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HA100 : The Class : Management : Leadership : Lesson1-2-1

Lesson1-2-1: Leadership for the Hospitality Industry

Class Lecture

So, you visited a particular restaurant and the service was below standard. You visited an amusement park and the person selling you the admission ticket did not smile once. You visited a hotel and your reservation was lost, probably caused by a computer blowout. And every time you were thinking: "I could do a much better job".
Now you are here in this class, pursuing the dream of becoming a manager in a hospitality related job. You know that it takes more than four years of hard work in college. A good manager needs to glue those years of learning with:

Solid character traits:
What do managers actually do in their jobs? All of them do some planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, and managers in the hospitality industry focus obsessively on service and quality. Now, it is not absolutely clear what the desired character traits are (drive, intelligence, communications ability, boldness, persistence?), and you certainly do not need to possess all of them to be a decent manager. But you should go through the list on page 37 in your book to see if you already have some of these traits and capabilities, and to see on which ones you have to work on.

Leadership skills:
You will, hopefully, be exposed to a class in leadership skills. The question that probably pops up in your mind is: What is the difference between managing and leading? One leadership teacher defined it as follows:

MANAGER LEADER
Administers
Is a copy
Maintains
Focuses on system+structure
Relies on control
Has a short-range view
Asks how and when
Has an eye on the bottom line   
Initiates
Accepts status quo
Does things right 		Innovates
Is an original
Develops
Focuses on people
Inspires trust
Has a long-range perspective
Asks what and why
Has an eye on the horizon
Originates
Challenges it
Does the right thing

You do have to take a critical look at this chart, because the leader stands out as a much more positive human being than the manager. But, but you understand that a manager needs some leadership qualities to inspire the people working for him or her, and certainly most manager do have leadership skills.

Most managers are not just making sure that the business they work for is in the black figures. They work towards that goal with the help of personnel. The following "Ten commandments of Leadership" will help a manager to be a great leader of people.

TEN COMMANDMENTS
of
LEADERSHIP
  1. Treat everyone with respect and dignity
  2. Set the example for others to follow
  3. Be an active coach
  4. Maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity
  5. Insist on excellence and hold your people accountable
  6. Build group cohesiveness and pride
  7. Show confidence in your people
  8. Maintain a strong sense of urgency
  9. Be available and visible to your staff
  10. And develop yourself to your highest potential

Who is actually the inventor of the yellow arches?
Who leads the people selling those millions of happy meals?

If you would like to read about him and other leaders in our industry, please click on the following links:

Good Management Ethics

Most of you have a personal value system in place and a fairly well developed character. You want to be ethical; you want to be proud of yourself and what you do for a living. So why is it that the book emphasizes ethics so much, that, for instance, companies have their employees take workshops on ethics? "Hospitality" is one of the noblest words in the English language, connoting welcome, friendship, comfort, and gracious service. Hospitality is an action noun that is abstract and empty until it is applied. It includes the idea of extending friendship to others and providing them with comfort. As we view hospitality in these terms - as activities aimed t pleasing and enriching others - we are actually overlapping our definition of hospitality with that of ethics.

First of all, let us define the word ethics: standards of behavior in line with values that we think important, and a code of ethics is defined as:

As you can tell, this definition is
somewhat vague……
there will be quite some grey areas!
Things happen, also in our industry, that are not ethical, and you have to be alert. Take for example Leona Helmsley and the Holiday Inn Company. They both tried to evade taxes. Hooters Restaurant chain was sued by an ex-waitress who said she was harassed and management did not do anything about it.

How do you decide what is ethical? Ask yourself these three questions:

AND ALWAYS PRACTICE THE


"Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you."

Once you have completed this assignment, you should:

Go on to Assignment 1
or
Go back to Leadership for the Hospitality Industry

E-mail Lenka Hospodka or call (928) 523-2845 (Lenka Hospodka)

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