Leading with Purpose: The Benefits of Servant Leadership
In 2007, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen was on the brink of collapse. Sales were plummeting, profits were vanishing, and despair hung heavy over the fried chicken chain. It was a scenario tailor-made for a power grab, where a new CEO might consolidate power, control every aspect of the organization’s operations, and construct a personal legacy on the ashes of the struggling brand. But Cheryl Bachelder, who was tapped to assume the mantle for leadership, had an entirely different vision of leadership.
In her book, “Dare to Serve,” Bachelder said that many of her own bosses were obsessed with advancing and aggrandizing themselves, while failing to lift up and celebrate others. “Like many,” Bachelder said, she experienced success as “achieving results, getting rewarded, and being promoted,” centering herself in the spotlight like so many of her own bosses.
“Conventional leadership thinking puts the leader in the spotlight,” Bachelder said. “Grabbing the spotlight, these leaders have all the answers. They are high achievers, though perhaps a bit self-absorbed. We tolerate that, because they are going places that we want to go.”
In 2003, however, Bachelder was humbled when she was fired from her leadership role at KFC.
“Few things are as clarifying as losing your job,” Bachelder wrote. “My confidence was shaken. This was supposed to be the pinnacle position of my career-my day in the spotlight. Perhaps that was the problem. The spotlight was not where I was supposed to be.”
In the period of time that Bachelder refers to as her “retirement,” she joined the boards of AFC Enterprises, Inc., the parent company of Popeyes, and the True Value Company. Then, in 2007, the CEO of Popeyes left the company, the fourth to do so in just seven years. After interviewing several candidates to be the next CEO, the board asked Bachelder to lead the organization.
Popeyes was struggling, to say the least. Guest traffic, profitability, and same-store sales all were declining, and the stock price had fallen from $34 per share in 2002 to $13 per share in 2007.
Taking the leadership mantle for a mightily struggling organization, Bachelder and her leadership team began by committing to a leadership philosophy that would guide everything they did.
“We quickly agreed that this servant leadership notion would guide us going forward. But there was one more thing. We believed that servant leadership would deliver superior results. The performance of the enterprise would be the evidence that we had served others well.”
Servant leadership is deeply rooted in humility, empathy, and a genuine desire to empower and develop others. Leaders who adopt this approach prioritize the well-being and growth of their team members, fostering a culture of trust, collaboration, and mutual respect. By focusing on the needs of others and enabling them to reach their full potential, servant leaders create a positive and inclusive work environment where every individual feels valued and motivated to contribute their best.
The results were as clear as they were dramatic.
Sales had increased by 45 percent, and profits had doubled. Popeyes’ share price rose to $61.31 by the end of 2016, and the company’s stock outpaced the S&P 500 restaurant sector and the overall S&P 500.
This doesn’t mean it was easy, or that Bachelder and her team weren’t tempted to use command-and-control techniques from time to time.
Bachelder acknowledged that asking more than 300 franchise owners to agree to such a “go big or go home” plan was exhausting. In those moments, it became even more tempting to leverage her positional power at the top of the organization to push the franchise owners into compliance.
However, a short-term “power play” would have long-term consequences.
“We reminded ourselves that influencing and persuading others is ultimately more effective than exercising authority over them,” Bachelder said. “At Popeyes, we had a contract if we needed it, but we wanted to use it only as a last resort.”
One of the first, and most consequential, tests for this style of leadership was persuading the franchise owners to move from a decentralized marketing strategy (which was controlled by the franchisees in their individual markets) to a national strategy, which asked them to relinquish both their control and their marketing dollars. On top of that, past national campaigns had inconsistent results.
Bachelder and her team asked the franchise owners for a nine-week, $12-million commitment, which would deplete all of the monies available to them for the year. The franchisees not only agreed to the plan, but asked for a 31-week plan, which would require an additional $6 million commitment from the national organization.
If Bachelder and her team truly believed in the plan, the franchisees reasoned, it was time to “go big or go home.”
It turned out to be one of the most important decisions they ever made.
“Years later, the franchisees would say that this one decision started the Popeyes brand on a multiyear trajectory of industry-leading performance,” Bachelder wrote. “We made a bold decision together; we both took big risks. We put our money where our mouth was, and the strategy won in the marketplace.”
Beyond the success of her decision in the context of Popeyes future, Bachelder also proved that servant leadership could drive superior performance, even in a highly competitive environment like the food service industry.
