LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS & EFFECTIVENESS

RAMSAYS KITCHEN NIGHTMARES UK, S03E02

Show Summary
Hell hath no fury like an angry chef, and no chef has a sharper temper than Gordon Ramsay when things go wrong in the kitchen. The star of the highly rated culinary boot camp HELL'S KITCHEN returns to FOX with another sizzling unscripted series, KITCHEN NIGHTMARES. This time, Chef Ramsay hits the road, in each episode tackling a restaurant in crisis and exposing the stressful realities of trying to run a successful food business. For restaurant owners in crisis with lazy chefs in the kitchen, temperamental wait staffs and few and unhappy diners, it's time to call in the restaurant industry's equivalent of 911.1

Cast of Characters
Gordon James Ramsay, (born 8 November 1966) is a Scottish chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars. Ramsay is known for presenting TV programs about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, Ramsay's Best Restaurant, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, along with the American versions of Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, and MasterChef.2

Episode Recap
Welcome to the Sandgate Hotel on the coast of Kent, 24 miles from France. When Gordon enters the hotel the receptionist seems not be bothered with expediting Gordon who easily could be a customer. Three years ago Peter and Louise Hamilton-Slade used their life savings and bought the hotel. Currently the hotel is losing 2 000,- a week so Peter had to keep his engineering job, while Louise runs the restaurant. Neither of them has any experience running a restaurant of hotel...

Starling D. Hunter III 2012 | starling@qatar.cmu.edu| Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar | http://qatar.cmu.edu

There are four restaurants inside the hotel that all have one thing in commonno customers. Head chef Stuart, 38 from Northumberland, has his first head chef job and is in way over his head. One thing that is really quickly obvious is that there are 3 managers; food and beverage, restaurant and the general manager ... all this for four customers... Gordon wittingly makes a correct comparison with Faulty Towers. Because Gordon cannot seem to figure out who is actually in charge he takes the staff to the beach for a little test to find out who they think is in charge of what. The conclusion is that everyone is running it but nobody is controlling it. So far the hotel has lost 33 000 so the time has come for change--quickly! The Japanese restaurant gets closed down immediately because there are no customers and the chef is not comfortable cooking Japanese food. Jean Baptiste comes to help out front-of-house and automatically bans the loud and irritating intercom system. Sous chef Johnny is in over his head two days a week when he is in charge of the kitchen when Stuart is off. The bar upstairs takes inn about 2 000,- /month from the staff that uses it after hours for their own leisure. Gordon bans the use of the bar for the staff but also explains why it is not acceptable for them to use it. Gordon organizes an annual oyster eating competition with the neighboring town in France of Sandgate. Finally Gordon gets fed up with Louise's lack of balls and ensures that she knows how to tell her staff off.i

Case Questions
Q1: Is Louis an effective Leader? Why or why not? Q2: Did Louis become a better leader after Chef Ramsays Visit to Sandgate? Which Leadership behaviors did she demonstrate towards the end of the episode?

Solutions
Write to starling@qatar.cmu.edu to obtain a copy of the solution to this case.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0771975/synopsis

Starling D. Hunter III 2012 | starling@qatar.cmu.edu| Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar | http://qatar.cmu.edu