reflection 5

HTM424: HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT

Student’s Name:

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1. What values, or enduring beliefs, drive you as a leader?

Leadership values are the core beliefs and principles that guide leaders in their professional lives. They are the beliefs necessary for the achievement of desired goals.

The first value that drives me is integrity which involves being honest when nobody is watching. I believe that I must instill integrity in every aspect I do to gain honest rewards. For example, when compiling payments for the clients, I must be honest in providing the correct amounts. The other value that drives me is commitment. I believe that commitment is the main way to success and therefore, I must do anything in my power to gain the satisfaction of the clients for high performance (Kouzes & Posner, 2012).

Besides, as a leader, I believe in good customer service to retain and satisfy customers. Good customer service entails meeting the expectations of the customers. Since my job involves interacting with various customers, I must be ready to handle each client effectively and offer the desired services. The other value that drives me is teamwork as I believe that there is more to learn from collaboration and it increases the speed and efficiency of work (Sousa et.al, 2019). Teamwork has helped us in the restaurant to complete duties in time and attend to customers without delay therefore increasing customers’ retention. For example during sessions like Christmas holidays.

Moreover, professionalism value also drives me daily. Professionalism is one important value in the hospitality industry as it determines the reputation of the restaurant which influences the ability to attract customers (Burke, 2018). Although I ensure that all customers’ expectations are met, keeping professionalism at the line of work is more important like descent dressing and avoiding illegal actions.

Therefore, the main values that drive me as a leader are professionalism, integrity, teamwork, customer service, and commitment.

2. What are examples of exemplary behavior that leaders should be demonstrating?

Leadership behavior is the traits and actions that make an individual effective as a leader. Therefore, there exist various behaviors that leaders in the hospitality sector should demonstrate.

The first behavior is that they should be keen to details as they serve and interact with many customers with different requirements. They need to satisfy customers by offering the services as required as a slight mistake can cause dissatisfaction leading to loss of clients. Besides, they should also instill and demonstrate teamwork in their staff as the hospitality sector involves busy periods that require employees to collaborate effectively to ensure all clients are served effectively like during the Christmas holidays (Sousa et.al, 2019).

The leaders should also demonstrate commitment as it relates to success. Since hospitality involves interacting with different people, leaders need to be committed to win the satisfaction of each client. Leaders should devote themselves to ensure that all their customers are satisfied. Besides, they should also have good communication skills such they can communicate clearly by the clients and staff (Kouzes & Posner, 2012). This is essential as they interact with a variety of different backgrounds, age, and nationalities, therefore need to communicate in a way that is clear and understandable.

Moreover, leaders need to demonstrate multitasking ability since this industry involves a variety of tasks like customer service, answer phone calls, and attending to help desk clients (Burke, 2018). They should also demonstrate good customer service behavior and at the same time maintain professionalism like avoiding illegal actions. They need to handle all customers in the same manner and offer the services in a way that meets their expectations.

Therefore, being a leader in the hospitality industry requires one to demonstrate behaviors like commitment, paying attention to details, customer care, good communication, integrity, teamwork, and multitasking.

3. What can leaders do to help their team overcome weaknesses?

Weaknesses are often part of an organization team that leaders should be prepared to address for the success of the business. There are many ways that leaders can help their team overcome their weaknesses.

The first way is through formal and informal training. Since not all employees possess the job skills, training is effective in building these skills, therefore overcoming the weakness (Willink & Babin, 2017). Leaders can organize in-house or out-house training like seminars and conferences. For example, since the hospitality industry involves the use of technology, training helps employees improve their technological skills, speed, and efficiency in using such technologies.

The other way leaders can help the team overcome weaknesses is by encouraging teamwork and collaboration among the staff. One of the best ways to help employees learn and overcome their weaknesses is by allowing them to learn from each other (Woodcock, 2017). Teamwork and collaboration enable people to learn through sharing ideas therefore increasing their knowledge. For example, allocating jobs in groups to encourage teamwork.

Besides, leaders can lead by example to help overcome team weaknesses. Acting as an example motivates and initiates a team to understand and believe that everything is possible. Besides, it initiates the team to look forward to the leader. For example, if an employee has a weakness in completing tasks in time, a leader can overcome by being the first to complete tasks.

Leaders can also overcome weaknesses by embracing open communication and open-door policy. This initiates employees to share their weaknesses where leaders would be able to advise and offer solutions where necessary. The open communication also initiates the team to share their views and weaknesses since it eliminates the environment of fear.

Therefore, leaders can offer training, act as an example, encourage teamwork, embrace open communication, and an open-door policy to overcome team weaknesses.

4. What values do you demand of yourself?

A leadership philosophy is a belief system that guides decision-making. It entails values, principles, and perspectives. The values I demand of myself are as below since I possess others.

Flexibility involves the ability to cope with rapid changes. The hospitality sector requires an individual to be flexible in plans because changes often arise (Burke, 2018). Unfortunately, I am often tied to my initial plans, therefore, flexibility became a challenge. For example, canceling my holiday plans for extra shifts in the restaurant. The other value I demand is creativity as I’m poor at it. Due to stiff competition in the hospitality sector, creativity is one way to differentiate and attract customers, therefore increasing competitive advantage. Besides, I need to improve on cultural awareness since I interact with many people from different cultures. Cultural awareness and adapting to different norms would be essential for interaction and success (Sousa et.al, 2019).

Since I already possess some values like commitment, teamwork, professionalism, honesty, integrity, and service, the other values that I demand of myself are flexibility, creativity, and cultural awareness.

5. Why is important for leaders to take ownership of their situation, even if their employees make mistakes?

Taking ownership means being responsible and standing up to another person’s mistake. Leaders need to take ownership as it indicates their control of the business practices. Blaming employees indicates that a leader had no control over the employees’ actions. For example, blaming an employee for a wrong transaction indicates that a leader wasn’t in charge. Besides, it is important as it makes it easier to develop employees into good future leaders which eventually will have an impact on the organization (Willink & Babin, 2017). Taking ownership enables leaders to act good examples that help in developing employees into better leaders.

Taking ownership also acts as a trusted stepping stone towards the personal development of leaders and business growth. This because failure to blame employees creates a peaceful culture as the leaders correct the employees on the mistake and give further directions. For example, correcting an employee for a wrong transaction. This increases the performance of employees without loss of morale. Moreover, it’s important for leaders to take ownership because it enables them to create a good relationship with the employees, increase retention level, and the likelihood of many employees willing to work with the leader.

Therefore, it’s important for leaders to take ownership as it indicates control, acts as a stepping stone to personal development and business growth, helps in maintaining relationships, and makes it easier to develop employees into better leaders.

References

Burke, R. J. (2018). Leadership in hospitality organizations: achieving competitive advantage. In Handbook of Human Resource Management in the Tourism and Hospitality Industries. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. Panarchy, the collapse of the Canadian health care system, 124.

Sousa, M. J., Santo, V., Sacavém, A., dos Reis, I. P., & Sampaio, M. C. (2019). 4.0 Leadership skills in hospitality sector. Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, 8, 105-117.

Woodcock, M. (2017). Team development manual. Routledge.

Willink, J., & Babin, L. (2017). Extreme ownership: How US Navy SEALs lead and win. St. Martin's Press.