Kayla Morrison

"For however long you plan to speak, that's how long you should plan." So for me this applied to everything. If I was hosting an hour-long meeting, then I spent at least an hour preparing for that meeting. 15-minute pre-shift, I better be planning for 15 minutes, and so forth. It just gave me such an easy perspective on how to best captivate and inspire my team by having a clear and confident voice.

If we take it all the way back, I was slinging Blizzards at Dairy Queen at 15 years old. I'd like to think this is where I got my first taste of bartending! However, I started in my first full-service restaurant just a year later and never looked back. I was addicted to it. The excitement, the chaos, the challenge, the connection. It all fed me in a way that I don't feel I could get anywhere else. I have always said that the best hospitality people are those who are nourished by nourishing others, and that nourishment takes many forms other than food.

Sometimes that left me in positions I didn't always love, but I found ways to learn in each of them. Having a sightline of what you hope your path to be is vital, even if that evolves over time.

Being highly organized and being able to communicate clearly and effectively across multiple mediums contributes to my success, but ultimately, we're in the people business. Our jobs are to connect and get emotional buy-in from our teams so we can build trust to push them and grow them. And that's really it. The job is about being a mentor and creating future leaders.

If I ask you a question and you don't know the answer, I want to see you smile or laugh through it. It's impossible to know everything, but I want to see if you're willing to learn.

I carve time out to just think about how to be better, for myself or for my team. It could be as simple as not listening to a podcast or music in the car and just giving myself a little windshield time to reflect. In those moments, I'm honest with myself on where I'm failing and how I can be better. It's generally where I come up with my most outlandish (sometimes genius) ideas. Having a sense of direction and control over creating positive impact keeps me motivated.

The ways in which we take care of people are paramount to any other aspect of what we do.

Ballyhoo is so fortunate to have all of its locations at an arm's reach, but the GMs weren't as connected as I would have hoped. So I planned some mandatory bonding. Instead of dinner, escape room, or some other played-out adventure, I took them all to Six Flags for a day during Fright Night. And I tell you what - you don't know bonding until you are forced to be vulnerable and hold hands through a haunted house or scream on a roller coaster. That experience took a group of professionals and made them a team.

I'd like to think I've inspired young women I've mentored to take on leadership roles, in restaurants or otherwise, simply by showing them how it can be done.

I use Google Calendar invites for EVERYTHING. It's my coping mechanism to know where I need to be, what I need to be doing, and who I am accountable to that day.

And that can run you into the ground. Now more than ever, in a Director role, the job is never done. So I've learned that tomorrow is another day to tackle everything on my plate and progress is progress.

The same challenge and gratification you get from a wild and crazy shift, I get from climbing a mountain. I tend to choose hikes that will likely have me questioning my strength and grit but the feeling of accomplishment when you overcome those physical and mental battles is incredible.