Question
| DEVELOPING MANAGER DEFINE, COMPARE, EXPLAIN, DISCUS ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES, AND ANALYSE WITH DIAGRAMS. TABLE OF CONTENTS, ASNWERS TO BE NUMBERED AS IT IS IN THE QUESTION TASK ONE IS REPORT ESSAY TASK TWO IS REPORT ESSAY NOTES: 1. TABLE OF CONTENTS 2. GOOD INTRODUCTION 3. EXCELLENT BODY REPORT WITH DIAGRAMS 4. GOOD CONCLUSION 5. REFERENCES ALSO NOTE THAT ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE ANSWERED AND EXPLAIN, DEFINE AND DISCUSS, ACCESS AND EVALUATE ALL QUESTIONS WHERE NECESSARY AND WITH DIAGRAMS WHERE NECESSARY. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Task A Using organisations in the hospitality industry show the understanding of how to develop a manager by applying the theories and practices of management behaviour by producing a report on the following points. 1.1 Compare and contrast 3 different management styles that are used in a hospitality organisation. (Autocratic, Laissez Faire and Democratic with diagrams where necessary) 1.2 Discuss the leadership characteristics of a manager in hospitality organisation that he should possess to conduct his roles successfully. 1.3 Evaluate the communication process within the organisation.evaluate (VERBAL,NON-VERBAL AND WRITTEN COMMUNICATION WITH DIAGRAMS) 1.4 Analyse the organisational culture and change in a selected business organisation.(define organisational culture and discuss various organisational cultures and also types of Organisation culture) 3.1 How could a manager in an organisation lead and motivate the team to achieve an agreed goal or objective.(define leadership and motivation motivation theories) 3.2 Justify managerial decision made to support achievement of agreed goals and objectives and recommendations for improvements. |
Answer
Contents
1.1 Comparing and Contrasting three Management Styles: Autocratic, Laissez Faire and Democratic. 3
1.2Discussing the Leadership Characteristics of a Manager in a Hospitality Organization. 4
1.4 Analysis of the Organizational Culture and change at Hilton Hotels Corp. 9
Introduction
Management development is a critical requirement for contemporary organizations, particularly those that seek to create international expertise, for example, in the hospitality industry (Kamoche, 2000). Organizations also seek to develop managers as a way of inducting them into their respective organizational cultures and corporate values as well as equipping them with the skills they need succeed in exercising organizational control. The need to develop managers continues to be emphasized in scholarly literature because of their role in promoting organizational capability and improvement in performance. Moreover, managers are decision-makers as well as leaders in the process of change management. Their contribution is always needed whenever organizations seek to create specific organizational ethos that cut across all workgroups and teams.
The aim of this paper is to explain how to develop a manager by applying various theories and practices of management behavior. Towards this end, the paper compares and contrasts three management styles that are currently being used in the hospitality: autocratic, laissez faire, and democratic styles. The paper also discusses the leadership characteristics that a manager in hospitality organization should possess to conduct his roles successfully. In this case, the communication process within an organization is evaluated, and specific focus is on verbal, non-verbal, and written communication. The report then analyzes aspects of aspects of organizational culture and change as well as motivation theories. Lastly, recommendations for improvements in managerial decisions are provided.
1.1 Comparing and Contrasting three Management Styles: Autocratic, Laissez Faire and Democratic
There are three major management styles that are of utmost relevance in hospitality organizations, namely autocratic, laissez faire, and democratic styles. Autocratic leaders are those who make decisions without putting into consideration the views of subordinates and team members, even in situations where their views may be useful. Most managers resort to this style of management whey they have to make quick decision or in situations where a successful outcome can be achieved even without team agreement. A major disadvantage of this style is that it can lead to demoralization, increased employee absenteeism, and in some cases even turnover.
In contrast, the Laissez faire style of management is embodied in situations where managers give team members and subordinates all the freedom that they need to perform their duties. Such managers restrict their leadership roles to the provision of resources and moral support. This style can also manifest itself if a manager has no control over employees and their work. A major advantage of this style is that it creates high job satisfaction. However, it can be disadvantageous where employees lack the skills, knowledge, and self-drive to work effectively, or if they are poor in time management.
On the other hand, democratic leadership occurs when a manager gives every employee an opportunity to give his views before making the final decision. Each participant is encouraged to participate in discussions, leading a free flow of information and ideas. The manager’s role entails providing guidance and control as well as making the final decision. Thus, it creates a situation where everyone is highly engaged in both the ongoing project work and decisions relating to it. This management style’s greatest advantage is that it offers employees an opportunity to achieve high productivity and job satisfaction. However, the main disadvantage is that it can lead to a stalemate if relied on in making a quick decision.
1.2 Discussing the Leadership Characteristics of a Manager in a Hospitality Organization
The debate on the leadership characteristics that a manager operating in the hospitality industry should possess in order to succeed in his managerial role is ongoing. Some of the most frequently mentioned characteristics include self-development, flexibility, self-management, time management, ethics and integrity, commitment to quality, and awareness to the needs of customers. Other commonly mentioned characteristics include managing stakeholders, competency in issues of strategic positioning, concern for corporate social responsibility, interpersonal skills, and industry knowledge.
Insights into the leadership characteristics that can lead to managerial success can also be obtained through an analysis of how successful managers tend to handle diverse situations during their work (Akrivos, Ladkin & Reklitis, 2007). An alternative approach entails using competency models to identify and groom future leaders (Chung-Herrera, Enz & Lankau, 2003). This model is based on the view that leaders are made and not born. In other words, it is wrong to rely on personality traits in developing a successful leader particularly in the hospitality industry.
Like other industries, the hospitality industry has been heavily influenced by changes in the conceptualization of leadership throughout the twentieth century. To begin with, a successful leader was idealized as a great man who could achieve practically anything in the organization he headed. This concept was replaced by that of transformation leadership, followed by servant leadership. In transformational leadership, leaders are viewed as the chief agents of organizational change. Transformational leaders bring about that change by creating vision and inspiring followers to pursue that vision. In servant leadership, the objective of a leader is to act as a source of support, guidance, and empowerment to followers. The idea of servant leadership has had far-reaching implications for the hospitality industry, which is founded on the tenet of leadership through customer service (Brownell, 2010).
Other than embracing servant leadership, a leader of a hospitality organization is also expected to come up with continuous improvement processes. This is mainly because companies in this industry operate in an increasingly globalized environment where business practices, customer expectations, and technologies change all the time (Brownell & Reynolds, 2000). One example of a hospitality organization whose leaders are under pressure to come up with continuous improvement processes is Hilton Hotels Corp. In its Chinese operations, for example, Hilton Hotels Corp. has continued to operate under intense pressure due to rapid changes in the country’s economy, competition from famous Chinese hospitality organizations, speedy transformation of the service market, and the emergence new technologies.
Under this situation, Hilton has had to choose leaders who understand the importance of both business performance management and continuous improvement processes. Some of the expected characteristics of effective leaders at Hilton today include knowledge of how the world economy operates, cross-border business competence, and the ability to manage staffs through a multinational perspective. The company has had to shun its traditional reliance on leadership models that place too much emphasis on cultural tenets of the Western multinational corporations in order to adapt more successfully into the Chinese hospitality industry. More than ever before, Hilton depends on its leaders to foster new learning environments, anticipate probable futures, spearhead the profiling of effective managers, and provide leadership in the process of steering the company from past business models that have no role to play in today’s information age.
1.3 Evaluating the Communication Process within the Organization (Verbal, Non-Verbal and Written Communication)
The communication process within an organization takes place in three main ways: verbal, non-verbal, and written communication. Verbal communication involves exchange of information, thought, perceptions, and thoughts through oral means. Managers use verbal communication to deliver messages to employees by delivering speeches, engaging team members in conversations, making presentations, and holding formal and informal discussion sessions. In these mechanisms, the message is almost always transmitted and received simultaneously, and the audience provides immediate feedback. On the other hand, non-verbal communication entails the use of wordless messages to communicate. In most cases, these non-verbal are reinforced by (or are used to reinforce) verbal communication. However, there are many organizational contexts where non-verbal messages can wholesomely be depended on to deliver crucial messages. Some common examples of non-verbal communication include eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, body posture, and overall body movements. In written communication, the sender documents the message in different media such as memo, report, email, application letter, or a public notice. Thus, there is always a gap between the time when the message is transmitted and the time it is received. In the absence of verbal and non-verbal cues, written communication must rely on punctuation, grammatical correctness, careful word choice, and proper structure to convey the intended message.
At Hilton Hotel, verbal communication plays a critical role in overall efficiency of operations. All customer service employees at the company are required to communicate verbally with customers in order to note down their requests and facilitate appropriate responses immediately. Indeed, awareness of the communication style that greatly contributes to higher customer satisfaction is critical to the achievement of customer satisfaction. Meanwhile, human resource managers at Hilton Hotel Corp. managers have been endeavoring to train their employees on how to identify situational and service-specific variables that may lead them to choose written communication over verbal and non-verbal communication. Similarly, there are numerous situations where employees have to use all the three methods of communication in a complementary fashion in order to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction. Indeed, it is highly likely that in a typical service encounter, a Hilton employee will have used all the methods of communication. Such practices are an outcome of the company continued efforts to ensure that all its customer service employees understand the relationship between choice of communication method and level of customer satisfaction.
Written communication also plays a critical role at Hilton Hotels Corp. The most crucial platform for this kind of communication is the company’s web-based portal, through which managers and employees can send and receive reports, forms, emails, memos, and enquiries. The online portal also offers a platform for personnel training. Within this portal, the company has designated email addresses for the general manager, revenue manager, director of sales, and other designated heads of departments and team members. Moreover, every Hilton employee gets an opportunity to own a brand-supplied email account. This arrangement has created a network through which all members can communicate with one another through the written medium in order to enhance customer satisfaction. Hilton has used this system in many situations to achieve efficiency in written communication. For example, prior to opening of a new Hilton Hotel, the online portal is heavily relied on for sharing of messages among individual employees, managers, team members, and department. The following diagram shows a written message as it appears on Hilton’s online portal.
Fig. 1: An illustration showing one of the ways in which written communication is used at Hilton Hotel Corp (Source: www.hiltonworldwide.com).
1.4 Analysis of the Organizational Culture and change at Hilton Hotels Corp.
Organizational culture is the system of values, shared attitudes, customs, beliefs, and rules that govern interactions, decision-making, perceptions, and personal expression by members of an organization. It determines how employees and managers interact with outsiders as well as how the organization treats its customers, employees and the community. More importantly, organizational culture has a critical role to play in the way an organization conducts its business activities. It affects productivity and overall performance by acting as a major determinant of practices relating to product quality, attendance, safety, environmental awareness, and power relations. Organizational culture also extends to aspects of new product development, production methods, and sales promotion.
In simple terms, organizational culture can be defined as “how an organization ‘does things’”. This essentially means that there is always an element of consistency in the patterns of behavior that define the culture of an organization. Once people in an organization get used to doing things in a certain way over and over again, they begin deemphasizing what people actually think about that repeated behavior. Thus, it becomes extremely difficult, for example, for an outsider to change the way everyone has traditionally been doing things. After all every culture is shaped by incentives, such that any individual who attempts to change the existing cultural practices may be deemed to be interfering with the existing system of compensation at the organization. This system of compensation takes many forms, including monetary rewards, sanctions, bonuses, recognition, and career advancement.
Another common way of defining organizational culture is by viewing it as a sense-making process, whereby members engage in a collaborative process of establishing shared understanding of the varied interests and perspectives of different individuals. In this case, people end up developing shared meanings and joint interpretations about various activities being undertaken in the organization. The objective of this sense-making process is to create integration as well as to establish a control system for determining which behavioral practices are acceptable and which ones are not. Changing the organizational culture of a large business organization can be very difficult given that it develops over time, and that it is the strongest reference point for virtually every activity being undertaken at the organization.
One may argue that there are as many organizational cultures as there different organizations in existence today. This in essence means that it is extremely difficult to find a culture in one organization that is precisely similar to the culture of a different, unrelated organization. Nevertheless, it is possible to introduce the element of dichotomy by highlighting the main characteristics that are shared by specific organizational cultures. For example, some organizations are governed by a normative culture, whereby all norms and procedures are determined by existing guidelines. The employees of these organizations may be said to behave in accordance with the organization’s policies.
In other organizations, a pragmatic culture prevails, whereby most emphasis is on clients. In these organizations, clients are highly valued, and instead of following any set rules, every employee endeavors to do whatever it takes to satisfy his customers. This culture stands in sharp contrast to the team culture, whereby employees are the organization’s most valued possession. In these organizations, individuals tend to have an upper hand than top management and do not bother much about the organization’s mission. This culture is common in event management companies and advertising agencies.
In other situations, cultures are established based on skills, qualifications, and competence. For example, the academy culture exists in organizations that only employ skilled individuals. In these organizations, both new and existing employees are subjected to training to hone their skills. A closely related culture is one where organizations hire employees strictly on the basis of their educational qualifications, professional specialization, and interests. Many other cultures may be said to exist in the contemporary corporate world, for example, some where employees are perpetually unsure about their career prospects and others where there are numerous unforeseen consequences for every decision an employee takes. Additionally, there is also a process culture, where performance reviews and feedbacks are deemphasized in preference for processes and procedures. Based on this categorization, Hilton Hotels Corp adheres to a pragmatic culture, whereby a lot of emphasis is on clients and customer satisfaction.
In terms of typology, Cameron & Quin (2005) have proposed four types of organizational culture, namely clan, market-oriented, adhocracy, and hierarchy oriented cultured. Clan cultures are present in organizations that are run like families, whereby employees are mentored and nurtured in order to create an environment where “everybody wins”. On the other hand, market-oriented cultures focus primarily on competition and achievement, meaning that they are result-oriented. In adhocracies, employees are encouraged to take risks, innovate, and exhibit entrepreneurial behavior. The last type of culture is the hierarchy-oriented organization culture, whereby most of the emphasis is on stability and efficiency. Based on this typology, Hilton Hotels Corp. falls into the category of a market-oriented culture.
The market culture gained prominence during the 1960s due to the emergence of new competitive challenges. In the resulting market form, many organizations started to adopt a culture that made them look like the market itself. Focus was primarily on transactions and interactions with external entities like customers, suppliers, unions, licensees, and regulators. This culture differed from the hierarchical culture in the sense that it was driven by economic market mechanisms such as monetary exchange as opposed to rules and centralized decisions. Consequently, the main objectives that govern all operations in organizations exhibiting a market-oriented culture include securing larger customer bases, stretching targets, maximizing profitability, and building new market niches. At Hilton, efforts are continually being made to adapt to changing market conditions in today’s international business. This culture may be contrasted with the clan culture, where shared values permeate all aspects of the organization. Under this culture, the organization looks more like an extended family set-up than an economic entity. Unlike in the market-oriented culture where principles of competitiveness and profitability are promoted, a clan culture emphasizes corporate commitment to employee welfare, employee involvement programs, and teamwork (Cameron & Quin, 2005).
3.1 How Could a Manager in an Organization Lead and Motivate the Team to Achieve an Agreed Goal or Objective? Defining Leadership and Motivation Theories
Some of the main leadership theories that are applicable to contemporary organizations include participative leadership theory, situational leadership theory, and transactional leadership theory. Participative theory, also called democratic leadership theory, posits that a leader should involve all team members in developing strategies as well as creating procedures for achieving specific goals. Situational leadership theory is based on the idea that the most effective leader is one who modifies his management behavior in response to his subordinates’ level of competence and maturity. On the other hand, transactional leadership theory uses reward and punishment to reward employees.
At Hilton Hotels, managers could use ideas derived from each of these three theories to lead and motivate their teams with a view to achieve the intended objectives. For example, using participative leadership theory, the leaders could set an example regarding the best way of performing specific tasks. They could also use situational leadership theory to adapt their problem-solving approach to the skill levels and maturity of specific employees. At the same time, transactional leadership theory can help Hilton’s leaders achieve the agreed goals by rewarding the best-performing employees.
The use of motivation theories to enhance performance at Hilton also deserves some attention. Two important theories that are relevant in this regard include equity theory and expectancy theory. Equity theory posits that employees are not motivated by actual reward but rather by perception of equity, that is, what an employee gets in reward vis-à-vis what other employees get. Although this theory somewhat contradicts the transactional leadership theory, it can be used by Hilton Hotel managers to promote a customer service environment where no employee is seen to be receiving preferential treatment due to their special abilities and talents. According to the expectancy theory, three conditions must be met for an employee to be motivated. First, he must expect that the efforts inputted will bring about the intended performance. Second, he must expect that this performance is instrumental in the achievement of a specific result. Third, he must expect that the resulting outcome will be desirable to him. To motivate employees, managers operating in the hospitality industry should endeavor to promote these three tenets, which Vroom (2005) identifies as expectancy, valence, and instrumentality.
3.2 Justification of Managerial Decision Made to Support Achievement of Agreed Goals and Objectives and Recommendations for Improvements
There are numerous managerial decisions that Hilton Hotels Corp. has made in recent times that demonstrate the company’s commitment to the enhancement of international expertise, continuous improvement processes, and business performance management, one example of which is the company’s recent move to continue pursuing expansion into the Chinese market. By expanding operations in China, Hilton’s managers made the right move that is justified by the improvement in China’s economic status in recent times. The move is also justified by management philosophy of Conrad Nicholson, the company’s founder, who pointed out that a company should choose the best managers before giving them authority to open new hotels that fit the personality of their surrounding urban and national contexts (Butler & Russell, 2010).
Other crucial managerial decisions that have been critical for Hilton’s success include forecasting-day-to-day customer service operations in each departments to determine staffing, supplies, and operational needs of the hotel, mass purchasing of supplied, training good management teams, and inter-hotel linkages within the reservation system. All these successes indicate that the hospitality organization has been effective in the way it develops its managers. They also set the stage for an in-depth assessment of the applicability of different management styles as well as leadership and motivation theories in the development of effective managers in the hospitality industry. Theoretical aspects notwithstanding, it is also imperative for aspects of the communication process, leadership characteristics, and organizational culture to be analyzed with a view to come up with the best ways of developing managers in the industry.
In light of this analysis, this report makes the following recommendations:
- When developing managers, it is imperative to consider the management philosophy as well as the organizational culture of the hospitality organization.
- To adapt to the changing international business environment, hospitality companies need to equip managers with skills relating to the development of international expertise, continuous improvement processes, as well as strategies for changing organizational culture to align it with the latest international business trends.
- When rewarding employees for job well done, managers of hospitality companies should focus on both promoting equity among all employees as well as responding appropriately to the individual employees’ expectations and perceptions about the rewards they should get for putting in extra efforts in their work.
Conclusion
The information presented in this research report has demonstrated, that the task of developing managers in the hospitality industry is a difficult one because of the ever-changing and international nature of the hospitality industry. Despite the difficulties, though, it is possible for hospitality companies to excel in the task of developing managers as demonstrated by the Hilton example. Another crucial observation is that there are many theoretical models to choose from when determining the issues that require to be given the most emphasis in the management and leadership development processes. Lastly, managers should not underestimate the role that communication plays in the contemporary hospitality industry.
References
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