At the heart of Chick-fil-A’s iconic culture is a simple but consistent focus on studying and developing good leaders.
Mark Miller, the former Vice President, High Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A, was there decades ago as the company first asked what it takes to be an effective leader. He was also there leading the charge as they worked to scale the learnings they found. He and Maril discuss the traits that set transformative leaders apart; the power of asking questions; why unclear aspiration is the root of so much organizational culture struggle; and why it’s so important for leaders to value both relationships and results.
About Mark Miller
Mark Miller is a Wall Street Journal and international best-selling author, communicator, and the former Vice President of High Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A. Mark’s leadership journey at Chick-fil-A spanned 45 years beginning as an hourly team member in a local restaurant, and during his tenure the company grew from seventy-five restaurants to over 2,700 locations with annual sales exceeding $19 billion. Today, Mark serves as the Co-Founder of Lead Every Day.
Mark began writing almost twenty years ago, and with over one million books in print in more than twenty-five languages, his global impact continues to grow. In addition to his writing, Mark enjoys encouraging and equipping leaders. Over the years, he’s traveled to dozens of countries teaching for numerous international organizations.
Married to Donna, his high school sweetheart of forty years, they have two sons, Justin and David, a daughter-in-law Lindsay, and three amazing grandchildren Addie, Logan, and Finn.
About Let Go & Lead
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Full episodes are also available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
About Gagen MacDonald
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
