I was away from work on holidays for five of the last six weeks. While I was away, our team advanced work, made hard decisions (some of which I probably wouldn’t have made), and generated great ideas. The high performance of our team without the boss got me thinking of how The Bear – the restaurant of the same name in FX’s hit and award winning show The Bear – overdelivers customer experience, quality, and team-cohesion when Carmy, the mercurial boy genius head chef, isn’t in the restaurant (or when he’s locked in a fridge). This is how The Bear shows why leaders gain more by letting go.

Some companies overperform when their CEOs go on vacation because it’s a way to test if the business can run smoothly without the boss around. By empowering teammates and subordinates and planning to address leadership gaps, organizations can make sure nobody has to call the CEO on a beach in Croatia to ask where the stapler is or make a monthly budget decision. When things run smoothly in the absence of leadership, it demonstrates that both the team and the organization are operating at a high level of efficiency and preparedness.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings takes six weeks of vacation each year, prioritizing health, creativity, and performance. He believes time off sparks innovation and sets a positive example for his team. Netflix continues to thrive during his absences, proving the company’s strength and the effectiveness of his leadership approach.

The Bear is one of my favourite television shows and Season Two is basically perfect television. Here is an example of The Bear’s team stepping up when their leader is locked in a fridge, which perfectly captures why leaders gain more by letting go (it’s also a perfect scene of television):

High performing teams are empowered to solve problems and innovate. One of the best ways to enable this in people and teams is for senior leaders to delegate responsibility often and with higher stakes, which unintentionally unfolds when Carmy, the genius-micromanaging-tortured-chaotic-caring-scared-heartbroken-Founder of The Bear, gets locked in the walk-in fridge.

Here is how The Bear shows why leaders gain more by letting go.

Find, develop, and enable great people

Carmy has an eye for talent. His decision to bring Sydney into The Bear’s (formerly The Beef’s) family elevates the restaurant’s precision, innovation, and collaboration. In Season 4, Syd’s risotto and Richie’s VIP service are the products and activities that reflect the restaurant’s exceptional dining experience, not Carmy’s monomaniacal attention to detail and need for control.

Carmy’s willingness to give Richie more responsibility, including front-of-house leadership and guest relations, transforms Richie’s chaotic energy into a stabilizing, morale-boosting force. When Carmy steps back, Richie flourishes, leading to smoother service and happier staff.

By investing in Marcus’s, the beloved-donut-obsessed-pastry chef, potential and allowing him to experiment with pastry, Carmy builds a deeper bench of talent for The Bear, ultimately driving culinary innovation. When Carmy shifts from micromanaging to empowering Marcus and Richie, both flourish. Marcus expands his talents in Copenhagen, while Richie grows into a polished professional through staging experience. These examples show that nurturing individual growth not only elevates team performance but also advances the restaurant’s creative edge.

Great organizations don’t just develop middle managers to innovate and solve problems. Companies like Southwest Airlines and Hilton Hotels are renowned for empowering frontline workers to take ownership of the customer experience by solving problems in the flow as work as close as possible to clients. The Ritz-Carlton enables frontline decision-making by giving hotel concierges up to $2,000 to elevate the guest experience.

Is The Bear the psychologically safest space … ever?!

Counter-intuitively, the constant arguments and challenges to Carmy’s authority in The Bear represent how the team has very high levels of psychological safety. Famously, Google’s “Project Aristotle” found the psychological safety, not skill levels, expertise, education, or individual performance, is the secret sauce for high-performing teams.

Sydney and Richie repeatedly challenge Carmy’s authority, pushing back when they believe his decisions are misguided. For instance, Syd openly confronts Carmy about his resistance to menu innovation and stands her ground when he tries to override her suggestions. Richie, once chaotic, steps up to question Carmy’s leadership style during service, advocating for smoother operations and staff morale. These moments of candid disagreement reflect a culture where honesty and improvement outweigh blind compliance.

Research from Harvard Business Review highlights that psychological safety enables team members to take moderate risks, speak their minds, be creative, and stick their necks out without fear of reprisal; these are key ingredients for high performance. Amy Edmondson’s work identifies it as essential for learning organizations, which should be the goal of every high-performing team, especially a kitchen. In The Bear, this environment empowers staff to innovate and hold each other accountable, driving collective success.

The Bear is a toxic workplace, don’t get me wrong. There is so, so much yelling! This said, as Carmy delegates more because of the feedback he receives and the capabilities he notices in the team, the chefs feel a sense of ownership over their work. Syd’s initiative in organizing the kitchen, Richie’s hiring of “non-negotiables”, and Marcus’s experiments with pastry show how autonomy leads to pride and accountability.

Lock yourself in a fridge

(Or go on vacation). The ultimate test of a leader’s development of their team comes when the leader is unexpectedly removed from the equation, as demonstrated when Carmy gets locked in the fridge during The Bear’s soft opening.

Carmy’s obsessive focus on perfection often leads to bottlenecks and creative misalignment. When he can’t oversee every … little … thing, Syd and Richie lean into their autonomy. Allowing Syd and Richie autonomy alleviates stress and increases efficiency.

Effective succession planning and delegation ensure teams thrive in the absence of leaders. As seen in The Bear’s freezer episode, performance ascends when leaders empower knowledge transfer and autonomy, echoing military and industry best practices for sustainable excellence. Carmy’s succession planning and delegation, echoing research that effective leaders cultivate independence and sustainable development, ensuring teams thrive even during crises and leadership absences.

Carmy’s willingness to finally admit his limitations and seek help at the end of Season 4, whether in group meetings or personal moments, signals to the team that vulnerability is not a weakness. Throughout the evolution of Carmy and his restaurant, his openness inspires others to step up, enabling The Beef to realize its potential as The Bear.