The Power of Love in Leadership with Monty Moran, former CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill

Monty Moran is the former co-CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. Prior to joining Chipotle, he was head of litigation and CEO at a Denver-based law firm for ten years. 

Most recently, Monty realized his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot, and flies his airplane throughout the United States to pursue his interest in better understanding and serving Americans, a quest he documents through his startup, Old Tale Productions. 

He is also the author of the book Love is Free. Guac is Extra: How Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Curiosity Built an Unstoppable Team.

In our world, most people are uncomfortable with using the word “love” when it comes to business. Monty helps us understand that love doesn’t have to just be a “fluff” word but that it can mean truly caring about your people, empowering them, and bringing the best out in them. 

Monty shares about his time at Chipotle and how he worked to build a culture of empowerment. We all know what it’s like to feel disappointed after a lack-luster retail experience where the staff appear less than enthusiastic to be there. Monty believes that often comes from a culture where the employees are not empowered. He defines empowerment as feeling confident in your ability, encouraged by your circumstances, such that you feel motivated and at liberty to fully devote your talents to a purpose. And when you have a culture of empowered people, you can then feel that energy across the counter.

In order to create that culture, Monty knew he couldn’t spend all of (or most of) his time in the corporate office. As the CEO, he spend most of his time in the restaurants in one-on-one conversations with employees. In this conversations, he got to know who they were as people as well as how they felt about the company and what was going well—and what wasn’t so great.

Monty also shares about the importance of vulnerability in leadership and being your real, genuine self. Because he believes the only source of power for a leader is the people who choose to follow that leader. So we have to ask ourselves as leaders: Why would someone follow me? People won’t follow you if you’re not worthy of being followed—or if they don’t believe you’re being real or genuine. He shares the story of leading his first meeting at Chipotle and how a moment of true vulnerability set the tone for how he was perceived as a leader.

Monty and Adam round out the conversation by talking about Monty’s “controversial” view of work-life balance: He doesn’t believe in it! Work-life balance implies that life and work are completely separate, but we don’t stop living when we go to work. Everyone wants something different from our work and our life, and the key is to determine what amount of overlap is going to fulfill us.

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