Cheryl Bachelder spoke about leading with courage and humility on campus last week. Former president of KFC and CEO of Popeyes, Bachelder has a few connections to Hillsdale: Her husband, Chris Bachelder, is a member of the college’s Board of Trustees, and one of her three children, Kate Bachelder Odell ’13, attended the college. Bachelder’s talk, Dare to Serve, focused on the rewards and results of servant leadership.
What advice would you give to students who want to be successful but wouldn’t call themselves “leaders”?
I would say then you don’t understand the definition of leadership. John Maxwell says all leadership is influence. It’s not authority; leadership is influence. In the business I worked in — which is franchising — I had no authority. The only leadership I had was influence because they worked for themselves. And they only follow me if they want to. So I think people are confused about what leadership really is. It’s a platform for influence. And everyone of us has a leadership opportunity in our home, in our community, in our schools, in our jobs.
After you were fired from KFC, you became the CEO of Popeyes. What did your experience teach you about the value of messing up?
I think we’ve lost touch with the value of failure and mistakes. Failure’s a pretty strong word — let’s just say mistakes. We don’t learn very much from success. But, boy, lose a game in life or sports and you review the tapes. After KFC I spent four years reviewing the tapes, most of them here in Hillsdale, and going, ‘If I ever got an opportunity, what would I do differently?’ And I’ve said many times that every tenet of my leadership at Popeyes was a lesson learned from my failure at KFC. I never could’ve been so successful without those lessons. They’re the deepest, the richest, the most important lessons.
One important lesson was around confidence to lead out of my own strengths. Women don’t have a lot of role models in senior leadership. So I was constantly trying to lead like guys. I think you need to operate out of your values, out of your strengths. My strengths are all around strategy and innovation. I think I didn’t yet have the authentic confidence in what my skills were.
After you left Popeyes, you took a break from work this summer to rest. Why is time like that important?
We’re all living in a giant hurry. But it’s in the unhurried space that we reconnect with who we are, what we really believe. None of those things can be rushed. How do you build a pattern of rest and reflection in your busy life? For me, I take a silent day — I try to do it every month, but it probably ends up I do six, seven a year — for total silence from technology, from children, from friends, from my mother. All the jabbering that’s going on in your head. I usually do it in a structured way. I have a topic I reflect on or a book that I’m reading that I want to think about. And I would tell you that 90 days of energy come out of reflection. It’s powerful how much you’ll get out of that day that will just pour into your life the next couple of months and make you better.
How can we achieve influence through leadership?
Most people will totally miss their opportunity for influence in this life. I believe every human being is created for a purpose that’s given to them by God. And you better figure that out, because he has one. You are not an accident, you’re not a mistake. He’s got a job for you to do, of some sort, and there are many beautiful jobs. Raising your children is a beautiful job. You might get a job being a CEO. It’s less beautiful, but it’s a cool job. Whatever you’re given, what are you going to do with the platform for influence you’ve been given? Discover your purpose as soon as you can, and do everything in your capability to live it out.
