IDDBA's Fresh Take on Leadership Growth and Grocery Retail
Today the grocery retail market in North America is valued at approximately CAN$2.4 trillion, which includes various retail channels that have evolved over decades.
Convenience stores, club stores, and online channels have not only grown to compete with traditional grocery stores and supermarkets, they have also influenced how those stores operate. These rapidly changing dynamics within the market have challenged grocery retail leaders to adjust and innovate in order to maintain profitability.
Leadership As Competitive Advantage
Now more than ever, grocery retailers that invest in leadership development will gain a competitive advantage in the market. Strong leadership combined with a commitment to constant innovation will ensure success.
But what is the best approach to leadership development?
International Dairy Deli Bakery Association (IDDBA) recently addressed this topic through its Fresh Take podcast. IDDBA Vice President of Marketing and Membership, Kat Shannahan, welcomed Steve Asp, Category Manager with Lunds & Byerlys, and Ellen Cotney, IDDBA Education Coordinator, to share their experiences with the IDDBA Leadership Academy.
The main takeaway: leadership growth is rarely linear, not always dependent on formal training, and can be fostered through employer investment.
Leadership Growth is a Journey
Not every pathway to leadership is straightforward. It often has its ups and downs within an industry–as well as jumps or leaps across industries. The key is to keep momentum by retaining lessons-learned and applying them to new situations.
Cotney shared that this is something that took time to understand, “I've learned in the food industry to be more open (to new experiences). You can be bad at something for a while as you learn how to do it, and that's okay, and that's how you get better at things. That's how you develop new skills.”
She also reflected on her leadership journey across industries, from software, to pastry, to equipment sales, to food education, “At the time (my journey) felt like a very winding road. Looking back now it's like ‘oh this actually makes total sense now’.”
Leadership Through Experience and Training
Many of the most important lessons in leadership are learned through experience, however formal training provides time and space to develop leadership skills.
Asp recounted, “For me, I started at a young age within the food grocery industry. All of my knowledge and experience has been on the job and just learning from others.” Still he credits formal training for helping him fine tune those skills, “ultimately (formal training) helped me re-energize. It reinforced a lot of the things that maybe I already knew and helped me polish some of the skills that I already had. It gave me some different ideas to approach business.”
Asp’s leadership journey has been one of increased responsibility and widening scope within the same industry across two companies, but he has seen how experience and formal education can combine to increase leadership growth. And most importantly, he sees why that matters–beyond the bottom line, ”it's (important) to remember and center ourselves back to (our impact), we source good food for the people that live in our communities.”
Investing in Leadership, Your People
As grocery retailers face increased competition, the leadership growth of their employees will be key to their success. This makes it vital that retailers proactively support leadership growth. It is important for both the employees who want to grow with a company and the retailers that are struggling to maintain profitability.
Supporting leadership growth in employees is not simply an expense, it is an investment in company growth that cannot be overlooked. This is something that Asp echoed, “it's going to make the company more successful. So that investment will pay for itself over time. It’s an investment of time and money, but it'll pay dividends down the road.”
IDDBA Offers Resources for Leadership and More
Membership in IDDBA provides member companies with a wide array of resources that support ongoing operations and professional development. To learn more about IDDBA Leadership Academy, available scholarships, and how your company can become an IDDBA member organization, visit iddba.org.