Why Survival Mode Kills Leadership Before It Kills You

The holiday season doesn't create problems in your kitchen, it reveals them. When the heat is highest and the pressure builds, what surfaces isn't just about staffing shortages or vendor issues. It's about the stories we tell ourselves about what leadership actually means.

-------------------

Register for the free monthly Culinary Leadership Lab: a live working space for chefs ready to lead without losing themselves @https://thecheflifebrigade.com/LeadershipLab

--------------------

"Your team doesn't need your sacrifice. They need your steadiness."

In this raw and necessary episode of Chef Life Radio, we confront the uncomfortable truth about survival mode in culinary leadership. While you're grinding through another holiday hell week, pushing through exhaustion, and wearing depletion like a badge of honor, something deeper is happening that demands your attention.

--------------------

Stop chasing stars and start building a career that actually works. Join the National Champions at A-B Tech in Asheville for hands-on training that respects the hustle without losing the soul. Real tools for real chefs at https://link.chefliferadio.com/abtech

-----------------------

The Shark Mentality That's Killing Us

We've normalized the belief that if we stop moving, we die. But what if constant motion isn't strength—it's avoidance?

What if the very thing we think keeps us alive is actually preventing us from truly living?

Through the story of a chef who landed his dream role at double his salary, we explore the profound impact of one simple question: How are you really? Not how's the prep list, not how's service—how are you?

When Pressure Exposes the Cracks

Discover why survival mode might get you through a shift, but it will destroy your culture:

1. How exhaustion gets rewarded while sustainability gets ignored
2. Why depleted leaders become unpredictable, eroding trust faster than anger
3. The difference between leadership and simply outrunning the truth

The Leadership Loop That Changes Everything

Learn a practical four-step approach to leading when everything feels like it's falling apart:

1. Naming the cracks where they actually are
2. Contextualizing why change matters now
3. Modeling the behavior you're asking for
4. Holding the line when people-pleasing feels easier

Beyond the Kitchen Walls

This conversation extends beyond the pass to examine how we show up at home. Have you told your family what this season actually requires? Or do you just disappear and hope they understand? Work-life harmony isn't about equal time—it's about named expectations and conscious consent.

The Maintenance Your Leadership Needs

Explore why steady-state self-care isn't indulgent—it's operational. When your nervous system is fried, everything downstream distorts. The chefs who last aren't the ones who move fastest; they're the ones who know when to stop and why.

This episode challenges the fundamental beliefs that keep us trapped in cycles of depletion. It's not about working less during the holidays—that's a fantasy. It's about leading with clarity instead of chaos, creating containers for honesty before pressure builds them for you.

Whether you're deep in holiday hell week or preparing for the next wave, this conversation offers a different way forward. One that honors the craft without sacrificing the person behind it.

Ready to stop confusing motion with progress? This might be the conversation that changes how you think about leadership, sustainability, and what it really means to take care of yourself and your team.

---------------------

You wouldn't run a kitchen with broken equipment, so why are you redlining your own body? Carolina Health & Wellness helps you find your peak with TRT and peptide therapy. Stop grinding through the fatigue. Visit https://link.chefliferadio.com/chminoffice and get 1% better today.

--------------------

• Get a Complementary In-Office Health Evaluation at Carolina Wellness
• Find Out More about AB Technical Community College Culinary Program
• Register for our free monthly Leadership Lab

The Recipe For Your Success Newsletter

Chef Life Media LLC

This is Chef Life Radio. I'm Adam Lamb.

2

This is a show for chefs and culinary leaders who care deeply about the craft,

3

but are no longer willing to sacrifice themselves to survive the business.

4

We don't do motivation here. We don't do hustle theater.

5

We talk about choice, agency, and the quiet moments where leadership actually happens.

6

If that resonates, stay with me right after this message.

7

Stop chasing stars and start building a career that actually works.

8

Join the national champions at AB Tech in Asheville for hands-on training that

9

respects the hustle without losing the soul.

10

Real tools for real chefs at abtech.edu forward slash culinary.

11

Welcome to Holiday Hell Week, Chef.

12

For those of you about to be rocked, we salute you.

13

If you're deep in the thick of it, congratulations. At least you know you're

14

alive. even if it feels like you're dying or like something's got to give.

15

It will, but not right now. This isn't the moment for grand experiments or brazen declarations.

16

That'll only add to the load. You've got this. Deep breath, chef.

17

Then take one step and another.

18

Just focus on being 1% better than yesterday.

19

That'll be enough for today.

20

Know how no matter how busy it gets it'll slow down this will pass.

21

Thank you for your work. Thank you for your resilience. Thank you for taking

22

care of your customers and your team.

23

Thank you for taking one for the brigade, standing tall and frosty,

24

and doing what needs to be done.

25

I'm recording this episode during the 10 days between Christmas and New Year's

26

2025-26, but every hospitality year has at least four, maybe six, holiday hell weeks.

27

Depending on your operation, it might be Memorial Day, Labor Day,

28

Thanksgiving, Valentine's and Mother's Day.

29

They don't just hit for a night, they ripple for days.

30

Shoulder season, in season, off season is often tougher when staffing guides

31

are still tied to cover counts.

32

If your business lives on tourism, you already know.

33

And if you're listening during one of those rare moments when you can catch

34

your breath, good. Save this episode.

35

You're going to need it soon enough.

36

Nuff said, I want to start with something that landed in my inbox recently.

37

Not a testimonial, not a win, just a moment.

38

A chef I once worked with wrote, chef, I want to take a minute to thank you.

39

He told me he landed a new role right in his wheelhouse at nearly double his current salary.

40

He described prepping for the final stage when and a voice popped into his head. Mine.

41

How are you, chef? He answered the way we all would. I'm good,

42

chef. Just finishing a few garnishes.

43

That's nice, I said. But I wasn't asking about the prep list. How are you, really?

44

With 30 minutes to go before plating, he paused.

45

And in that stillness, he realized that he had spent the last 11 years in total immersion.

46

Work, reading, studying, talking about work, proving himself in the grind.

47

No relationship outside the kitchen.

48

No time to think or do anything else, lest he get left behind in the dust.

49

He wrote, you're the first person in my professional life who kept asking how

50

I was, not just how the work was.

51

Apparently, that moment changed something. And I guess it still does.

52

That's what this episode is

53

all about. He finished his email by saying something else. He felt guilty.

54

I feel crooked taking a job at that salary.

55

Shouldn't the money matter less than the work?

56

Isn't this supposed to be about passion?

57

That's also what this episode is about. So let me ask you, Chef. How are you? Really?

58

Do you sometimes feel like a shark? If you stop grinding, proving, caring.

59

If you stop moving, do you die? This episode isn't about work.

60

This episode isn't about working less during the holidays. That's a fantasy.

61

It's not about balance myths or self-care slogans.

62

This is about leadership. Yours.

63

Because the holiday season doesn't create problems. It reveals them.

64

Pressure doesn't invent dysfunction. It exposes weak systems,

65

unspoken agreements, and exhausted leaders.

66

How you lead when the heat is highest tells the truth about your culture.

67

If you stay with me, we're going to talk about why survival mode is a lie leaders

68

tell themselves, what constant motion helps us avoid, and what it actually takes

69

to come through season intact.

70

Not heroic, not numb, intact. Quick pause.

71

If this conversation is hitting and you want a place to work this out in real

72

time with other chefs, that's what the Leadership Lab is for.

73

It's not a course. It's not coaching theater.

74

It's a room where we slow things down enough to tell the truth. Links in the show notes.

75

All right, let's get back into it.

76

In kitchens, exhaustion gets rewarded. We learn early that being tired means you care.

77

We joke about it. We bond over it. We wear it like a badge of honor.

78

Chefs are like sharks, right? If we stop moving, we die.

79

So we normalize depletion. We call burnout commitment. We shame anyone else who won't go all in.

80

We just need to get through this shift, this hour, this day.

81

Four more hours, y'all. But here's the truth nobody wants to say out loud.

82

Survival mode might get you through a shift. It will destroy a culture.

83

Survival mode narrows vision. It makes leadership reactive.

84

And eventually, everything becomes about control instead of care.

85

Somewhere along the line, we stopped asking the most important question.

86

Is this sustainable? Or is it just familiar?

87

Is this all there is? You already know this day.

88

The dishwasher called out. The vendor shorted the order.

89

Catering added to pop-up banquets after you placed your orders.

90

Now you're covering saute just to keep the wheels on the bus.

91

And then someone calls out, time check.

92

10 minutes. And then this.

93

Thank you.

94

You feel it in your chest before it hits your thoughts. So you do what you've always done.

95

You step in. You cover. You push.

96

You move faster. I'll deal with this later.

97

But later never comes. Motion becomes the strategy. Not success. Just survival.

98

No one checks in. No one names the strain. Everyone just keeps moving.

99

What looks like leadership on the surface is actually avoidance underneath.

100

You're not leading the team. You're outrunning the truth.

101

Survival mode tells you to stop. Survival mode tells you stopping will break everything.

102

But what it's really protecting you from is having to feel how fragile the system actually is.

103

No amount of bodies will ever fix a broken system. This is where the leadership loop begins.

104

Most chefs already know when something's off. They feel it before they can even explain it.

105

But dealing with those problems? Not today, man. Too busy. But if you can see

106

it, it's time to deal with it.

107

Step one, name it. Call the cracks where they are. Step number two, contextualize it.

108

Pressure exposes weak agreements. Explain why change matters.

109

Step number three, model the behavior you're asking for.

110

Step number four, hold the line.

111

And this is where people pleasers struggle. Holding the line feels risky.

112

Pleasing feels kind.

113

They are not the same. Leadership is not fixing.

114

Leadership is not directing leadership is witnessing we avoid hard conversations

115

not because we don't care because we think we need answers so we stay busy we keep moving,

116

that's our solution but what your team needs isn't solutions they need a clean container,

117

10 minutes per person per week.

118

Set the time, set the container, bear witness.

119

If you don't build containers for honesty, pressure will build them for you

120

and you won't like the outcome.

121

Depleted leaders don't just suffer quietly. They become unpredictable.

122

Unpredictability erodes trust faster than anger ever will.

123

Your team doesn't need your sacrifice. They need your steadiness.

124

Steady state. Self-care isn't indulgent, it's operational.

125

When your nervous system is fried, everything downstream distorts.

126

Can't lead others if you won't lead yourself. Let's talk about home.

127

Have you told your family what this season actually requires?

128

Or do you just disappear and hope they understand?

129

Unspoken expectations are silent betrayals.

130

Work-life harmony isn't equal time. It's named expectations.

131

Sure, everybody knows the deal. Everybody knows the cost. But not everyone consented to this.

132

But it's never too late to ask. That's leadership too.

133

Stillness terrifies people who equate motion with worth.

134

Rest isn't quitting. It's maintenance. When rested, you step off the line, nothing breaks.

135

What does break is the story that says, if I'm not exhausted, I'm not enough.

136

Clarity is what leadership actually runs on. This season will pass as they always do.

137

How you show up will linger.

138

Don't try to be better. be clearer. Clear with yourself. Clear with your family.

139

Clear with your team. If we never stop moving, we don't die.

140

We just abandon the life this work was meant to support. Hope is not a strategy.

141

Endurance is not leadership.

142

Professionalism does not mean disappearing from your own life.

143

The chefs who last aren't the ones who move the fastest. They're the ones who know when to stop.

144

And why. This should be hard, but it shouldn't be harsh.

145

If the kitchen is taking more than it's giving, it's time for some preventive maintenance.

146

Big thanks to Carolina Health and Wellness for sponsoring our mission to make

147

kitchens more human. Their link is in the show notes. This didn't start as obligation.

148

It started as love. If something shifted today for you, don't rush to fix it.

149

Just sit with it. I'll see you next time.

150

Stay tall, stay frosty, and lead from your heart. Until next week, this is Chef Adam Lamb.