Reflective Blog II

Reflective Blog II

For my second reflective blog I am searching for a business person who impressed me during my stay in Chicago. I decided to write about Lee Green, the owner of Faithful to Foods Inc. and founder of Scrumptious Pantry.

Scrumptious Pantry grew out of Lee Greene’s passion for good food. She joined the management team of a small biodynamic winery in Tuscany and feel the challenges of small quality farmers and winemakers. Thus she developed the idea of a food brand, that would highlight organic ingredients, farm-fresh vegetables and  traditional recipes: Scrumptious Pantry was born. She remembers, “In a couple of weeks I knew my life had changed. All the beautiful food! And the culture of enjoying meals! It blew me away. I knew I had to be part of this.” (foodspring.com)

The Scrumptious Pantry is all about giving food a face, transporting the idea of a Farmer’s Market into the retail environment. The company is built on partnerships between Greene and artisan farmers. (http://scrumptiouspantry.com/)

I guess, Lee uses the participative/ democratic leadership style. She  guide her employees, tell them what to do, then leave them alone with their work. She allows new ideas because her business grows with creative and motivated people. Lee encourage her employees to participate but also controls them in a certain way.

As seen above Lee has characteristics of a democratic leader: She encourages employees to share ideas and opinions, even though she makes the final decisions. Lee support creativity and makes the group feel as a part of the company. Democratic leadership techniques generally will do a better job creating job satisfaction because it promotes participation, control and autonomy. Greater employee participation in decision-making may also lead to greater innovation and creative solutions to problems.                                

I like her open friendly direct way to communicate. She seems to be a woman who knows where to go. Her business idea is her life and she does, did and would do everything in order to realize it.

Lee is a very charismatic leader who is able to lead and motivate her selected team of experts. She just hired people who really support her business idea and who are able to identify with her dream.

She inspired me to think about my dreams, what I really want to do the rest of my life. She said that everyone should do a job he or she would die for, an idea you can not life without. I think she is absolutely right and that makes me think about my own interests and what I would really love to do. Lee said if you find this thing that makes sense to you and that you want to realize, you will love working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, because you are fascinated of your own work. I hope that I will come to this point in my life when I have her passion and ambition.