Leadership comes in many shapes and forms. You may see leaders in obvious positions, but sometimes leaders appear in places you don’t expect. Think about people whom you have encountered in your lifetime. Whether it is observed in your workplace, school, or everyday life, there are likely behaviors and situations that take place that exemplify leadership. For this discussion forum, please complete the following:
- Get Prepped: Read through your Chapters 12 and 13 and review the different types of leadership, as well as the power and influence that comes with the roles.
- Identify a Leader: Come up with one example of a person in hospitality that you want to share about who you think represents a true leader. If you can, identify someone that you personally have interacted with and can share in detail about. Share a brief narrative (tell the story) of how you came to the conclusion they are a great leader (You can use a pseudonym if you prefer this person remains anonymous, but you must identify an actual person). Remember, the person does not have to be a position in high power to be a leader! I’ve worked with people who were not in leadership positions but were great leaders who had great influence. If you cannot think of someone in your circle of influence, then you can do some research online to identify a hospitality professional that would fit the description.
- Applying the Leadership Research: After doing some research and reflection, identify whether your identified person is a manager or a leader, and why. Identify a minimum of 2 leadership types and/or perspectives that would apply to the person you identified. Explain why you think this person is as you described, and reference you textbook and any other research you have found.
- Power and Influence: Finally, describe the power and influence that your identified person has. Do they have possess organizational power or personal power, or both? What kind of tactics have they used to influence others? How does this person use their power for good, and have a positive influence on people? Share examples and detailed descriptions, referencing your textbook where applicable.
and also need 3 responses on the following
Post 1
Currently, I am doing my first internship in the corporate office of Hyatt. I met with my first supervisor in the workplace while I believe my supervisor Tuwei could be one example of a person in hospitality who represents a true leader. She was officially designated by the organization as the talent manager in the human resources department for Greater China.
I received several offers but finally, I choose to join Hyatt because Tuwei clearly states the vision, “We care for people so they can be their best”, instead of any other detailed instructions for future tasks. She also shows me that how the vision statement is being put into action and activates me to achieve it after joining the Hyatt. Therefore, I identified Tuwei as a leader first. Leaders paint a picture of what they see as possible and inspire and engage their people in turning that vision into reality. From my perspective, Tuwei is a visionary leader with achievement-oriented leadership. Besides how she creates a vision and engages employees to do better, she also utilizes charisma. According to the Michigan State University’s report, the flair and charisma are so often associated with the visionary leadership style (2021). Tuwei is very empathetic, generous, altruistic, and also has a sense of humor with effective communication skills and interpersonal skills, which enchanted me with her charisma. She also set long-term goals for me and wait until one month to see whether I achieve them or not. She has a high expectation for me and believes that I can achieve the goal even it is challenging. During the process, she offers valuable training and assistance to help me to seek continuous improvement, for example, helping me to register the digital design courses and teach me recruitment marketing techniques one by one. According to the textbook, achievement-oriented leaders set goals, improve performance, and assist in employee training (2020). It perfectly fits into Tuwei’s leadership behaviors.
Finally, I think Tuwei has both process organizational power and personal power because she has the legitimate power to ask others to do some tasks as a talent manager for Greater China, and also she is a specialist in recruitment marketing may help her to establish her personal power. Tuwei used inspirational appeals and exchange to positively influence people. According to the textbook, Inspirational Appeals means the utilization of emotions to rouse enthusiasm for the task(2020). For example, Tuwei always tells me that if I continue to work hard and put in the effort, I will be promoted and have the chance to stay at Hyatt instead of a short-term internship. It is a kind of exchange and she was tapping into my aspirations, therefore, I want to instill passion in what Tuwei wants me to accomplish. Inspiration in itself is influential and enthusiasm keeps me motivated, which influences me positively.
Post 2
One person that immediately comes to mind when I think of a leader is a co-worker of mine. I’ll call this person Jen. She is not a manager nor the official leader of the servers, but everyone looks up to her. She is very logical in her thinking and always with a positive attitude. Everyone trusts her. Not only that, when there is an issue that arises she addresses it immediately in the utmost respectful but direct way. If there is something that is needed to be talked to with the managers, everyone usually discusses it with her first to see her perspective and thoughts, and sometimes she even addresses the issue to the manager herself for that individual and/or team.
I would consider Jen a leader and not a manager, first the reason that she is not a manager, but also she “consists of creating a vision, introducing change and movement, and influencing others to achieve goals…” (339). After further research, I would gather that Jen carries an empowering leadership trait which “helps to develop the individual skills, take ownership of their work, and contribute to organizational performances” (341). She carries the desire to lead, holds self confidence, knowledge of domain, cognitive ability, an extraversion, openness to new experiences, and has integrity. Basically all the core traits, she possesses.
Jen not only holds organizational power, but personal power too. I’m not saying that she influences people by rewards only, but she is so nice and brings in treats for the whole staff, front of house and back of house so people are willing to go the extra yard for her. Jen has also been in the service industry for so long and is good with interacting and understanding different cultures and from international, midwest, southern, east coast, west coast. She understands why they might be acting the way they are which I believe is under expert power. The staff members depend on her knowledge.
Post 3
The leader that I have chosen is the person who trained me as a hostess. During my 4 days of training I was able to learn from someone who had a good amount of experience as a hostess and has trained others before. She was more of a manager than a leader because there were no long term goals or inspirations that I was given. It was more expectations and day to day goals. The type of leadership used was production oriented. According to Organizational Behavior a production oriented leader is, ” A leader who tends to focus more on the technical or task aspects of the job.” (Neck et al. 2019). During my training I was only taught the tasks that I must do every day there was no goal other than to seat people every day. She also used Transactional leader ship which according to Organizational Behavior is,” A behavioral type of leadership that proposes that employees are motivated by goals and equitable rewards.” (Neck et al. 2019). The rewards part was incorporated by the girl buying me Starbucks for lunch every now and then for the hard work I put in. According to Leader vs manager: what’s the difference, ” Managers need to be organized in order to help their workers be successful.” (2020). The days that I worked with her she was always able to organize all the parties so they were able to be together even with all the stress of having a line of people waiting to be seated. I admired how she was able to be so quick with decision making in such short notice. The person that I described as a manager did use both organizational power and personal power because she was able to ask me what to do as well as influence the work of others around us, an example would be the bussers and waiters. She was able to use personal power because she was working at the restaurant for so long she knew how everything worked and could influence others.
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