What Bakers Delight's Lesley Gillespie knows about leadership and getting a degree - Women's Agenda

What Bakers Delight’s Lesley Gillespie knows about leadership and getting a degree

When it comes to education opportunities that create good leaders, co-founder of Bakers Delight Lesley Gillespie says “anything that opens up your mind” is a good thing for your business acumen.

“You’ll always hear about the Mark Zuckerbergs and Steve Jobs that dropped out [of uni], but nobody ever talks about the ones that finished their degrees,” Gillespie says.

Speaking to our friends at SmartCompany, Gillespie says her own undergraduate degree in science and a diploma of education from Monash University were incredibly valuable to her in starting Bakers Delight, despite not being directly related to the business.

“I think one thing is doing a degree requires a bit of work ethic, and requires resilience and discipline. It set me up for starting a business,” she says.

Gillespie co-founded Bakers Delight with her husband Roger Gillespie and the business now operates more than 700 bakeries in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US, the vast majority of which are franchised.

The Gillespies recently handed the chief executive reigns of their $614 million business over to their daughter and son-in-law, Elise Gillespie and David Christie, in a move Lesley Gillespie says was made after the pair “earned their stripes” over a number of years.

Below are three takeaways from one of the nation’s most prominent retail entrepreneurs about what’s truly important for running a successful business.

The value of new connections

Gillespie she says the nature of business is that often you get “bound up” with your other responsibilities, but forming new relationships with people outside your circle is incredibly important.

“It’s important because it’s not only fun, but because you meet people, you make connections, and you meet people who you might be able to benefit and benefit you,” she says.

The importance of asking and doing

“On Monday, I gave a talk and was on a panel about being ‘career-ready’,” Gillespie says.“One young lass, she said, ‘I would really like a job at one of your Bakers Delight stores’.”

Gillespie says she doesn’t see nearly enough young people putting themselves forward to get what they want like this, but appreciated the approach. She was happy to be able to do something tangible to help, rather than just discuss leadership at the event.

“I’ve passed her name on,” Gillespie says.

Day to day, Gillespie says her approach to tasks is about knowing “that I’ve done as much as I possibly can without being stupid,” and that tackling the most urgent tasks first is a big priority.

She says seeing the franchise network and individual business owners grow has been hands down the most enjoyable part of building the Bakers Delight business. She has a strong focus on how others develop, and adds that the team around her is so strong that if she wasn’t involved, “they’d miss me a bit” but would be able to carry on.

Family leadership lessons

The Gillespies may have passed chief executive responsibilities on to the next generation, but Lesley says emphatically this has not been an automatic process.

“It wasn’t cold turkey, like, ‘you’ve been fluffing around travelling and now you’ll be CEO’,” she explains.

Instead, Elise Gillespie and husband David Christie have previously told SmartCompany they learned the tools of the trade over several years.

And Lesley Gillespie says the transition is an ongoing conversation.

“We formalised meetings every week, with the four of us. Our son leads up the Canada team, and we would have a monthly meeting with him,” she says.

Gillespie is clear in prioritising work ethic and discipline as key elements of a successful business person, and when it came to finding new chief executives, her family had proved themselves, she says.

“They all showed commitment, talent and ability,” she says.

This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Smart Company

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