Cheryl Bachelder's Visionary And Ethical Leadership

Base jumping, hang gliding and wind surfing may be a few activities that come to mind when thinking of ‘extreme sports,’ but what about leadership? Can leadership be an ‘extreme’ sport? Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, Cheryl Bachelder, believes so. On her personal website she posted a personal quote, “Leadership is an extreme sport requiring both courage and humility” (Bachelder, 2018). Cheryl Bachelder is a visionary and ethical leader who displayed ‘extreme leadership’ while leading Popeye’s from underperforming in 2007, to exceeding employee and stakeholder expectations in 2017. This paper will highlight Cheryl’s visionary and ethical leadership approach and how she has impacted my personal leadership

Ethics is defined as basic concepts or principles of human conduct and the study of universal values (business.com, 2018). In her book, Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others, Cheryl illustrated her ethical leadership skills by developing organizational values (Bachelder, 2015). Thomas N. Barnes Center for Enlisted Education (BCEE) defines values as core beliefs regarding what is right and what is fair in terms of one’s actions and interactions with others (BCEE, 2017c, p. 4). Through a series of stakeholder meetings, Cheryl and her team developed six core principles that helped guide employees to achieve their collective purpose, “to inspire servant leaders to achieve superior results” (Bachelder, 2015). This helped align the organization to work together to achieve organizational goals.

Once the organizational values were established, Cheryl utilized critical thinking and reasoning elements that identified individual purpose, goals and objectives for each employee (BCEE, 2017a, p. 11). She instituted a process to further develop employees and managers by asking them to create ‘personal purpose’ statements, requiring managers to assist employees in connecting their individual purpose with the overall organizational goal (Bachelder,

Our current commander instituted his personal leadership philosophy last summer and has an expectation for all leaders to champion his organizational vision and goals. I ensured everyone in my section had a solid understanding of his leadership philosophy, as well as the new organizational vision and goals. I also posted them in our office for quick reference and review the information during our weekly staff meetings. This helps to ensure we, as an office, are supporting the values of the