Creative and Ethical Leadership: Analysis of Industry Practices Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of creative and ethical leadership within the hospitality industry. It explores the importance of ethical behavior and the role of creativity in a dynamic business environment. The report examines industry practices, highlighting the need for leaders to uphold honesty, fairness, and trust while striving for profit maximization. It discusses the impact of ethical leadership on customer loyalty, employee commitment, and investor enthusiasm. The report also presents an analysis of research methods, including primary and secondary data collection through interviews and questionnaires. The organization section focuses on self-reflection and the development of ethical leadership traits, emphasizing open communication, integrity, and treating all individuals with respect. The report underscores the significance of ethical decision-making, training, and the implementation of inclusive practices to foster a positive work environment and enhance customer relationships. The content is contributed by a student and published on Desklib, a platform providing AI-based study tools.

Creative and Ethical Leadership: Portfolio
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Table of Contents
Industry......................................................................................................................................3
Analysis......................................................................................................................................5
Organization...............................................................................................................................6
Reference....................................................................................................................................9
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Industry
In the current complex environment, business organizations aim to promote ethical and
creative behavior among employees (Engelbrecht, Heine, and Mahembe, 2017). Creativity in
an organization concerns the dynamism in the specific industry's business environment. As
the hospitality industry is such that it requires incorporating innovations and creativity as per
the changing customer preferences and social trends, creative leadership is crucial in this
sector.
Besides, the leaders in the hospitality sector also need to be ethical for long-term sustenance.
Ethical leadership encompasses an ideal belief system of fairness, honesty, trust, and
consideration. It is a holistic approach to leadership that respects the dignity and everyone’s
rights(Engelbrecht, Heine, and Mahembe, 2017).
Valuing people's sentiments during business and commerce enable leaders in the hospitality
sector to achieve long-term business and brand reputation goals. The organizations with
ethical leadership have more loyal customers, committed employees, and enthusiastic
investors in the longer run.
While striving for profit maximization, the hospitality industry expects leaders to uphold
honest and trustworthy business practices by society. Instead of justifying malpractices by the
hotel industry, performing the duties and responsibilities with moral ethics and integrity
needs to be adopted in the business's day-to-day functioning (Álvarez, and Cortes-Vazquez,
2020). However, it is often seen that to stay ahead of the competitors, companies compromise
on their hospitality morals and ethics. Yet, when the companies operating in the hotel
industry fail to keep up the morality and integrity in the functioning, the customers lose their
trust and confidence. Consequentially it leads to the gradual downfall of such organizations.
Customer complaints begin to rise, and hotel managers and employees face unhappy
customers' anger burst. It further impacts the business reputation negatively and leads to
business shutdowns in extreme conditions.
Although there are laws, rules, and regulations for observing quality standards in the
hospitality industry, it is often difficult to differentiate between right or wrong (Huang, and
Paterson, 2017). Managers and leaders often get stuck in ethical dilemmas while making
decisions for the business. However, by considering some of the aspects, one may be guided
towards the right decision:
Whether the decision is not affecting negatively on people?
Whether it will lead to a good reputation for the company?
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Are people getting benefitted by the decision taken?
Whether the decision is based on truthful facts and promotes the same?
Another test to check the ethical soundness of the decision is by publicity test. For instance,
how would the person feel if his/her family or loved ones come to know about the person's
actions? The answer to this question will help to make the right decision (Ko, et al. 2018).
Among one of the fastest-growing industries, the hospitality sector contributes significantly
to the UK economy. Hotels, restaurants, pubs, and leisure corporations comprise the UK's
hospitality sector. Besides, guest houses and other types of accommodations provided to
travelers and visitors are also part of the UK's hospitality sector. The unstoppable growth and
innovations make the industry highly competitive. In terms of employment, the industry
contributes around 3.6% of the nation's GDP, providing a vast employment opportunity range
(Invest in UK, 2016). Also, the content or services offered by the industry to the customers is
too extensive. People can pursue different careers within the industry.
Given the scenario, ethicality is central to a hospitality business. It concerns several aspects
of health and safety issues for the visitors, response mechanisms during emergencies,
contingency planning, equality and inclusion, accessibility, visitors' consents and many
others. Ethics in respect to these directions govern the decision making processes and
determining the ideal procedures and policies of the hotels. These also impact the managerial
decisions regarding recruiting the employees with high moral characters, the process of
evaluating the employees' behavior, disciplinary actions and termination procedures, etc.
(Yang, and Wei, 2018).
Not observing the ethical standards in a hotel business increases the reputational risks for the
company. On the part of hoteliers, it is vital to see that they follow high moral standards-
setting examples for the employees to follow as it largely depends on the leaders, how the
followers are functioning. In this regard, timely decisions such as hiring competent staff to
ensure that the privacy of the visitors and their confidential information are compromised are
to be taken by the leaders in the sector. For instance, rising cyber-attacks scenarios have
required the companies in the hospitality business to hire Chief Risk Officer to oversee the
compliance of contingency preparedness and effective risk management within the hospitality
corporations such as credit card information, etc.( Berkel, et al. 2020).
Additionally, an ethical leader in the hospitality industry observes fair treatment to the
employees and the customers irrespective of their socio-economic background (Shareef, and
Atan, 2019). Being just is the foremost requirement of the leaders. It is showcased in the
scenarios when the employees, regardless of their positions, have answerability. When the
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hotels' leaders require their managers to be equally responsible as their lower-level
employees, it enhances the commitment among the staff throughout the organization. As the
industry offers hospitality services to the customers, it is essential that the culture of inclusion
and equality is the topmost priority of the organizations. By listening and addressing the
subordinates' concerns and ethical leader showcases respect towards the employees even at
the front ends of the company (Qing, et al. 2019).
In this regard, communication plays a vital role in understanding and the importance of
values and integrity at the workplace. It enables the leaders to set standards and create
awareness about the values and the noble behavior expected from the employees. Also,
upholding humanity in the exclusive dealings makes a leader ethical and honorable.
Analysis
The industry analysis is supported by different research methods, including primary data
through personal interviews, secondary information and facts, and referring to various pieces
of literature, etc. To determine the importance and application of creativity and ethicality in
the hospitality sector, the researchers carry out inclusive research. The sources of the
information are conversations, open-ended questions, and interviews. The professionals
identify the various determinants analyzing the ethical behaviors of leaders that lead to
business growth and long-term sustainability (Feng, et al. 2019). The point of view developed
during the research is based on the analysis of real-life companies and scenarios.
The professionals in the industry can reach out to people working at different positions in the
industry to collect the necessary information and an overview of the prevalent trends in the
industry. The examples can be ordered in terms of unethical incidents and identify specific
issues in the chosen industry. It helps the professionals determine the importance of ethical
leadership within the sector—the research helps recognize the areas that require more
attention to business integrity and morality (Dust, et al. 2018). People can also be
interviewed, and data can be collected on the basis of duration based experiences. New issues
and prevalent problems help to identify the areas of improvement that can assist the
professional in framing the policies and procedures for ethical business practices in the
chosen sector.
Primary research methods are more useful for conducting research by the professionals since
they get more insights about the overview of the ethical scenario in the selected business
sector as these research methods are adopted with respect to the central aim of the research,
these help in accomplishing the research objectives. Also, on the basis of the purpose, the
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research methods can be flexibly applied to collect quantitative as well as qualitative data.
After getting the proper results, better learning in ethical leadership can be achieved (Javed,
et al. 2018). Furthermore, secondary sources also provide the necessary information to
identify the importance and implications of moral leadership.
In the research, the information and data were collected through personal interviews and
questionnaires. Different stakeholders in the hotel industry, for instance, suppliers, customers,
peers, and managers, were contacted through calls and private meetings. As the subject was
sensitive, the e-mail surveys and written reports were excluded. As people are hesitant to
disclose acute scenarios of unethical practices, it was challenging to get the relevant
information since the hotel managers were reluctant to share the incidences of unethical
issues in their own hospitality businesses (Asif, et al. 2019). Therefore, one call interview
was selected for collecting the relevant responses.
In order to gather sensitive information, an interview is considered an effective way of
research methodology. However, there is a risk of influencing the interviewees' responses.
Therefore, to keep these impacts to a minimum, the questions were posed in identical ways to
the interviewees. Also, necessary care was taken that the responses are in no way being
influenced by providing suggestions in any form. While recording the reactions,
confidentiality was assured to all respondents.
The questions asked to the respondents were:
1. What ethical issues are found in the hotel you work for or visited by you that
concerned you the most?
2. A common ethical issue found in your organization?
3. What are the traits in terms of ethics do you expect from hospitality leaders or
managers?
4. Can you relate to any discriminatory behavior from the employees/managers at the
hotel you visited or worked for?
5. How often were you asked to share new ideas to resolve the issues at the hotels you
visited or worked for?
All the responses were recorded to analyze the traits of an ethical leader. Besides, the
respondents also provided answers regarding the creativity observed at the hotel.
Organization
Self-reflection assists a person to analyze the individual's behaviors, thoughts, decisions, and
emotions. From time to time, reflecting on personal skills and traits enable a person to make
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better decisions in the future. It helps to realize the mistakes made by a person during a
personal or professional journey and move ahead with better strategies to avoid those
mistakes in the future (Moldenhauer, Osland, and Waterbury, 2019). However, self-reflection
does not connote the idea of condemning oneself over past mistakes; instead emphasizes
enhanced learning from bad experiences in one's past. Therefore, I tend to practice self-
reflection to expand my learning about ethical leadership. While working in the Hospitality
sector is imperative that I focus on developing traits and characteristics that I emerge as a
moral leader in the future. For this, I believe that practices of open communication and taking
stands against immoral practices while encouraging others to do the same will make a
difference.
Moreover, I understand that actions impact more than words while working in the IHG.
Hence practical implications of integrity and creativity in leadership are of great significance
to become an ethical leader (Sarwar, et al. 2020). It is also characterized by treating the
gatekeeper the same as one would to the senior managers. Appropriate training will also help
me to enhance the ethical behaviors at my workplace as well as in my personal life. During
the on-floor tasking, I learned to work in teams. It helped me in building better relationships
with my peers and the customers, upholding ethical decision making at the same time. As the
hospitality industry is mainly based on customer relationships, it is important that people
working in the industry have effective communication and interpersonal skills. Hence I
realized that it is vital that the customers are well informed, and the instructions are in their
best interests.
To promote ethical behavior at the workplace, the leaders at IHG encourage the employees to
attend to the guests equally. I have learned this during my learning to treat everyone the same
irrespective of their background and financial status. Moreover, conscientiousness is also
necessary while working in a hospitality organization. It allows an individual to be respectful
towards the sentiments of others, including the peers and other ground level workers. This
enhances the image of the leader as considerate and honorable (Sarwar, et al. 2020).
During my training and development, there were various instances where I had to make
decisions. Hence, I learned to make decisions on the basis of the publicity test to ensure that
the decisions I take are morally right and in the interests of the organization as well as the
customers. Sometimes, I had to face dilemmas where I had to choose between my friends and
the customers. These make the decision-making a bit complex for me.
As an ethical leader, I also learned to listen to others attentively and compassionately. Since
an ethical leader encourages people to take the initiative and provides the opportunity to
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come up with creative ideas, I learned to appreciate people for taking risks and doing
experiments within our organization. I also begin to come up with new and better ways of
doing things to improve my productivity at work. Taking the initiative is also one of the
common traits of an ethical leader.
Another behavioral trait that I learned during my tasks was being honest in admitting the
mistakes. As an ethical leader, one has to be true to others and be bold enough to admit the
mistakes and improving on the faults rather than hiding from the fear of consequences.
Admitting the mistakes lowers down the impact of the error and causes lesser harm when
timely action is taken. However, being an ethical leader can be challenging because it may
require people to make bold and risky decisions. Taking stands against the malpractices in the
organizations that have the power to frame, you may also be risky at times(Moldenhauer,
Osland, and Waterbury, 2019).
Teambuilding is also one of the features of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders focus on
pursuing team building activities to enhance business performance in the hospitality industry.
During the learning, I worked on seeking a cohesive approach towards my peers and fellow
workers.
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