The Restaurant Owner’s Guide to Coaching Your Managers

 If your managers cannot make decisions without you, that is not their fault. It is a leadership gap. As part of my accountability and team culture series, I want to walk you through something every independent restaurant owner must master: how to coach your managers so they think and lead like owners. Consider this a restaurant owner’s guide to coaching your managers.

Coaching isn't managing

Managing is about telling people what to do. Coaching is about teaching them how to think.

Shannon, one of the restaurant owners I work with, struggled with this exact transition. She was doing everything herself and burning out fast. Her team relied on her for every answer and every decision.

Together we built her first layer of supervisors. I showed her how to delegate, guide and follow up through questions instead of orders. Instead of saying, “Do this,” she started asking, “What do you think is the right move here?” and “What options do you see?”

It felt uncomfortable at first. She told me it was hard not to just jump in with the answer. But the moment she stopped giving answers and started truly listening, her team began to lead themselves.

That is the difference between compliance and commitment. Managing gets people to comply. Coaching gets people to commit.

Clarity comes before coaching

You cannot coach what you have not defined.

Barrett learned this while trying to develop his assistant GM. He was constantly bouncing between stores, reacting to problems and feeling like his managers just did not get it. From his point of view, they were not stepping up. From their point of view, they were guessing.

We fixed that by creating clarity. We built an org chart and defined every role. We made sure each manager knew exactly what they were responsible for. Then we launched weekly manager meetings focused on alignment, not just putting out fires.

We identified key performance indicators for each role and made sure everyone understood how their decisions affected labor, cost of goods sold and the guest experience.

Once his managers knew their lane and their measures of success, they started owning the results.

Clarity creates confidence. Confidence creates leaders.

Coach the process, not the person

Jonathan and Briana were stuck reacting to personality clashes on their team. Every week seemed to bring a new conflict. They were exhausted and frustrated and their managers were too.

Instead of trying to “fix” people, we focused on fixing the process.

We implemented manager logs and non-negotiable checklists so their leadership started running through systems, not moods. The logs gave managers a structured way to document issues, decisions and follow up. The checklists made expectations visible and consistent.

Jonathan told me, “Once we focused on the process, not the personalities, my team stopped taking feedback so personally.” That is the power of coaching through structure. It takes the emotion out and leaves the learning in.

When you coach the process, you are saying, “This is the standard. Let us work together to hit it,” instead of, “You are the problem.”

Coaching creates alignment

John owned two restaurants that might as well have been on different planets. Each location had its own way of doing things, its own standards and its own culture. Results were inconsistent and he felt like he was running two separate companies.

We changed that by using coaching to create alignment.

John combined team meetings across both restaurants and started sharing budgets and challenges openly. He stopped treating each location like its own silo and started building one leadership culture.

We made sure the entire management team spoke the same language around accountability, numbers and systems. The same checklists, the same meeting rhythms, the same expectations.

When everyone speaks the same language of accountability, your business stops pulling in 10 directions. You get one focused team moving toward the same goals.

Coaching multiplies freedom

Scott once told me, “David, I want a leadership team that does not need me.” Many restaurant owners say that, but we dug into what it really meant.

He did not want to disappear. He wanted the freedom to work on the business instead of always being trapped in it. He wanted vacations without panic calls and days off that were real days off.

To get there, we focused on coaching his managers to:

• Understand their numbers and make decisions based on them
• Take ownership of decisions instead of always asking for permission
• Build systems that outlive any one person

When you coach your managers, you are not just teaching them tasks. You are duplicating yourself. You are creating leaders who can protect your standards, your systems and your culture, even when you are not there.

That is how coaching multiplies your freedom as an owner.

Keep working on coaching

So remember, restaurant owner:

Managing sets compliance.
Coaching builds leaders.
Leaders create freedom.

Be sure to visit my YouTube channel for more helpful restaurant management video tips.