You’re New. We’re Burnt Out.

PowerPoints full of vision.

Words like “elevate,” “elite,” and “excellence” tossed around like cilantro.

And here we are.

Still trying to make it through dinner service without the wheels coming off.

You bring a 30/60/90.

We bring trauma, duct tape, and shitty spaghetti that still sells.

You’re not the hero.

You’re the latest in a long line of leaders wearing a new chef’s coat.

Don’t mess with the few things that still work.

Don’t pretend to know what we’ve been through.

Don’t say trust is earned. Show us you’re paying attention.

But not always in the way they think.

You’ve got 30/60/90s. We’ve got 30 months of whiplash.

And now?

The team is watching with crossed arms and crossed histories.

Clocking every word. Measuring every silence.

Wondering if this is the moment things actually change

or just another shift that leaves us cleaning up the mess.

It’s not cynicism.

It’s survival.

They’ve learned to keep moving even when the kitchen’s on fire.

Sydney nailed it:

“This is chaos. This is not good.”

Not because she couldn’t handle pressure.

She was trusted. But empowered? Led? Nah.

What she found was a grenade with a tasting menu.

They’re thinking:

Rebuild what?

With who?

And how do we know you won’t torch it again the second pressure hits?

You don’t earn trust with a speech.

You earn it with your eyes.

With the way you listen.

With whether or not you change your plan after hearing the truth.

Because from the employee’s side, leadership doesn’t start when you say it does.

It starts when they can finally exhale, believing something will get better.

No one’s calling it a leadership case study. But it is.

Carmy walks in with training, pedigree, reputation, and awards.

He also walks in with trauma, control issues,

and a compulsion to prove something no one asked him to prove.

“I’m not trying to fix it. I’m trying to make it better.” - Carmy

But there’s already a team there.

People who’ve been holding the walls up with duct tape and give a f***.

People who were surviving, not thriving.

And yeah, maybe it was dysfunctional.

But it was their dysfunction.

Predictable chaos. Known territory.

They knew where the landmines were.

They knew which corners to cut.

Which equipment needed a smack to work.

How to make it through another day without getting screamed at or burned.

It wasn’t perfect.

But at least it wasn’t unfamiliar.

Then suddenly everything changes.

From the Beef to the Bear.

Without warning.

One day it’s risotto. The next it’s a ten-course tasting menu.

No warning. No prep. Just chaos plated as vision.

“How are we supposed to execute when the f'ing menu changes every day?” - Richie

Richie screams at Carmy during the explosion over the new “non-negotiables” list.

Carmy doesn’t say a word.

Just stands there.

Lets Richie’s frustration hang in the air like burnt fryer oil.

Sydney doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t speak. Just stares. Drained, done. Cooked.

That silence? That was the answer.

“You locked yourself in the fing walk-in for a whole service… and you’re mad at me?” - Richie

If you can’t show up when the sh*t hits the fan, don’t expect everyone else to.

Training isn’t transformation.

They send you to culinary school. That’s the good part.

Tina goes.

Not a workshop.

School.

Surrounded by people half her age.

With something to prove and everything to lose.

She doesn’t just survive.

She levels up.

Not because someone trained her.

Because someone finally believed in her.

They forget:

Training isn’t transformation.

You don’t become a different human

because someone flew in from Eleven Madison Park and taught you how to torch crème brûlée.

You still need to be led.

You still need room to ask questions.

You still need consistency to build confidence.

Syd ends up puking in the alley.

Not because she can’t handle it.

(Maybe the cigarette had something to do with it.)

Because nervous systems aren’t built to run on chaos and disappointment.

This is what happens when you mistake ambition for fundamentals.

Carmy forgets that.

Melts down in the walk-in.

Sydney says the quiet part out loud:

“I don’t need you to like me. I need you to listen to me.”

That’s not insubordination.

That’s survival.

Your vision might be beautiful. Aspirational, even.

But if your team can’t see themselves in it,

it will stay yours. And only yours.

You can’t just bring strategy.

You have to bring stability.

You have to stay long enough to hear what’s already working

before you start changing what’s not.

When you come in hot talking about training, restructuring, redesigning

you might look like a prodigy from the outside.

But on the inside?

There’s not enough Tums or Nicorette in the world to make it go away.

Eventually, Carmy learns the hardest lesson in leadership:

You can’t do it all alone. You need the team.

Even when they mess up.

Even when you could do it faster.

Even when your ego is screaming to jump in.

Great leadership isn’t about control.

It’s about capacity.

Building it.

Investing in it.

Having an Uncle Jimmy.

Sticking around long enough for it to take shape.

Here’s what we’re really thinking when you walk in:

Don’t mess with the few things that still work.

Richie knew how to run the front of house even if it wasn’t "elegant".

Tina could command the line. Even if it wasn’t "optimized".

Ebraheim was quiet, consistent, dependable.

But he “quiet quit.”

You saw inefficiency.

We saw survival.

You saw a problem.

We saw people who showed up when nobody else would.

Don’t pretend to know what we’ve been through.

This isn’t just a kitchen.

It’s the place that gave us belonging when we didn’t have a title.

A home. A purpose. A paycheck when we needed one.

You walk in trying to clean it up.

We’re just trying not to lose what little stability we’ve got left.

Don’t say trust is earned. Show us you’re paying attention.

When Carmy gives Tina his knife before she leaves for school,

it’s not about steel.

It’s about seeing someone who’s always been capable

but never invited to rise.

It’s not about the forks. It’s about intention.

That’s what Richie learned at Ever.

It’s the first time someone shows him that giving a damn isn’t weakness.

That precision is care.

That a spotless wine glass can say I see you.

It doesn’t just make him better at leading the front of house.

It makes him better. As a man. As a father. Period.

“I wanted to be great at something.” -Richie

And finally, he is.

Then there’s Sydney.

Every shift, every night...she puts her body and sanity on the line.

Holding it all while Carmy spirals.

And when he finally sees it?

He doesn’t give her a title.

He gives her the truth:

“Any chance of any kind of good in this building...it started when you walked in. Because you’re the Bear.”

That’s when leadership changes hands.

Not in a memo.

In the alley. Behind the restaurant. When service is over.

Where things get real.

What leadership feels like to us:

You see us. And back off when it counts.

You ask for more. Without bleeding us dry.

You show up. Without skipping the hard parts.

Marcus goes to Copenhagen.

Not because he’s broken.

Because someone sees the kind of artist he could become.

You think that’s a perk.

He knows it’s a bet.

But when he comes back, grieving and raw,

he asks about the notes Carmy promised.

There’s nothing.

“We cook together. We speak the same language.” - Marcus

And when that language breaks...

When mentorship goes silent...

connection dies.

That’s the cost of disappearing:

Someone grows, and you’re not there to meet who they’ve become.

But here’s the hardest truth:

Your vision might be beautiful.

It may have worked for you in the past.

But if your team can’t see themselves in it, it’ll stay yours.

We don’t need another visionary.

We need someone who can survive the dips.

Someone who doesn’t disappear when things get uncomfortable.

Someone who doesn’t torch what we built

just to install what looks good on a slide.

Remember the sticky note wall?

“Every second counts.”

“Every plate matters.”

“Every detail. No mistakes.”

Beautiful words.

Until they start sounding like threats.

Vision without presence becomes pressure.

And pressure without protection breaks people.

You can’t build trust with your title.

Or with more training.

Or with the phrase “We’re in this together.”

You build it by staying through the part that sucks.

The Friday night service meltdown.

The team fight at the sink.

The Tribune review that puts you on the clock.

The version of yourself you don’t want to look at.

Eventually, the best leaders figure it out:

You can’t do it by yourself.

You can’t fix the system with pressure.

You can’t overcomplicate your way into connection.

You have to let people own things.

You have to trust the ones who’ve been holding the place together.

You have to be okay not being the center.

Carmy had to crash to see it.

Most leaders do.

So if you’re the new leader… take a beat.

Before you optimize, observe.

Before you direct, listen.

Before you start quoting vision statements,

ask what’s actually been holding the place together.

Because your team doesn’t need another savior.

They need someone who can stay in the kitchen long enough to earn their trust.

Not just someone who wants to change the menu.

Every damn day.

Putting up obstacles just because you have something to prove.

Here’s what we need you to understand:

Day one, you walk in thinking this is a new beginning.

We’re still cleaning up the last ending.

You see a team.

We see a group of people who’ve adapted around dysfunction.

You say, “Let’s rebuild.”

We ask, “With who?”

Because we’re not sure you see us.

You don’t earn trust with mission statements.

You earn it in the moments no one claps for.

You earn it when you change your plan after hearing the truth.

From this side?

Leadership doesn’t start when you say it does.

It starts when we can finally exhale. Trust. Believe it’s safe to keep showing up.

Carmy had the vision.

Sydney had the patience.

Richie had the heart.

Tina had the courage.

Marcus had the curiosity.

Ebraheim had the consistency.

Leadership didn’t come from one of them.

It came from all of them.

Side by side. Or not at all.

“I just want to be good.” - Carmy

But first?

Don’t be the reason we can’t function.

“While you’re chasing perfection, you might miss the one call that actually mattered.” - Claire