually building? Are you building someone who can handle the floor when you're standing on it with them? Or are you building someone who can handle the floor when you're not there at all? That distinction matters more than most managers ever stop to think about. I've seen plenty of well-intentioned leaders who were genuinely good people, people who cared about their teams, who worked hard, who showed up every day. But the moment they stepped away, things fell apart. Not because the team was bad. Because the team had never been developed to operate without them. They had been managed, not grown. My belief is simple. People generally want to do good work. That's the starting point. If you walk onto a floor convinced your team is trying to cut corners or slide by, you will lead accordingly, with suspicion, with micromanagement, with your presence becoming a pressure rather than a resource. That's not leadership. That's babysitting with a title. Real development starts with honesty. Not cruelty, not performance, not the kind of feedback that makes someone feel small. Honest feedback, delivered with care, that tells someone the truth about where they are and what they need to do to get where they're going. Most people have never had a manager who would look them in the eye and say, here's what I see, here's what I believe you're capable of, and here's what has to change. That conversation, done right, is one of the most powerful things you can give someone. Then comes accountability. Consistent, fair, and not negotiable. Accountability is not punishment. It's the structure that tells someone their work matters, that what they do has consequences, that you're watching because you care about the outcome, not because you don't trust them. The two things are not the same and the people on your team know the difference. And presence. Leadership presence on a hospitality floor is not about hovering. It's about being visible and engaged enough that your team knows the standard, knows you see them, and knows they can bring you a problem before it becomes a crisis. Presence is what makes accountability feel fair instead of arbitrary. The real measure of success as a leader is not whether your team performs when you're there. It's whether they perform when you're not. That's what developing someone actually looks like. You are, from day one, working toward your own irrelevance in their story. And that should feel like the goal, not a threat. I want the people I've worked with to one day lead teams of their own and not need to call me to ask what to do. That's not abandonment. That's the whole point.

Most people step into their first leadership role thinking the job is to keep everyone happy. They want to be liked. They avoid the hard conversations. They let things slide because confronting someone feels unkind. That instinct will cost you. The pattern is almost universal. The new manager who's everyone's friend in month one is usually the one drowning in performance problems by month three. Not because they don't care. Because they cared about the wrong thing. Your team doesn't need you to be their friend. They need to know you'll support them, tell them the truth, and hold everyone to the same standard. Those three things sound simple. They are not easy. Support them means being present when it counts. It means stepping in when things go sideways instead of waiting to see how it plays out. It means your people know that when something goes wrong, you're going to be next to them working through it, not reviewing it from a distance afterward. People perform at their best when they trust their manager is genuinely in their corner. Tell them the truth means not letting problems sit because the conversation is uncomfortable. If someone is underperforming, they deserve to know early, clearly, and specifically. Vague feedback delivered too late isn't kind. It's a setup for failure. The most respectful thing you can do for someone you manage is tell them where they actually stand. Hold everyone to the same standard is where a lot of new leaders fall apart. And it's worth being precise about what that actually means, because it's not about treating every person identically. Circumstances differ. Someone newer to the role needs more coaching. Someone going through something difficult may need more patience in the moment. That's not inconsistency. That's judgment. What has to stay consistent are the expectations, the principles, and the accountability. If a behavior is a problem for one person, it's a problem for everyone. If you let it slide for your strongest performer because they're hard to replace, you've already lost the room. Your team sees it. They always do. The good news is that none of this requires you to be cold or transactional. You can genuinely care about the people on your team and still hold them to high expectations. Letting someone coast, avoiding a hard truth, or looking the other way isn't protecting them. It's postponing a problem they'll eventually have to face. The best leaders in this space understand that the goal isn't a team that likes you. It's a team that trusts you. And trust is built through consistency, honesty, and showing up for people when it actually costs you something. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable conversations early. Not because it gets easier, but because your team deserves a leader who won't flinch when it matters.