Leadership, CSR, and Social Media in the Four Seasons Hotel

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Four Seasons Hotel, examining various aspects of its operations within the context of the hospitality industry. The report begins by exploring different leadership styles, including authoritative, democratic, and transformational approaches, and analyzes the leadership practices adopted by the Four Seasons Hotel. It delves into the concept of organizational responsibility, detailing the strategic responsibility management model and how the hotel implements it across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Furthermore, the report investigates the concept of responsible leadership and its framework within the context of the hotel. Finally, the report examines the implications of social media practices for customer satisfaction and experience, highlighting the evolving trends within the industry. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and insights into the Four Seasons Hotel's approach to leadership, responsibility, and social media engagement.

EMERGING TRENDS IN
THE HOSPITALITY
INDUSTRY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Analysis of different leadership styles and leadership practices in Four Seasons...................3
2. Organizational responsibility and responsible leadership concepts in Four Seasons Hotel....5
3. The way CSR benefits to the Four Seasons Hotel as well as to the wider community...........9
4. Social Media Practices and its implications...........................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
The hospitality industry in the UK is majorly represented by various country's hotels,
restaurants, leisure companies and pubs which helps to produce around 4% of the total GDP of
United Kingdom. Hospitality represents more than 700 companies in this particular sector which
offer employment to approx 3.2 million people (Aggarwal, 2017). Nowadays, there are various
emerging trends that faced by the hospitality industry of UK such as technology explosion,
increased emphasis on health, sustainability rules, destination promotion and many more. In
order to deal with such kind of issues, companies have to take certain measures which fulfil the
ultimate goal of the company and employees as well.
Four seasons hotel Hampshire is a multinational hotel with 133 luxurious guest rooms
and nestled among more than 500 acres of rolling English countryside. Hotel is mastered in
providing relaxed and family- friendly environment along with series of activities including clay
shooting, yoga and croquet along with high-wire adventure activities (Menvielle, 2017).
This study will describe the important information about the concept of various
leadership styles and the leadership style the leader of Four Seasons Hotel adopts along with
their application in the company. Apart from this, the report will also highlight the thought of
corporate social responsibility along with its benefits to the company and implications of social
media practices for better customer satisfaction and experiences.
MAIN BODY
1. Analysis of different leadership styles and leadership practices in Four Seasons
Leadership is the creation of motivating a group of people or employees to act towards
achieving a common goal. In a business setting, this can mean directing workers and colleges
with a strategy in order to meet the organizations needs and wants. In other words, leadership is a
process of social and cultural influence which maximizes the efforts of employees or helps to
increase the productivity of candidates in order to work towards the achievement of one common
pre-defined goal (Hallinger, 2018). It is the most important part for every management to handle
the human resource in the Four Seasons. With the help of leadership, management can
effectively manage the roles and responsibilities of the employees and instruct them to
accomplish the task in a pre-defined ways. Four season hotel does not solely dependent upon the
skilled employees but also dependent upon the leaders. The leaders play a vital role in the

organization in order to create a situation in which the work needs to be done in appropriate way
at the right time and by the right candidates. In order to lead the team members or the whole
organization leader have to find effective style of leadership which is compatible for both the
personality of the leader and the organization as well.
Culture refers to the working environment created by the company's strategic vision,
values, and mission. It is the main factor which sets the tone for relationships among the
employees within the company (Knox, 2017). It acts as biggest influencer for the organizational
culture. The skill of the best leader strive to influence culture through their leadership style only.
Leaders are able to direct culture of the organization with the help of traditional action i.e.
command and control traits like top down leadership. There are different leadership styles that
can identify organizational culture are: Authoritative leadership style: These types of leaders set the visionary direction of
company and clearly describe the roles and responsibilities that individual employees will
play in order to achieve long term vision of the company. Authoritative leaders lead their
team members with setting an example in front of them and through which they try their
maximum to motivate their staff members (Rudolph and Rauvola, 2018). Along with this
they can create a rank and record culture that connects innovation, professional
development of employees as well as collaboration. Employees know their place very
well that where they stand in the company or organizational hierarchy. This reflects the
traditional command like top down leadership. These kinds of leaders set goals for the
team members of the organization and deliver specific and prescribed tasks to their
subordinates. Power is more centralized under authoritarian leadership style. Under the
guidance of such leaders employees might not feel that much valued as individuals as the
employees are unable to see clear connection between their individual success and the
organizational success. In context of Four Seasons, leaders in the company adopt the
autocratic leadership style in which they did not include the employees in decision-
making behaviour of the company. Autocratic nature of the top management of the
company helps them to take the critical decision in various situations. The effectiveness
of this leadership style helps the managers of Four Season hotel to implement the strategy
at the lower level and then compete for their position with their competitors in the market
space. Hotel implements this strategy at all the levels of the organization in order to take

the decision in a very fast manner and strictly instruct their employees to focus on the
task given to them irrespective of giving emphasize on decision-making process. Democratic leadership style: This leadership style also known as the participative
leadership style works accordance to build agreement among the team members of the
company. Leaders in such leadership style make final decisions on the basis of going
through the complete process of cooperation, compromise and agreement building that
engages all team members of the company. In democratic leadership style the leader
generates a culture in the company which gives voice to each member of the team and
work accordingly with the collaboration of individual thoughts. Before creating an
environment within the organization, the leaders have to build an atmosphere in which
the team members of the organization feels safe in order to take risks and able to engage
themselves in independent thinking process (Raziq, 2018). Through open dialogues, open
communication and shared values with each other this leadership style foster a kind of
culture of fellow feeling that's taking in the perspective of others and paying attention to
what leaders say to their employees. The leaders of Four Season hotel feels that it is the
lengthiest process and thus sometimes it resulted in the failure of the decision-making.
 Transformational leadership style: Transformational leaders begin by bringing team
leaders together to provide honest feedback about the company essential decisions. In
such situation employees are able to analyse the challenges and opportunities as well as
their personal goals and strengths which helps them to complete their tasks efficiently.
With the proper analysis of the task, the team leaders distribute the tasks according to the
individual talent and skills (Khalid, 2017). Alignment of organizational as well as
individual value improves the morale of employees which ultimately improves the
productivity of the candidates and thus the company as well. In context of Four Seasons
hotel organization structure requires this style at one stage of time while allotting the task
within the candidates because only at that point of time, the employees want the
distribution of task according to their individual talent and skills.
2. Organizational responsibility and responsible leadership concepts in Four Seasons Hotel
Organizational responsibility refers to the responsibilities an organization has in order to
have an effective performance. It is a well-known concept that no organization will run without

implementation of organizational responsibilities. These responsibilities take a balanced
approach in order to ensure the organization runs efficiently or effectively and benefits the most
people at all the times. Rules for the organizational responsibilities differs by the individual
organization but generally followed a uniformed guideline. This can be based on the type of
organization in which the leaders doing their functions (Ping, 2018). Organizational
responsibility can be described as company actions and policies that take into account
stakeholders expectations and the triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental
performances.
In detail, the organizational responsibility has been explained with the help of strategic
responsibility management model which describes the adapted and labelled strategic
responsibility management. The model includes the following sequence of steps:
The Four Seasons Hotel manages their organizational responsibility according to the steps that
are described above in the diagram. Step 1 includes the creation of vision and values related to
the responsibility of the organization towards their employees, step 2 includes identifying the
expectations through stakeholders dialogue and prioritize the tasks according to them, step 3
includes developing initiatives that are integrated with the corporate strategy, step 4 raising
internal awareness through employee training, step 5 is about institutionalize the strategic
Illustration 1: Strategic Responsibility Management Model
Source: (Strategic planet, 2019)

responsibility management as a way of doing business on an ongoing basis by measuring and
rewarding processes and results and the last stage is the stage 6 in which the reporting on the
status and the initiatives through a yearly organizational responsibility report that is made
available internally as well as externally (Miloloža, 2018).
Dimensions of organizational responsibility of Four Seasons hotel in terms of economic
performance helps to maximize the short term and long term profit of the company. It also
improves productivity and helps to enhance the wealth of owners and investors through the
enhancement of customer satisfaction. With the help of economic performance the company is
able to be fair to their competitors as well as regarding their employees and due to which they are
also able to create a safe working environment.
The responsibility of the hotel in terms of social performances helps to preserve health,
respect the laws, rules and regulations, respect social customs as well as culture heritage and
engage themselves selectively in cultural and political life.
While the environmental performance of the company in the market place is to consume
fewer natural resources and less burden on the environment with the help of less wastage.
Responsible leadership is a challenge for business leaders in order to ensure the wider
responsibilities of business are understood within their organization in order to demonstrate how
a responsible approach to business will create value within the organization. Business leaders
must be seen to act and demonstrate their commitment to creating a fairer society and a more
sustainable future by fostering a culture that will reward the correct behaviour of the employees,
regain their trust and encourage innovation. Responsible leadership is the type of leadership that
is sustainable in itself, built a business that is of benefit for multiple stakeholders and is socially
legitimate. This particular type of leadership adequately considers and incorporates its internal
system i.e. suppliers, employees, customers, creditors and stakeholders. The external system
includes local\ regional \political market place, culture, communities and legal regulations in
atomistic manner (Usman, 2018).
Leadership includes the efforts of influence in relation to common aims and enables
employees of four seasons to work together to produce results they could not produce by
working on their own. A framework that may be considered for responsible leadership is the
community learning and development Framework for responsible leadership.

In context of Four Seasons Hotel, the framework describes the initial stage i.e. the Direction in
which the leaders of the hotel directing their employees towards the achievement of common
aims and values. Team members have a shared understanding of the total team agenda, overall
aims, strategies and values and the way it contributes towards the organizational aims and values.
It is basically correlating the individual aims and values with the organizational aims and values.
The next stage is Engagement in which employees engagement in the working of tasks has been
done which energizes the individual identity and motives of the company. There is a very high
level of enthusiastic commitment towards the team from the leader and motivation for shared
responsibilities takes place. Next is the Alignment of the work in which the agreements and
actions taken place by the leaders and managers. In this stage the leader creates clear boundaries
Illustration 2: Responsible Leadership Framework
Sources: (Leadership development, 2018)

and understanding of the roles and responsibilities and their interdependencies within the team
members. The last stage is the Renewal stage in which the learning and changes needs to be
done if required. In this the leader welcomes the change and learning culture within the
company. There is an effective coordination of decision, information and activities in relation to
the team agenda (Bromley, 2018).
In context of Four Seasons Hotel, there are various responsibilities that organization as
well as the leaders have to fulfil in accordance to private, public and third sector. The
responsibility of the firm in context of private institutions is that the company is not solely
responsible and work for the betterment of the company or only for profit maximization. The
company have to work also for the betterment of the employees as well. According to public
sector the responsibility of the organization is towards their stakeholders because they are the
primary public for any business so, in order to enhance their profit maximization, the company
needs to work accordingly. And the last one is the third sector which describes that the firm also
have some responsibilities towards the betterment of the society. Every business activity have to
follow certain measures and rules which ensures that the business does not harm the environment
of the society or there is no negative impact on the society culture.
3. The way CSR benefits to the Four Seasons Hotel as well as to the wider community
Corporate social responsibility can be defined as the business approach which helps in
the contributing towards the sustainable development that helps in delivering social, economic
and environmental benefits to all the stakeholders of the firm. It is very much essential for every
organization to perform the corporate social responsibility activities so that as to sustain the
competitive advantage by making the better public image in the market space (Tsui, 2019). CSR
activities also helps to boost the employee engagement which helps in motivating the employees.
Corporate social responsibility benefits the Four Seasons Hotel in various ways: Increased employee satisfaction level: Employees of Four Seasons feel respected and
important in their job and often feel more productive and satisfied at work. Employees
that are actively involved in the CSR activities of the company are the brand ambassadors
within the society. Companies with highly engaged employees shows higher productivity
in better business productivity.

 Increased customer loyalty: Effective CSR activities helps to enhance the customers
loyalty towards their business activities. If the corporate values align with the personal
ones then the customers are more likely to be loyal towards the company. With the helpf
of efficient CSR activities, Four Season hotel are able to increase the customer loyalty
towards their hotels and resorts. Improved public image: The Four Seasons Hotel improved their public image with the
enforcement of goods and effective corporate social responsibilities towards the society.
It is understandable that the brand's reputation can only benefit from the good deeds in
the community or society (Caroli, 2020). Customers feel goods when they buy products
and services from the company who are giving their help towards the society.
 Increased creativity of the firm: Due to increase in the effective adoption of corporate
social responsibilities by the Four Seasons Hotel, the employees of the firm tries their
maximum to enhance their creative level and thinking towards the company which
satisfies their customers as well as the society people.
Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility to Hospitality Industry
The initiatives taken in the CSR activities are having its own benefits yet the expenditure
in doing so is high. The services offered by the hospitality industry are intangible so the
customer unless experiencing the services cannot rate the performance and quality. The CSR
initiatives helps in increasing the customer's awareness about the organisation within the
industry. Also it creates a goodwill of the organisation that influence the customers to pay more
to avail the services of the particular organisation within the industry. organisations in the form
of CSR also works for the benefit and upliftment of the employees working for the organisation.
Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility to the government
The CSR initiatives taken by the government of UK helps in the good governance within
the country. It will create loyalty in the people of the country and helps in reducing the burden to
perform regulatory works. The CSR activities will attract the media which helps in the creation
of the goodwill and reputation of the government in the mind of the country's people. The CSR
activities create opportunities for the government to engage with the societies and to find out
what the issue that are faced by the societies and what necessary actions the government take to
improve relations with the society(Cramer, 2017).
Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility to civil society

Civil societies are the group that the different from the governments and the corporates.
The CSR activities performed by the participants of the civil society will helps in the brand
recognition of the participants. It create creditability in the society which helps in the ease access
to the finance. Societies get benefited in a way that it raise the living standards of the poor
sections of the society. Charities and donations given by the organisations provides boost to the
weaker sections and in the event of any uncertainty aid the society to cope with the situation.
4. Social Media Practices and its implications
Social Media Practices in UK
These are the marketing practices use to increase the sales of the products and services by
imprinting the value of the product/services in the minds of the customers. It is the emerging
trend that the organisations follows to increase its sales through the use of digital platforms by
the use of electronic media. It has been seen that through user-demanded content and word-of -
mouth on social media platforms increase the popularity of the organisation (Lipschultz, 2017).
These practices are as follows:
Creation of Online presence
In this method internet websites of the hospitality organisation is created to make the
customers know about the online presence and creating the brand of the organisation on the
world wide web. The internet is huge source of sharing information and creation of the websites
are popular practice. Online presence create a global recognition to the organisation as not only
the residents but the population around the globe also get to know about the organisation.
Social Media Advertising
it is used to reach wide customers base. Preparation of effective advertisement and its
distribution is done through social media like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter,
etc. Specific advertisement is created for the targeted customer groups and strategically placed
on social media platforms to attract the customers.
Online Content Creation
With the creation of the online content through blog websites on the internet the
organisation trying to provide the customers a base that allows the customers to perceive the type
of services and attention they might get when the customers buys the services/products. Loads of
information is been analysed and interaction with the potential customers are made via surveys
and research to create user generated content.

Use of Social media platforms as engaging tool
The organisation use social media platforms to update its customers about the events
happening in the organisation. Hospitality organisations make use of photographs, video
content , electronic banners, etc. provide information to its customers of the ongoing and
upcoming events.
Visual Content Creation
The visual contents greatly helps the organisation to reach the customers minds. The
visual information provided through videos and images let customers to create a artificial
experience in their mind of the places and destinations which influence them to buy the services
and products to get actual experience.
Use of third party websites
These websites provides an in-depth analysis in the form of reviews and
recommendations of the customers who had experience the services of the organisation. These
websites also provides analytics of the organisation that greatly helps the organisation to reach
more customers.
Use of social media influencers
The advertising of the organisation by the use influencers is trending as these people are
well known by the public and they are good in persuading large audience. They are seen as
experts in to perform marketing and influencing the dedicated public that follow the particular
influencer. The organisation appointed the influencer to perform promotional activities on social
media platforms.
Social media channels
The use of video sharing platforms to share the organisation's events and information of
services, value and satisfaction they provide to its customers. It helps to create a perception in the
mind of the customers about the organisation.
Social media practices used by Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire
Online Presence
The company has its own website that provide the detailed information of the Four
Seasons Hotel, Hampshire. A nicely crafted website providing all sorts of organisation's
information related to bookings, rates, availability, services offered to the customers, amenities.

It helps the Four Seasons Hotel to create and outspread its brand and its customers to get access
to the information easily.
Visual Content Creation
A great variety of images and video content is available over the internet depicting the
services and amenities offered by the Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire. It helps the organisation to
put in the picture about the services offered to the customers. This will influence the customers
to purchase the services offered by the Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire. It will provide an
artificial satisfaction in the minds of the customers of the perception of the experience of the
services offered by the organisation.
Social Media Advertising
The Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire has several social media platforms accounts like
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Etc. As large chunk of the population uses these
platforms daily, it has substantial traffic on it. The customers can view the facilities and services
offered, amenities provided by the Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire and can decide to purchase
the services accordingly. If the customers get what they have perceived from the information it
will bring satisfaction to the customers.
Use of Social media platforms as engaging tool
The Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire make use of the social media platforms like Twitter
and Facebook to engage with the customers major upgrade and events and occasions
informations are regularly updated on the social media handles to make customers know what
new has happened. It provide insight to the customers and they can choose to modify their plans
accordingly (Hjorth and Hinton, 2019).
Use of third party websites
These websites are the major source of the information to the customers. The Four
Seasons Hotel, Hampshire has its organisation listed on several of these websites namely
TripAdvisors.com, Booking.com, Telegraph.co.uk and so on. These third-party websites
provided ratings, reviews, recommendations, insights and sometimes discounts offered by the
organisation (Heinze and et.al 2020). The customers will compare the Four Seasons Hotel,
Hampshire information with the other organisation and decide accordingly to buy or not to buy
the services. These websites also helps the Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire to do promotions and
generate sales.

CONCLUSION
The hospitality industry is important part of the economy. It provide employment to the
great number of population of the country. With the passing time the hospitality industry is
expanding rapidly. The organisations within the hospitality industry operate within various
service organisations and are interrelated to each other. Technologies, health emphasis,
sustainability rules, etc. greatly affects the hospitality industry of UK. It has been found out that
the performance of the organisation is highly affected by the leadership style followed within the
organisation. The chosen organisation the Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire has been observed to
be following responsible leadership framework that had followed by various stages viz.
Direction, Engagement, Alignment and Renewal. Corporate Social Responsibility works greatly
benefit the organisation (Cramer, 2017). It has increase the employee satisfaction level along
with Improving public image and customer loyalty. Also to the hospitality industry, government
and to the civil society. To do promotion the use of the social media practices are trending. The
Four Seasons Hotel, Hampshire is also following and adopted some of the social media practices
to provide customer satisfaction. The organisations ensures that the customers will get what they
perceive from the promotion activities and if they fail to provide that it will greatly affects the
reputation of the organisation and thus the loss of the customers. Thus, a great care has been
taken to maintain the standard within the hospitality industry.

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