What makes a great leader ft. former co-CEO at Chipotle, Monty Moran

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This week will be about former co-CEO at Chipotle Mexican Grill, Monty Moran.

Monty Moran is the former co-CEO at Chipotle Mexican Grill. He took a Denver-based burrito company to Fortune 500 status. To build a successful culture, Monty spent most of his time having one-on-one conversations with more than 20,000 employees at Chipotle. The result was a culture of empowerment where each person was rewarded (and promoted) for how effective they were in making the people around them better. Prior to joining Chipotle, Monty was the head of litigation and then managing partner and CEO at the Denver-based law firm Messner and Reeves, LLC, which he led for ten years. Monty is currently working on an up-and-coming documentary series that’s about to be released on PBS stations nationally called CONNECTED: A Search for Unity.

The recipe for a great workplace.

We all started somewhere. That feeling of not knowing what to do next and if we’ll ever succeed is something that accompanies every entrepreneur. But there will be a time when people will need you to make the right decisions, and will depend on you to just do the right thing.

“My soldiers! Tonight we dine in hell.”

Leadership is something that can be learned, you just need to first understand the people around you and how to look out for them, even if sometimes you must be the one that reminds them not to overdo with the guacamole.

Let’s dive into our interview with Monty and find out what makes a great leader.

Parts of this newsletter are freely taken from our interview with Monty and adjusted for reading. Everything a person says in the interview only reflects his/her own opinion, not the newsletter or our brand.

GG: Leaders can be marketing-focused, sales-oriented, or product-oriented. You were originally a lawyer, so in terms of technical skills, what do you bring to the table? What kind of leader are you? 

MM: Well, I'm a very logical thinker, I'm trained as a lawyer, I'm good with numbers, and I tend to make good decisions because I can quickly analyze a lot of information and decide what's the best way forward. I'm also good at convincing people and getting them behind me to go in the same direction. But what matters most about me as a leader is my enormous compassion and love for human beings. I want them to be at their best, and I can't stand seeing someone not doing the best they can with what they've got. I've spent my whole life trying to become wiser and more knowledgeable. I can bring those things that I've learned to help in certain situations, for instance, leadership ones. Beyond what might make me a good leader, the most important thing is that I care about the people I'm leading.

GG: Being charismatic and logical usually translates into two different management styles. What’s yours? How do you unite people?

MM: I don't believe in management styles, I mean there's no doubt that they exist, but I don't believe that's what's important. People can come about management or leadership in lots of different ways. Some can be loud, some very quiet and contemplative, others can be bossy, and some can be really polite. All of those different approaches can actually be successful or not. The thing that creates success isn't the style, but if a leader actually cares about people and can empower them, espouse a great vision, can understand what they want, and help them achieve it. What everyone wants is to be seen, valued, loved, and understood. Even if we are in a bad mood and just said something nasty, we want people to see through that and go “I know why he said that”. So if we can help people do that then they are getting what they want, they will feel better and start to grow and blossom.

Best leaders know when it's time to eat.

GG: At Chipotle you went undercover in the training program to see what the workers were going through, and before that, when you were a young lawyer you took on the smaller and harder cases that you could be the lead lawyer on just to get more practice. How can someone that's just starting out implement a similar strategy?

MM: Whatever it is you're doing now with your life, do it with all your heart, don't do it to try to get to the next step because you don't necessarily know what's best for you. What's best for you is to live in the present and do your very best at what you're doing right now, putting your heart and soul, and love into it because then you will have a higher quality day. If you have it 7 days in a row, that's a higher-quality week, and then a month and so on, until you'll have a high-quality life. I hear too often that people think their job is a dead-end and can't wait to move on to something better. But why should someone give you something better if that's your attitude about what you're doing right now? Do a great job and they'll notice, and even if they don't, eventually, someone else will and ask you to do more because you're worthy of it. When you can handle more, you'll get more. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if you're an incredibly hard-working person who gives your love and attention and strives for excellence, you're doing something well. There are other things in the world that need to be done, and the vacuum of greatness will absorb people who can do greatness into things where greatness is needed. It just happens.

Worse for him. We know what we are ordering out tonight.

GG: How do you know what’s the best course of action?

MM: When facing new situations ask obvious questions, and they will guide you. For example, when I joined Chipotle I asked myself, "What can I do to help?" If I could get the best possible general managers in every restaurant, that would have helped the company the most. I kept asking obvious questions, "We have these crews who are men and women, mostly Hispanic, really awesome at their jobs, but very few of them ever become managers, even though they're much better at what they're doing than their managers. Why?" We started hiring and promoting from within, and over the years our manager workforce changed. They were much brighter and more diverse in terms of ethnicity, there were more women, and they showed up every day, caring about the customers and the food. When you think of the fast food experience you think of something uninspiring, mediocre, probably cold by the time you get it, and handed to you by someone who probably doesn't want to be there. So we hired people who had that experience. That's what we were looking for. Why? Because we shouldn't be. We asked the basic questions that everyone else was trying to be too sophisticated to ask, and it had an enormous impact. We wanted to make sure that people focused on making the people around them better. That was the goal. Tapping into our inner curiosity and allowing ourselves to be fresh every day it's almost like being reborn as a child. What do little kids do? They ask questions. Little kids don't think they know the answer, so they try to learn it. As we grow into adults, we start to think we know everything, but we don't. The best answer to your question is if you want to have a huge impact on the world assume you know nothing.

Embrace your inner child.

“Grace Weekly - every week something new to learn”

So what do we take out from this? Whatever the size of your team (or if you are just starting) leading people is something more than just trusting your gut. That sure helps, but analyzing the world around you and getting to know the people you work with and want to accomplish, can turn it from “a” business to the best out there.

Top takeaways from our newsletter this week:

Care about the people you're leading.

Everyone wants to be seen, valued, and understood.

Live in the present.

Always do the best you can with what you've got.

When facing new situations ask obvious questions.

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