Blog and thoughts
From Kitchen to Clinic: How Leadership, Self-Efficacy, and Psychological Safety Shaped My Path to Therapy
Before becoming a therapist, I spent over two decades in the culinary industry. My journey began in a Long John Silver’s in Southwest Virginia, where I fried frozen fish as a teenager. It culminated in co-owning a busy modern Californian restaurant in Los Feliz. Through that journey—from fast food to fine dining—I witnessed firsthand that the most critical factor in a restaurant’s success wasn’t its concept, cuisine, or cost: it was the team.
Every restaurant I worked in, consulted for, or helped build succeeded or failed based on its culture. Kitchens are intense. They demand precision, repetition, and flexibility under constant pressure. Team members are expected to adapt instantly to shifting conditions—raw ingredients, customer demands, interpersonal tensions, and business volume—all while executing with excellence. It’s no surprise that restaurants are often plagued by burnout, conflict, high turnover, and emotional volatility.
Over time, I began to ask a different kind of question—not just how do we run a successful restaurant? but what allows people to thrive in high-stress environments? The answer, I discovered, lay in the psychological dynamics of the team, particularly in the concept of psychological safety—a group climate where people feel safe to take interpersonal risks, ask for help, and admit mistakes without fear of humiliation or punishment.
Building Better Kitchens Through Psychological Safety
Combating the adversarial culture that often dominates kitchens became a mission of mine. I began implementing leadership practices rooted in kindness, curiosity, and empathy. I studied group dynamics, systems thinking, and communication models. I moved away from rigid hierarchical structures toward more holacratic ones—networks where team members are treated as autonomous, interdependent contributors.
This shift wasn't just ideological—it was functional. As Arthur Koestler’s theory of holarchy suggests, people operate best when they’re respected as both individual “wholes” and essential parts of a larger system. In a psychologically safe kitchen, each member’s strengths are recognized, each person’s voice matters, and feedback flows both ways.
The benefits were profound: morale improved, retention increased, the quality of our food and service grew—and so did the team’s sense of self-efficacy, or belief in their own ability to meet challenges. When people feel capable, valued, and supported, they don’t just perform better—they become more resilient and confident in all areas of life.
Understanding Power and Leadership
In studying what made some leaders effective and others harmful, I came across political theorist Steven Lukes’ three dimensions of power:
Directive power (telling others what to do)
Procedural power (shaping the rules and processes)
Discursive power (influencing what is seen as real, legitimate, or desirable)
As I moved up the traditional brigade system of kitchen hierarchy, I realized my own mental health improved—not because I worked less, but because I had more control over my work. Research shows that holding power, especially discursive and procedural power, is correlated with better mental health. It fosters autonomy, reduces burnout, and buffers the psychological costs of demanding labor (Demerouti, 2001).
Recognizing this, I made it my goal to share that power, not hoard it. I began helping others access that same sense of control and confidence. We restructured our kitchens to include more team voice and agency. We celebrated small wins. We invited mistakes and viewed them as learning opportunities. The result was not just better food—it was healthier people.
Leadership Principles in the Therapy Room
When I transitioned to psychotherapy, I realized that much of what I had practiced in kitchens was directly applicable to the therapy space. People don’t change because they’re told to; they change because they feel seen, respected, and supported. I bring the same principles to my clinical work that I brought to my kitchens:
Psychological safety as the foundation for growth
Empathy and presence over control and authority
Empowerment through collaboration, not compliance
Resilience through self-efficacy and reflection
Informed by the work of Kouzes and Posner, I also embrace their Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:
Challenging the process
Inspiring a shared vision
Enabling others to act
Modeling the way
Encouraging the heart
Whether I’m working with clients, supervising associates, or building therapeutic communities, these practices guide how I lead and relate. My aim is to create spaces where people can safely be vulnerable, take risks, and build new narratives about themselves and their capacities.
From the Line to the Couch: A Shared Vision for Change
Therapy, like a kitchen, is a collaborative environment. There’s pressure, there are patterns, and there are possibilities. My clinical lens has been shaped not just by academia and training, but by years in the heat of high-stakes, emotionally rich, and often messy group dynamics. I know what it’s like to lead a team under stress. I know what it’s like to feel burned out, to struggle with authority, to crave safety and growth. And I know the transformative power of being believed in.
Today, I work with individuals, couples, and groups to help them build that same internal culture of safety and empowerment. Whether you're navigating life transitions, recovering from burnout, or healing old relational wounds, we can build something better together—something sustainable, meaningful, and real.
Because growth isn’t just about surviving the heat—it’s about learning how to transform it.