Lift While You Climb
No. 7 | Simple leadership advice from one of the world's best bartenders.
Today’s inspiration comes from a recent DeRusha Eats episode, where Jason DeRusha is interviewing Jessi Pollak, one of the best bartenders in the world, who happens to be serving up incredible cocktails in the Twin Cities.
Around the 10-minute mark, Jason asks Jessi how to define excellence in bartending. Jessi responds by talking about how it’s really about evaluating herself as a leader and looking at how her team is doing. Are they happy to come to work? Are they excited to be on her team? Are they feeling free to be themselves so they can be their best selves at work? DeRusha, mirroring what he’s hearing, talks about how good it feels to know you’re lifting people up around you, to which Pollak replies:
I really do believe you have to lift while you climb. … Keep people moving up with you. I am so hopeful that the people who work for me now are going to continue on and absolutely leave me in their dust. And they’re going to do way better, way cooler things than what I’ve done. That’s the ultimate goal.
What an inspiring view of leadership—lifting the people who work for you up while you climb in your career so they can do even bigger and better things after working with you.
I’ve been fortunate to work for more than a handful of leaders like this in my career. It truly makes an enormous difference. Not only for those you lead but also for how you feel about being a leader.
The world is constantly in need of better leadership. We could use a lot more leaders like Jessi.