From Scrambled Eggs to Empowered Leadership - Joshua Miller’s Journey to Organizational Clarity

What happens when empowered leadership goes unchecked - and everyone "starts running with scissors?"

In this episode of Leadership Levers, Joshua Miller, Founder & Principal of Remarkable Foods, shares how his food service consulting work revealed a hidden leadership trap - giving too much freedom without clear frameworks.

Joshua’s journey started with scrambled eggs at age eight and evolved into executive leadership in the food service industry. 

Today, he helps organizations turn chaos into clarity by building cultures where process and empowerment work together.

A great real-world example - a client’s well-meaning efforts to empower leaders & managers led to confusion, overlapping innovations, and operational slowdown. 

Joshua stepped in to help realign, but there was a turning point - a discovery process that surfaced surprising insights through confidential, one-on-one interviews - showing that even in dysfunction, the team deeply respected their leaders, wanted to improve and drive growth. 

Joshua walks through:

• Why process - not people - was a real problem in this leadership challenge
• The downside of innovation without alignment or structure
• How linear thinking can be a leadership asset or a liability
• Why psychological safety and clear feedback loops drive better outcomes
• His reminder that leading others well starts with treating them how you'd want to be led. 

For leaders navigating complex teams or culture drift, this episode offers practical insight into how empowered leadership and intentional process can unlock performance.

We'd love your feedback on how we can improve - send us a Text!!

Seeking to align your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges. Not ready? Join our PL3 Community for free insights & connections.

Episode Transcript

William Gladhart (00:00):
Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast.
I'm your host, Will Gladheart,CMO at the Culture Think Tank.
At the Culture Think Tank, weempower leaders with metrics
that strengthen culture, driveperformance and return.
We're here today to learn aboutthe actions leaders have taken
to address organizational change.

(00:21):
Today, our guest is JoshuaMiller, founder and principal at
Remarkable Foods.
Thanks for taking the time tojoin us.

Joshua Miller (00:31):
Thank you for having me

William Gladhart (00:32):
Excellent.
Well, let's begin by having youshare with our audience a bit
about yourself, your backgroundand your organization.

Joshua Miller (00:39):
Yeah, so I'm founder and principal of
Remarkable Foods, as you said,and really food service
obviously is where I am andthat's where I've always wanted
to be, Since the moment I madescrambled eggs at the age of
like eight.
That was the first thing I evercooked.
Looked up at, my mom said Iwant to be a chef.
That never stopped or sloweddown and I've been like married
to the industry ever since.
That's how I got started in itand today I'm a former executive

(01:06):
chef and culinary director fora food service management
company before I decided toventure off and start this
business along with my wifepartner obviously in life and
business to do this venture ofconsulting, management, advisory
services for food serviceorganizations, Really just
trying to make innovationaccessible and implemented into
organizations through training,culinary strategies and
operations.

William Gladhart (01:26):
Yeah, it's definitely a unique field to be
in, for sure that you're one ofthe few leaders that we've had
on recently that has abackground in that particular
area.
It's usually sometimesmanufacturing, tech, etc.
So, as we begin today, we'll betalking about three questions
as a warm-up to start ourconversation.
Would you share why you believea healthy culture is critical?

Joshua Miller (01:48):
I believe it's critical because it drives
everything in organizations.
I don't care if you're anonprofit, I don't care if
you're a for-profit organization, I don't care if you're a food
service or manufacturing,whatever it is right.
It drives everything.
And we know in business there'salways, especially top
leadership are looking at KPIs,measurables, finances, all that
stuff.

(02:09):
If you really look at theculture, it's not just oh, what
is our financial culture like,it's not oh, what is our safety
culture like, what is theculture outside of those
measurables?
Before you even start thinkingabout, oh, we need to make these
improvements and we need to hitthese targets, Because really I
think that that's where itstarts to make improvements to
everything you can measure.

William Gladhart (02:30):
Yeah, I think that's a really valid point,
because without people, withoutthe people that built the
business, but also without themfacilitating change and growth,
that's not going to happen, nomatter how good your numbers are
, no matter how good yourconsulting services are, etc.
It's been our experience,joshua, that leaders tend to
struggle in three key areaspeople, process or profit.

(02:50):
You know in your role as aleader and working with other
leaders.
Could you identify which one ofthese three areas presents a
cultural challenge?

Joshua Miller (02:59):
Yeah.
So I would say, for me it wouldbe process.
If you ask my wife, it'sprobably people.
We're small and people meaningme, Because sometimes the
process for me that I feel likeit's one of those double-edged
swords I've always saidthroughout the years of like,
yeah, I love data, I lovegetting into details, I'm very

(03:19):
detail-oriented, I'm veryprocess-oriented.
And then my wife said somethingto me one day.
She says you know what?
You're very linear thinking.
And I was like I've heard thatbefore, like that sounds like it
might be it.
Give me the definition.
And she read it to me and I waslike, yep, that's me, and so
I'm going to actually spell itout here.
So linear thinking is theproblem-solving approach that

(03:42):
involves a step by stepframework, logical progression
from a starting point to aconclusion, and so it's
characterized by sequential andanalytical mindset, often
relying on established rules,formulas and patterns.
And that is me, that is me to aT.
And what I've realized is thatthat can be a double edged sword

(04:02):
, especially in business,especially dealing with clients.
Right, because I want it canlead to like almost this data
dump, right Of information, andit's like you hire consultants
for expertise and time, eitherone, both or together.
And it's like In food service,time is probably up there right
On you know we need to hit thesegoals.

(04:23):
We need to.
You know we have, you knowthings that we need to improve
on.
You have the time.
Help us get there.
And then that doesn't help whenI come in and like data dump on
them and like we don't need toknow the period and the column
of everything that's happeningin our project.
So that's where I feel likeit's been a challenge.
For me personally, it's a giftand a curse.

William Gladhart (04:44):
Yeah, as you've been working with that
personal challenge, but also asyou've been working with other
leaders, was there a particularchallenge that had a negative
impact on an organization,either culturally or process?

Joshua Miller (04:57):
wise, yeah, yeah, definitely.
So, in terms of challenge, froma culture standpoint, there is
this empowered leadershipculture is where you give a lot
of freedom to the leaders.
They don't have to be seniorleadership right, just your.
It could be your managers,entry level managers,

(05:17):
supervisors.
Giving that empowerment to themto help solve challenges is
great, for I think, from a hypercollaboration standpoint and
working together towards acommon goal, but without
frameworks, without guardrailsin place, it can lead to it
going off the rails where nowthere's too many what's the
saying?
Too many Indians, I don't knowcheese, something like that,

(05:38):
right.

William Gladhart (05:38):
Well, I think, I think the better term is we
call it idea fairies, where,like, there's an idea for
everything and then magicallythings start to happen and then
everybody gets really confused,because there's lack of clarity,
so I'm sure you can appreciatethat.

Joshua Miller (05:57):
That is exactly it, and that's exactly what we
encountered in the discoveryprocess with them is that like
this is it's great, but it'salso not great because there's
not enough like management ofall the different things that
everyone's trying to do andaccomplish.
There's no singular roadmap.
It's just kind of like everyonerunning around with scissors,

(06:19):
running around with scissors isthe way to say it.

William Gladhart (06:22):
Yeah, that's a good descriptor.
Well, and you probably foundalso with this client, it was
impacting productivity,innovation operations, where
things had just either slowed toa crawl because nobody knew
what was going on, but therewere lots of ideas about what
should be happening.

Joshua Miller (06:38):
It's still a challenge to rein it in from an
outside perspective.
Right, obviously, theirorganization, they're separate
from us.
We're just there to advise.
While it's been helpful some ofthe things we've been bringing
to their attention, it's alsoit's hard to know that there's
only so much we can do.
Right, we can give advice, butthey have to keep going, going

(06:59):
with the business and we have tokeep going on the rest of the
project as well.
One thing I would say for surethat I loved is in that
discovery process.
Yes, it brings challenges.
Eventually you hit the pointwhere you're working against
yourself because you're tryingso many different innovations in
so many different arms in somany ways that it starts to slow
things down, it starts to makeit a headache for your operators

(07:20):
.
They have too many systems towork with because everyone had
great ideas and there wasn'talignment on it.
And at the end of the day,though, in those one-on-ones,
which was actually the clientloved that, because in a group
setting you might keep thingshush-hush, you may hold back,
but I mean, we made it veryclear in these one-on-ones the
good, the bad, the ugly,everything in between let it out

(07:43):
, because, at the end of the day, a report and everything that's
said isn't going to have namesattached to it.
We just want to know the facts.
It was really awesome to hearlike, even despite all of those
downfalls, people really lovedworking for their leader and
they want to make improvements.
So it's like you guys can getthrough this together because
you're already in it and it'slike you.

William Gladhart (08:06):
Right.
I think that anonymity, butalso the ability to provide that
feedback to the leader withcourse and direction, where it
was that personal check-in withevery person, I mean I know
those are very timely but alsohugely critical because you
really do start to understandhow vested people are in the
business, how much they lovetheir role.
They just sometimes needclarity, direction, a little

(08:28):
focus and better communicationfrom the leader which helps
everyone understand what theirnext steps are going to be.
I think that kind of rolls intoour next question, that you
know what was maybe one thingyou identified that helped
impact either your culture andyour business or a client's
culture positively.

Joshua Miller (08:45):
Yeah, I would say it is.
That was eye-opening for me,because we all know we can.
No one likes micromanagement,right, I don't like
micromanagement.
I never met anyone that likesbeing micromanaged.

William Gladhart (08:57):
It's our top requested stop behavior, stop
micromanaging us.

Joshua Miller (09:02):
So I'm going to say I'm actually going to go
with that.
That empowered leadershipculture has been mesmerizing for
me and I wish that moreorganizations would take that on
.

William Gladhart (09:12):
Very cool.
Well, as we wrap up today, isthere anything else you'd like
to share or add for fellowleaders?

Joshua Miller (09:18):
Yeah.
So, going along with that lastanswer, I would definitely say
treat others as you want to betreated, right, it's easy to say
don't micromanage.
I know I've been a micromanager.
I feel like at times maybe notthe worst, but definitely had
those tendencies At the sametime, if you just look at the
people that you're working withand people that refer to you

(09:38):
knowing that, hey, they probablywant to have some empowered
leadership, some empowereddecisions and control over what
they're doing.
Just treat them the way thatyou would want to be treated in
their position and you'llprobably get to good results
with that.

William Gladhart (09:52):
Yeah, I think that's some really wise advice.
Joshua, I've enjoyed having youon our Leadership Levers
podcast.
Thank you so much for your timeand your insights, thank, you
for having me.
Thank you for joining us on theLeadership Levers podcast.
Find all our Leadership Loversepisodes on the Culture Think
Tank website at www.

(10:14):
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com or listen on your favoritestreaming platform.
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