A Humble Start Taught Me the Real Test of Leadership Development

I learned to run a business by washing dishes and cleaning public toilets.

That was the start. I studied food & beverage and hotel management, where you either work from the bottom or you never understand the work.

The retail catering chains I joined after were humble places. The owners drove ordinary cars and flew economy. Thin margins, long hours, relentless competition. We weighed every portion and saved every offcut, because that could be the difference between a good month and a bad one.

That start taught me how a business runs, and who it runs on. People who poured their sweat into the work, where every cent was counted and spent with care.

I still carry that spirit. So when a company puts money into developing its leaders, I treat it the same way: it has to come back, and come back bigger.

If you want a partner who develops your leaders with the same obsession you run your business, let's talk.

Btw, I built a free assessment that checks whether your leadership development is set up to produce results or set up to produce activity. Five minutes, an instant answer:

https://leapcatalyst.co/invest

The mind behind this:

Dorothy Tsui is the Director and Founder of Leap Catalyst. 20+ years as a consultant and coach in people and organization development, after coming up on the business side where result measurement was not optional. She has a sharp eye for the absurd and a low tolerance for fluff. Her clients get straight talk and results they can defend.