GREAT Leadership

Today’s guest is Xavier Unkovic, President of Amy’s Kitchen. Join us as we talk about Xavier’s leadership journey—how he became President of the Amy’s, what his leadership style is, how he found his purpose in life, as well as how he balances family life with work life. Xavier has a lot of great wisdom to share that comes from his 20 plus years as a leader. As you will hear in our conversation, he also has an extremely positive outlook on life and truly loves what he does. You will also hear why Xavier never starts the day by checking emails, his suggestion for listeners who aren’t happy with their job, and how to pick the right company to work for.

My guest this week is Horst Schulze, Co-Founder and former President at the Ritz-Carlton and author of the new book, Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise. Horst is passionate about employee experience and you will hear him mention it several times throughout our conversation. the importance of giving employees a purpose, giving them context around why they are doing what they are doing and why it matters and helping them to feel like they belong are crucial elements that Horst use to build a successful brand. And he gives specific examples of how they did this at the Ritz-Carlton. He also feels that we have a leadership crisis–you will hear what that crisis is and what he suggests we do to fix it. We also discuss how hiring has changed, what Horst’s most difficult business decision was, and his take on Millennials.