Leading Under Pressure, Building Relationships & the Power of Fellowship in Hospitality - Edward Mady

Josiah: What does it take to be a great leader? I've always been interested in this, but I found myself asking that question a lot more recently because, as you know, I've made a career change earlier this year, leading teams at Actabl, and our guest today, Edward Mady, is an author of a book on this topic. It's called Honing the Human Edge. And he has an incredible experience to back this up. He was named by Hotels Magazine as Hotelier of the Year. He's earned multiple Forbes Five Star and AAA Five Diamond Awards that puts him in the top of the 1% of award winners in America. Keep listening for practical lessons on leadership from the person that industry legends such as Ritz Carlton, founder Horst Schulze trusted to lead some of his most iconic properties. Let's get into it.

[intro]

Josiah: How do you describe humanistic leadership? What is this, and why does it matter in the world of hospitality?

Edward: Well, I guess what's valuable first is what inspired me to write the book. And I wrote the book to be able to want to have people lead through pressure. And Horace operated, Leona operated, my dad. There was always a sense of pressure. And you want to lead through pressure. And not just survive it, you want to lead through it. And so when you're faced with pressure professionally and personally, you learn the differences, how other people show up. You have to show up to be able to lead in any sort of hospitality because people really want to have an understanding. How can I help? What can I do? Who can I call? Open door policy. Open door policy is not just because you're in your office and somebody knocks on your door. Open door policy is when you're sitting in an employee dining room and somebody says, can I speak to you for a moment? And so looking at humanistic leadership in the high stakes industry that we're in, it's giving support any moment. And so when you really want to have an understanding, if you're going to be supportive, In humanistic leadership, you have to learn about crises, but as importantly, you want to have the ability to sit on the floor in the middle of the fire with anybody at any time so people understand you're in it for the long haul, you're in it with them, and how do you best support that?

Josiah: Ed, can I just jump in there with a very specific example? Because my understanding is when you were leading the Beverly Hills Hotel, you mentioned spending time with the team. You not only ate with employees in the employee dining room, but my understanding is you would also sit with different teams. So you would really try to get to know people in all these different areas. Obviously, the Beverly Hills Hotel is such an iconic property, but it wasn't just one group of people. You were really investing your time every day to get to know people at all levels of the hotel operation is my understanding.

Edward: And that was fun. It's fun because I want to believe that you go to work to create excellence, you go to work to make friends, and as you're growing up over time and even looking at the board of personal board of directors, there's a fellowship. And you don't understand fellowship until you understand someone that's sitting across the table from you. Sure, you're not going to love everybody that you work with. Sure, you're going to have a few terrorists that are working with you. But as a general rule, people want to do good. They want to be good. They want to learn. And you never really understand people until they're in the fight with you. And how do you create excellence? And so that fellowship is part of the culture. And when people know that you can create a culture through humanistic leadership, and you start to understand kindness, you start to understand that people want to know you as a person. And the only way they're going to know you is if you're sitting with them. They have to feel you. And that's what happens in hospitality. I like to say, you never know what it's like to fight someone until you have to, but you never know what it's like to know someone until you sit with them and understand their story. And they always talk about their children or goldfish or, you know, whatever it is that comes up. And so there's a fellowship that is not really defined until you work with someone.