Leadership Qualities of Successful Inexperienced Leaders
in the Hospitality Industry
MBA thesisAmsterdam Business School MBA part time 2011-‐2013 Version: Final
Date: 15 September 2013 To: Professor C.T. Boon By: Ajay Kapur – 10297340
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my great appreciation to Professor C. T. Boon for her valuable and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this research. Furthermore I would like to thank my MBA friends for their support and the Hotelschool The Hague for giving me the opportunity to do this research. The valuable feedback of my HTH colleagues is highly appreciated.
Special thanks go out to the students who participated in the research and were willing to share their interesting accounts of an important part of their lives.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife Mariëlle, for her support, her patience and love.
Executive Summary
This research focuses on leadership qualities of successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry. Leadership, experience and hospitality have not been researched in interrelation to one another before. The research consists of literature review on
leadership theories resulting in a theoretical framework of leadership qualities. The framework is used for in-‐depth interviews with ten second-‐year students of the Hotelschool The Hague, who successfully managed a group of first-‐year students in running a hospitality outlet. The Birkman personality profiles of these second-‐year students are analyzed to support the findings and in addition an expert was consulted. The main findings are that, based on leadership theories, seven leadership qualities seem to be relevant to successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry: People orientation, Goal completion and Having overview, Teamwork, Self-‐discipline, Authenticity, Work experience and Self-‐confidence. The leadership qualities of using a Reward system, Passion for leadership and having Altruistic values were found not to be relevant for the research population. The results are supported by the Birkman profiles and the expert review.
In short, successful inexperienced leaders seem to be focused on working together with a team (people orientation, teamwork), working in a structured way (goal completion and having overview), have a strong drive to succeed (self-‐discipline, self-‐confidence), are true to themselves (authenticity) and have worked from a young age (general work
experience). The findings show that creativity might be a leadership quality as well, but this needs further research.
Academic implications are that leadership theories should include the conclusions of this research for inexperienced leaders in general and for some qualities specifically for the hospitality industry (people orientation, teamwork, authenticity and work
experience).
Managerial recommendations for hospitality organizations and for educational institutions in selecting potential leaders and students are to emphasize training on interpersonal and leadership skills, to support regular self-‐reflection (with a mentor), to simulate leadership experience, to assess structure and overview skills, to stimulate creativity, to make sure the inexperienced leaders have work experience in hospitality and to stimulate passion for leadership in an early stage. A Birkman profile to identify
Acknowledgement ... 2
Executive Summary ... 3
I. Introduction ... 5
A. Definitions ... 6
B. Research question ... 9
II. Literature review of leadership theories ... 10
A. Democratic leadership ... 10
B. Transactional leadership ... 11
C. Transformational leadership ... 11
D. Authentic leadership ... 14
E. Self-‐confidence development cycle ... 15
F. Conclusion ... 16
III. Research Method ... 18
A. Successful inexperienced leaders ... 18
B. Birkman profile ... 21
C. Expert review ... 21
IV. Results ... 22
A. People orientation ... 22
B. Goal completion and having overview ... 23
C. Reward system ... 24
D. Passion for leadership ... 25
E. Altruistic values ... 26
F. Teamwork ... 27
G. Self-‐discipline ... 28
H. Authenticity ... 28
I. Work experience ... 30
J. Self-‐confidence ... 31 K. Birkman profile ... 32 Components ... 32 Work Styles ... 36 Interests ... 38 Conclusions ... 40 L. Expert review ... 40 V. Recommendations ... 43
A. Academic implications ... 43
B. Managerial implications ... 47
C. Limitations and further research ... 50
Appendices ... 52
Appendix A Invitation e-‐mail to successful leaders ... 52
Appendix B In-‐depth interview form ... 52
Appendix C Overview answers in-‐depth interviews ... 53
Appendix D The Birkman Method Components, Work Styles and Interests ... 56
Appendix E Birkman Scores Leaders ... 62
I. Introduction
As a lecturer at Hotelschool The Hague (HTH) it is striking to see how some Bachelor students who follow practical courses in hospitality management excel in leading other students and how others fail in doing so. In the curriculum, second year students learn how to manage resources and processes for their outlet (e.g. kitchen, restaurant) and learn to lead first year students who work in their outlet. When talking to first year students in class about their experiences, they often indicate that they would like to have better leaders motivating them and that they themselves would lead and motivate others differently. Even when talking to second year students just before they start managing their outlet, they confirm that they will manage the first year students
differently from how they were managed. But for some reason nothing changes and the first year students, for their part, complain among other things about the lack of
motivating skills of their older peers.
There can be many reasons for this pattern, ranging from the personal relationship between students, the guidance given by the instructors (lecturers of practical courses), the type of outlet, cultural differences between team members, etcetera. These reasons are all related to external factors to which all students can be exposed, and are a matter of chance. Therefore, it would be interesting to know which internal factors determine why some students actually succeed in becoming the leaders they wanted their
predecessors to be.
Keeping in mind that these second year students are often inexperienced in leadership, one can assume that the internal factors ignite leadership skills within the student that were dormant. Obviously the learning curve in the few weeks they manage an outlet is steep, but this period is probably not sufficient to master all skills needed to become a successful leader. So why do some inexperienced students succeed in leading and some not, while all have the motivation to become better leaders than their predecessors? Which qualities are necessary to become a successful leader in the hospitality industry without experience?
This research aims to identify leadership qualities of successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry. First I will describe existing theories on leadership. From these theories I will extract the most prominent and relevant leadership qualities for
the research methods used for this research. In chapter IV the results are analyzed and in chapter V, I will give my academically and managerial recommendations.
A. Definitions
In order to understand ‘good leadership’, an understanding of leadership theory is needed. Leadership has been a subject of innumerable studies ever since ancient civilizations tried to grasp the essence of good leadership. This overview will look into different theories of leadership and which leadership qualities can be derived from them. In the hospitality industry the most common forms of leadership styles are autocratic, bureaucratic and democratic. The laissez-‐faire style has limited application (Miller et al., 2007). The autocratic and bureaucratic styles (Theory X and Y by
McGregor) can be useful in certain situations in the hospitality industry, but seem to be outdated in comparison to democratic styles. I have chosen to focus on democratic styles such as transactional/transformational and authentic leadership.
There are many definitions of leadership as described by Yukl (2006) of which a
definition by Bass (1990, p. 77) mentions the basic elements: “Leadership appears to be
a working relationship among members of a group, in which the leader acquires status through active participation and demonstration of his or her capacity to carry cooperative tasks to completion.” Important elements from this definition are ‘working relationships’
(interaction with people) and ‘goal completion’. If a leader is focused on goal completion, a reward-‐based style of leadership (like transactional leadership) is useful, but for
building a deeper working relationship a different style of leadership is needed. Burns (1979) introduces the distinction between transactional and transformational
leadership. Yukl (2006, p.249) describes it as following: “Transforming leadership
appeals to the moral values of followers in an attempt to raise their consciousness about ethical issues and to mobilize their energy and resources to reform institutions.
Transactional leadership motivates followers by appealing to their self-‐interest and exchanging benefits.” Depending on the situation, leaders could use both transactional
and transformational leadership styles.
Bass (1985) identifies three ways in which leaders transform followers: increasing their awareness of task importance and value; getting them to focus first on team or
needs. In this theory the importance of values and activating higher-‐order needs is highlighted, and focus lies on team goals instead of personal interests. Transformational leadership is related to an altruistic work approach of the leader. This is supported by the theories of servant leadership and transcendental leadership (Alexakis, 2011). Integrity, and the capacity of a leader to sacrifice himself in the service of others are considered the most important competencies. Both styles are linked to the future of hospitality leadership, but are not analyzed further in this research, as they only are an extension of the altruistic point of view of authentic leadership.
Transformational leadership has laid the foundation for the evolvement of theory on authentic leadership. Concerns about unethical behavior of today’s leaders called for a genuine leadership style, which is based on values (Gardner et al., 2011).
George (2003, p. 12), in his definition of authentic leadership, includes ‘values’, having ‘passion for your purpose’ and ‘self-‐discipline’ as important leadership qualities: “Authentic leaders …. lead with purpose, meaning, and values. They build enduring
relationships with people. Others follow them because they know where they stand. They are consistent and self-‐disciplined. When their principles are tested, they refuse to
compromise. Authentic leaders are dedicated to developing themselves because they know that becoming a leader takes a lifetime of personal growth.”
Passion is related to being highly motivated by work because of intrinsic motivation. Showing self-‐discipline in consistent and values-‐driven behavior (commonly known as ‘practicing what you preach’) sets an example for the followers and can increase their motivation. In addition Goffee & Jones (2005, p. 1, p. 3) state “People want to be lead by
someone real“, “authenticity is a quality that others must attribute to you” and that “it is not enough just to practice what you preach. To get people to follow you, you also have to get them to relate to you”. Thus, not only do followers want to be lead by an authentic
person, they also need to attribute authenticity to the leader by recognizing something of themselves in the leader. A leader has to relate to different types of people, while remaining himself.
The theory on charismatic leadership is not included in this study. Jacobsen & House (2001, p. 78) say that ‘charismatic leaders’ behavior includes amongst others “making personal sacrifices in the interest of the charismatic mission”. This seems not to be
relevant to inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry, since this theory has been derived from the study of (mainly) political and societal figures. For the hospitality industry, where the customer is always priority, it is less relevant. Also for a practical reason this theory is left out; the students in the research population have only two weeks of training as a leader (see Chapter III), whereas a charismatic mission is a long-‐ term (lifetime) exercise.
There is no extensive research available into the field of inexperienced leadership. Fiedler (1970) tests the hypothesis that the number of years of supervisory experience will correlate positively with leadership performance as measured by group
productivity, but finds a negative correlation. Research among nurses by Cummings et al. (2008) suggests that leadership can be developed through specific educational activities, and by modeling and practicing leadership competencies. However McCall Jr. (2004) contends that the primary source of learning to lead is experience. He explains that the role played by training and other formal programs is relatively modest in comparison to experiential learning.
By studying inexperienced leaders, we can filter out the leadership experience factor in order to examine other factors that determine effective leadership. The effect of general
working experience is a factor that is taken into account in relation to leadership
effectiveness.
Closely related to experience is self-‐confidence, as successful experiences lead to higher confidence levels. According to Hollenbeck & Hall (2004, p. 256, p. 261) “leadership
theories include self-‐confidence as one of the variables leading to effective leadership” and “leader self-‐confidence causes followers to believe in the capabilities of the leader”. Thus, a
leader needs to have and show self-‐confidence.
In this research special focus is placed on the hospitality industry, where hospitality managers spend as much as 80% of their day interpersonally communicating with guests, employees, peers and superiors (Woods et al., 2010). This emphasizes the need for good ‘soft skills’ leadership, such as found in transformational leadership. Yee et al. (2013, p. 452) observed that “transformational leadership tends to be more effective than
transactional leadership in influencing employee attitude in high-‐contact service firms”
the managerial roles of hospitality managers, due to the characteristics of the services industry. Also Lolli (2013) states that interpersonal communication skills are crucial to successful leadership in hospitality and that his research under entry-‐level hospitality leaders indicates that overall leadership experience is of higher value to them than their (theoretical) preparedness.
The aforementioned components (leadership, experience and hospitality) have not been researched in interrelation to one another before. The relation between these
components might give insight into which qualities make inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry perform successful. The implications of the study can add to the research in the field of hospitality leadership, especially on inexperienced leaders, as much of the research up till now is done on experienced leaders (often on CEO level). The practical implications can be useful to hospitality business in recruiting entry-‐level leaders and higher educational institutions in selecting students with leadership
potential.
B. Research question
How do leadership qualities of successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry relate to existing leadership theories?
Sub questions are:
• Which leadership qualities for successful leaders can be extracted from existing leadership theories?
• Which of these leadership qualities are relevant to successful inexperienced
II. Literature review of leadership theories
Research mentioned in the previous chapter shows that there are several theories that help to understand leadership. The purpose of this chapter is to extract successful leadership qualities from existing leadership theories and to make a prediction in which way these leadership qualities will be relevant to successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry. The outcome is a theoretical framework that lays the foundation of this research.
A. Democratic leadership
In democratic leadership styles the leaders are concerned with involving their team in achieving a common goal. In a basic definition of leadership Bass (1990) mentions working relationships and goal completion. He mentions that leaders need to acquire status in the group by actively participating in working relationships and by showing that they have the capacity to complete a collective goal. In the theory introduced by Robert Katz in 1974 leaders can actively participate in working relationships by using managerial skills, which are technical, human and conceptual. For lower level
management, which is often the case for inexperienced leaders in the hospitality, technical and human skills are most important (Miller et al, 2007). With technical skills is meant the ability of the leader to do the tasks of the people who are supervised. This increases the credibility of the leader towards the followers. The hospitality industry has a very broad variety of technical skills needed for outlets such as kitchen, restaurant, front office, housekeeping, etc. Due to little work experience it is very likely that
inexperienced leaders have acquired only very few of these skills. Therefor, the human skills for which a high people orientation is needed, become more important.
• Therefor a high people orientation in working relationships is expected to be a relevant leadership quality for successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry.
The capacity to complete a collective goal is the most important task to an effective executive according to Drucker (2004). His research shows that the first thing an effective leader asks, is what needs to be done. For inexperienced leaders, it makes sense to focus on the one thing (completing the task given by the organization) that
gives clarity and certainty. Tait (1996) explains that the ability to make sense of a
complicated pattern and formulate clear goals is essential for success in leadership. This not only links to being structured in work and having a helicopter view to oversee what tasks needs to be done at any given moment, but also to being able to communicate these tasks.
• Thus, focus on goal completion and having overview is expected to be an important leadership quality for successful inexperienced leaders.
B. Transactional leadership
Transactional leadership is a reward based leadership style that often has a short-‐term focus. In transactional leadership the leader tries to influence the follower by
exchanging work for wages (or grades when the followers are students, as is the case in this study). It can also be expected that inexperienced leaders will want to proof their capabilities as soon as possible and will be focused on short-‐term success. The style focuses on the accomplishment of tasks, the behavior by the follower and short-‐term success, making the wages (grades) the center of the reward system. Yee et al. (2011) in line with the above mention that contingent reward based exchanges are a component of transactional leadership, which means that a follower will have a high focus on completing tasks to obtain awards. A risk is that in this way followers can become self-‐ centered and competitive, which usually is not in line with the high level of teamwork required in the hospitality industry. But in accordance with the aforementioned focus on goal completion (short-‐term focus) a reward system is expected to be used by successful inexperienced leaders.
• The use of a reward system to influence followers’ behavior is expected to be a relevant leadership quality for successful inexperienced leaders.
C. Transformational leadership
In the hospitality industry, transformational leadership is successfully used at e.g. Starbucks (Menguc et al., 2007), Ritz-‐Carlton and Hyatt Hotels (Tracey & Hinkin, 1994). Transformational leadership is considered the more effective leadership behavior to achieve long-‐term success (compared to transactional leadership). It tries to enhance a commitment to a shared vision and worker’s higher-‐order needs. The leader needs to
inspire the followers to develop themselves and to find a sense of mission in their work. For the leader this requires a lot of passion for the job and a high people orientation. We can assume a high people orientation will be present in effective leaders, as it is defined as one of the leadership qualities of this research. Passion for leadership has been recognized as an important leadership quality by many leadership theories amongst others George (2003) and Thomas (2005). George (2003, p. 19) links passion to purpose in life: “To find your purpose, you must first understand yourself, your passions,
and your underlying motivations”. Due to the lack of leadership experience and the age of
inexperienced leaders (young people often have not found their purpose in life yet), it can be argued that not many inexperienced leaders will have found their passion for leadership. On the other hand, one can also argue that an inexperienced leader, who finds satisfaction in managing his goals and team, has found his passion in leadership. George (2003) explains that passion for leadership is based on intrinsic motivation and Rego et al. (2012) link intrinsic motivation to persons that tend to be curious, flexible, willing to take risks and are persistent. In my opinion these are characteristics that successful leaders will have, independent of their experience.
• My assumption is that a successful inexperienced leader is intrinsically motivated in his passion for leadership.
Bass (1985) identifies higher-‐order needs and focus on teamwork as part of
transformational leadership. He explains that transformational leaders activate higher-‐ order needs of the followers, so a job becomes more than a way to earn a paycheck. According to Miller et al. (2007, p. 53) it is “the process of gaining performance above
expectations by inspiring employees to reach beyond themselves and do more than they originally thought possible”. The question is whether inexperienced leaders already have
the ability and foresight to inspire followers to transform themselves, which goes further than developing employees to become better workers. But Burns (1979)
mentions that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Bass & Steidlmeier (1999, p. 211) see “authentic transformational leaders as
moral agents (….) engaged as they are in the moral uplifting of their followers, in the sharing of mutually rewarding visions of success, and in enabling and empowering them to convert the visions into realities”. In this theory morality is very important. This relates to
that young managers in the hospitality industry are “in favour of a purely economic, or
self-‐interested imperative” and that older (in age) managers are more inclined to “embrace a social contract or personalistic ethic approach”. The latter, more altruistic
approach of older managers, is directly linked to transformational leadership in their study. The results of this study also show that young managers are less inclined to be altruistic.
The relation between success and ethics is not researched in this study. The question remains whether (young) inexperienced leaders can be successful with a self-‐interested imperative. In this study I will not focus on this aspect. I will assume that in line with transformational leadership theory, successful inexperienced leaders see the
importance of values that are more altruistic and help followers in developing their higher-‐order needs. Also George (2003) finds leading from the heart with compassion and connecting to others essential elements of authentic leadership. Having and actively promoting an altruistic working approach is something a successful inexperienced leader should make use of.
• It is expected that a successful inexperienced leader will act according to altruistic values.
The focus on team goals instead of personal interest is considered very important in the hospitality industry where work is frequently done in groups (Miller et al, 2007). The theory on team leadership indicates that there is a reciprocal influence of the leader on team effectiveness (Zaccaro et al., 2001). For inexperienced leaders it can be very beneficial to lean on the input and skills of the team members in accomplishing tasks in the most effective way. They need the team to complete their goals. In a laissez-‐faire leadership style (e.g. shared leadership), a leader delegates all authority and power to the followers. However, this approach is hardly used in the hospitality industry, because under stressful situations (that are very common in the hospitality industry) leaders need to be able to make fast individual decisions.
Research findings by Shen et al. (2011) demonstrate that perceived team support
significantly influences teamwork behavior and that team members who feel valued will have greater commitment to work. So teamwork is important both for followers and for leaders.
• It is expected that successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry will put high importance on teamwork.
D. Authentic leadership
George (2003) in his explanation of authentic leadership encompasses passion for a purpose, practicing one’s values, leading with the heart and mind, connectedness to followers and self-‐discipline. Authentic leaders know who they are. Here, self-‐discipline and authenticity are additional leadership qualities.
Self-‐discipline shows that the leader converts his values to consistent actions. This is needed to gain the respect of followers. Therefore, leaders also need to lead by example. In addition, leaders are often highly competitive people (George, 2003), driven by ambitions to be successful. This requires a high level of self-‐discipline. Kirkpatrick & Locke (1991) in their research concluded that effective leaders are different to other people in key traits such as ‘drive’, meaning inexperienced leaders need to have
ambition, motivation and energy to be successful. Obviously there is a relation between drive and self-‐discipline. To be successful as an inexperienced leader, he will have ambitions and will need self-‐discipline to achieve success.
• It is to be expected that self-‐discipline is very relevant to successful inexperienced leaders.
In regards to authenticity George (2003) explains that a leader must be true to himself and authentic in every regard. As inexperienced leader the pressures from the
organization and followers can be perceived as high. Being true to yourself, gives you a better defense against these pressures.
George (2003) also stresses the importance of being authentic in all aspects of life (work and private). For inexperienced leaders it can be difficult to recognize the distinction between work and private life, especially when their team members are of the same age and social life takes place in places that are often visited by both. Social interaction outside of the workplace is very common for (young) persons working in the hospitality industry. Inexperienced leaders will be confronted with the fact that they cannot always be part of the team and that team members need to talk about their leaders with others, without the leader being present (Miller et al, 2007).
Goffee & Jones (2005) mention that followers need to recognize themselves in the leader, so the leader has to establish a level of connectedness. Leaders need to find a balance between being strict and having fun (to stay connected), while standing their own ground. Summarizing, authenticity is important because it enhances independence and increases connectedness to followers, but a leader needs to be authentic both in work and private life.
• It can be expected that authenticity in all aspects of life is an important leadership quality for successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry.
E. Self-‐confidence development cycle
Hollenbeck & Hall (2004, p. 258) describe the self-‐confidence development cycle (see Figure 1) in which “people take a small risk and make a step toward some important goal,
succeed in that, and become more confident in their abilities. As a result, they set higher goals, and with success gain more self-‐confidence, leading to a higher level of aspiration, and so on, and so on”. Setting a goal, putting in effort and having success in your work
results into self-‐confidence.
Figure 1 Self-‐confidence development cycle
According to McCall Jr. (2004) and Lolli (2013) experience in itself is essential in leadership. A distinction can be made between experience as a leader, or working experience in general. I refer to an inexperienced leader as a leader with a lack of leadership experience, but who may have extensive general work experience in other fields. Research done by Avery et al. (2003) shows that high relevant experience is a good predictor of a leader’s effectiveness. In addition, experience in the subordinate's job and experience under high stress conditions are significantly related to the leader’s effectiveness. So, having work experience on a non-‐supervisory level in the hospitality
industry and having been subject to stressful conditions (as is often the case in hospitality) is important for an inexperienced leader. But in the hospitality industry, because of the heterogeneous character of services (Zeithaml et al., 1993), work
situations do not occur in the exact same situation as experienced before. So how should experience be valued? It depends on how well past experiences (as worker or as leader) are used for current decision-‐making. It is important that the inexperienced leader uses self-‐reflection to learn from their experiences.
• It is to be expected that successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry have considerable work experience.
According to Hollenbeck & Hall (2004) (showing) self-‐confidence is needed to create followers. Having and showing self-‐confidence gives credibility of the leader’s capacity towards the followers. They also conclude that self-‐confidence is a quality over which a leader can have some considerable control.
Karp (2013) links authenticity as a leader's gateway to self-‐confidence and advices that leaders must step out of their comfort zone in order to develop themselves. So, as an inexperienced leader, one needs to have self-‐confidence to do new things, for instance taking on managerial responsibilities.
• It is to be expected that successful inexperienced leaders will have and show self-‐ confidence.
F. Conclusion
The result of this chapter is a theoretical framework with ten leadership qualities (see Table 1) that are expected to be relevant to successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry. The leadership qualities in bold are thought to be more strongly related to the characteristics of the hospitality industry (dealing with guests, teamwork, variability of services, etc.).
Leadership qualities: Expected outcomes for successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry:
1. People orientation A high people orientation
2. Goal completion and having overview
Focus on goal completion and a helicopter view
3. Reward system Using grades as a reward tool for tasks accomplishment and behavior of followers 4. Passion for leadership Leaders are passionate about leadership
5. Altruistic values Leaders will apply values that are derived from an altruistic point of view
6. Teamwork Giving (high) importance to teamwork
7. Self-‐discipline Having (high) self-‐discipline and leading by example
8. Authenticity Leaders are authentic both in work and private
life
9. Work experience Leaders have general work experience
10. Self-‐confidence Having and showing (high) self-‐confidence from the start
Table I Leadership qualities list
III. Research Method
In order to answer the main research question different research methods are used. The previous chapter describes the literature on leadership theories, concluding with a theoretical framework of ten important leadership qualities for successful leadership. To understand which of these leadership qualities successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry use, a qualitative research is conducted under second year
Hotelschool The Hague students. Ten students that received a high grade for their skills in ‘Managing an Outlet’ with a team of first year students participated in the research. The theoretical framework of leadership qualities is used to conduct an in-‐depth interview. The results show the leadership qualities that are relevant for this group of successful inexperienced leaders. Furthermore, a comparison is made with their
Birkman personality profiles in order to support the results and to gain insight into the personality traits of the successful inexperienced leaders. Finally the results of the research are examined in an expert review session in order to verify the results.
A. Successful inexperienced leaders
To establish what makes a leader successful, data was collected on the grades of second year students of Hotelschool The Hague for their skills in the course ‘Managing an Outlet’ (Hotelschool The Hague, 2012). In this course second year students (called leaders from now on) are asked to manage a team of first year students (called followers from now in) in an outlet where they are responsible for the daily operations. They run two outlets for two or three weeks (five weeks in total) and the other five weeks they organize a charity event, with the other second year students. Within the course
‘Managing an Outlet’ subgrades are given; 50% of the final grade is for the organization of an event (team effort) and 50% of the final grade is individual. The individual grade is given for ‘Management’, consisting of management skills (e.g. how to give constructive feedback) and the management of the outlets (planning, directing, controlling and professional attitude). The average grade for the ‘Management’ part of the course ‘Managing an Outlet’ is usually below 70 (out of 100). My definition of a successful leader is a leader with a grade of at least 75. For practical reasons only the HTH Amsterdam campus students, which had done the course in the academic year 2012-‐ 2013, were interviewed. In total 14 leaders were approached with an email explaining
the research (see Appendix A). Out of these, ten leaders decided to participate in the research (two students did not respond to the invitation and two students were not able to participate for personal reasons). As shown in Table II, the majority of the leaders are female, the age varies between 20 and 26 years and the educational level prior to the HTH is also varied. Two leaders had received grades for only one outlet at the time of the research. The research was conducted between 10th June 2013 and 4th July 2013.
Leader Gender Management Grade Age Educational level Remarks
1 Female 85 26 VWO
2 Male 83 21 VWO 1 outlet only
3 Female 82 25 International 4 Female 81 20 VWO 5 Female 81 22 VWO 6 Female 80 20 HAVO 7 Female 78 21 VWO 8 Female 78 24 MBO 9 Male 76 23 MBO
10 Female 75 23 International 1 outlet only
Table II Successful leaders participating in research
To establish which of the leadership qualities from the theoretical framework successful inexperienced leaders in the hospitality industry use, a qualitative research was
conducted under the group of leaders identified as successful. These were in-‐depth interviews relating to the aforementioned leadership qualities list. The in-‐depth interviews were structured by starting off with general questions on practicalities and permission to tape the interview and to have insight into their Birkman profile (see Appendix B). The opening phase of the interview was initiated with the question: ‘Why do you think you were such a successful leader during your MO?’, which was followed by other reflective questions. In addition to some practicalities and the leadership qualities list, information was gathered on the outlets managed, the instructors who managed them, their nationality, the period in which the course took place, their previous
working experience, their previous leadership experience, their ambitions as leader and which qualities good leaders should have. This information is additional to the
leadership qualities list in order to support analysis.
The interviewer made sure that all ten points on the leadership qualities list were covered during the interview. At the end the respondents had the chance to add
anything on the subject that they wanted. The interviews were recorded so the
researcher could focus on listening and asking questions. The interviews were held in a small meeting room on campus to make sure the leaders were familiar and at ease with the location. All leaders appreciated the interview as a chance to reflect on their
performance as a leader.
The answers to the main questions are color coded in order to show the relevance of the leadership qualities for the successful inexperienced leaders.
1. People orientation is considered green when the leaders are (highly) people orientated, yellow when people orientation is less emphasized and red with no people orientation.
2. Goal completion and having overview is green when it is considered (very) important. It is yellow when there is less emphasis on goal completion. Red signifies no importance given to goal completion.
3. With reward system is meant the use of a grade system as a means to motivate the students and to punish unwanted behavior. Green indicates that a reward system is used both ways. It is yellow when it is only applied to either positively motivate students or to punish unwanted behavior, and it is red when it is not used as a tool.
4. Passion in leadership is green when the leader has found his passion in
leadership. It is yellow when the enjoyment of work or taking care of people is mentioned as a passion (focus on hospitality, but not leadership) and it is red when none of these are mentioned.
5. Altruistic values is green when the leaders will apply values derived from an altruistic point of view. It is yellow when values are mentioned that include others, but are not altruistic. It is red if the values are individually driven.
6. Teamwork is green when there is a focus on teamwork, yellow when teamwork is less emphasized and red if there is no importance given to teamwork.
7. Self-‐discipline is green when the leader is highly self-‐disciplined or leads by example. It is yellow when self-‐discipline is considered less important and red if there is a lack of self-‐discipline.
8. Authenticity is green when the leader is authentic at all times. It is yellow if the leader makes a difference in work and private life and red if the leader is not authentic.
9. Work experience is green when the leader has extensive work experience. Little work experience is yellow coded and no work experience is considered red. 10. Self-‐confidence is green when the leader felt (highly) self-‐confident from the
beginning. Yellow if the self-‐confidence grew during their leadership experience and red if there is low self-‐confidence.
In addition to the qualities already mentioned, the supportive question on how
ambitious the student is to become a leader has also been color coded. The ambition as a leader for the future is green when the leader wants to continue to be a leader, yellow if they are not sure about it and red if they do not want to continue as a leader.
For analysis purposes the colors are transformed to scores between 0-‐10, with 10 points for green answers, 5 points for yellow answers and 0 points for red answers. Every topic can score a maximum of 100 points. If a leadership quality scores at least 80 points, it is considered to be relevant.
B. Birkman profile
All students at HTH do a personality test using the Birkman method. The Birkman method is a tool that identifies a person’s passions, behaviors, motivation and interests. The profiles of the successful leaders are compared to the profile of the average HTH student or the norm group of their age. Differences are compared to the list of
leadership qualities that are found relevant. The goal is to support the results of the research and gain a better understanding of the personality of the successful
inexperienced leader.
C. Expert review
The results of the research are reviewed by an expert who is an instructor in the course ‘Managing an Outlet’ at the HTH and works daily with these students. The review is used to verify the results.
IV. Results
The answers of the leaders were gathered into an overview with a summary of their answers in colors related to the code system explained earlier (see Appendix C for the full overview).
Table III shows a simplified version of this overview with the total score per leadership quality (with 80 points qualifying as relevant). The results for each leadership quality are analyzed and main conclusions are drawn.
Leader: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Score:
1. People orientation 10 10 5 10 5 10 10 10 10 10 90
2. Goal completion and
having overview 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 5 10 10 95
3. Reward systems 10 10 0 0 0 5 5 5 0 5 40
4. Passion for leadership 10 5 0 5 10 5 5 5 10 5 60
5. Values 10 5 5 0 0 5 0 5 5 0 35 6. Teamwork 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 100 7. Self-‐discipline 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 100 8. Authenticity 5 10 10 5 5 5 10 10 10 10 80 9. Work experience 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 100 10. Self-‐confidence 10 10 10 10 10 5 10 10 10 10 95
Table III Score on relevance of leadership qualities
A. People orientation
The results of the in-‐depth interviews show that people orientation is very relevant to successful inexperienced leaders. Out of the ten leaders, eight are (highly) people orientated and two are less focused on their followers. The people orientated leaders mention that they give feedback to followers, involve them in decisions regarding work, see who needs extra attention and are very empathetic. One of the leaders showed understanding of the needs of the followers: “I check with all students on how they are doing, to see who needs some extra attention, making sure nobody feels singled-‐out”. Many of the leaders have a lack of technical skills, but make use of their human skills. By involving team members in the decision making process, they can make use of the total
