Leadership and Management in Service Industry: A Hilton Case Study

This report delves into the crucial aspects of leadership and management within the service industry, utilizing the Hilton Group as a prominent case study. It begins by exploring classical management theories and various leadership styles, emphasizing their practical application. The report then examines the internal and external factors influencing management approaches, employing SWOT and PESTLE analyses to provide a comprehensive understanding. Furthermore, it assesses the current and future hard and soft skills essential for success in the service sector. Finally, the report concludes by demonstrating leadership and management skills through the application of change management models, such as Kotter's 8-step model and Lewin's change management model, offering valuable insights into adapting to evolving industry demands. The report provides a clear and concise overview of the subject matter.

LEADERSHIP AND
MANAGEMENT FOR
SERVICE INDUSTRY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
Classical management theories and style of leadership..............................................................3
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................4
Factors that influence different management style and structure in service industry.................4
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................5
Assess current and future management and leadership skills for service sector.........................5
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................6
Demonstration of leadership and management skills in service industry...................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Leadership and management goes hand in hand. To have effective management, effective
leadership is necessary as well for the achievement of organisational goals. The report will take
Hilton group which is the largest hotel brand in world for better understanding of the topic. The
report will include management theory and leadership style along with factors that affect this
style. The report will further focus on current and future changes in skill of management and
leadership. At last it will include change management models to see the skills in service industry.
LO 1
Classical management theories and style of leadership
The classical management theories believes that employees only have physical and
economic needs and do not take social needs into consideration. The two theories are :
Bureaucratic theory - Max Webber introduced this theory which focuses on two
essential elements. It focuses on structure of organisation that needs to be in hierarchy. The
other aspect in which this theory deal in is that the members of the organisation need to be
governed by clear rules and regulations (Shafritz, 2015). This element help in achieving
organisational goals. As. In Hilton group there is clear division of department like accounts, tax,
customer queries, marketing etc. which delegates the work in smooth manner and avoids
confusion and chaos. Each department works by following rules and regulations of the hotel and
the promotion of the worker is done based on the rule based activity.
Scientific theory – The scientific theory focuses on improving the efficiency of
employee at the workplace. It focuses on increasing the level of production by using intensive
technology and by allotting humans simply to perform routine tasks with that purpose. It tells
that there is need of supervisors to give directions in respective fields and time, fatigue and
motion needs to e used as a criteria to determine the work of individual. In Hilton hotel it cannot
be used as this theory focuses on automation rather than human behaviour and hotels need to
take care of every aspect of human relation (Niskanen, 2017).
Style of leadership
Every organisation uses specific style of leadership to lead its organisation. The styles are :
Autocratic - Under this style, the leader takes all the decisions related to management
and it is mostly seen in small companies. It is effective only when quick decisions are required. It

does not take any suggestions from the employees and no rewards and recognition is provided to
the employees for their performance.
Laissez faire – Under this style, the manger of the company takes suggestions and
feedbacks from its employees and allow them to make decisions. Manager encourages and
supports its staff to achieve the goals of the hotel (Waring, 2016). Hilton group follows this type
of leadership under which it understands the value of people and appreciate and value it6s
employees and empower the to make right decisions for the hotel.
LO 2
Factors that influence different management style and structure in service industry
There are different factors that influence Hilton group which can be find out by doing external
and internal analysis. Both can be done with the help of Swot and pestle. The internal factors that
affect the group can be done by swot whereas the external factors that can influence the hotel ca
be done with pestle analysis.
Swot analysis
Strength – The strength of Hilton group is that it is highly recognisable brand which
attracts the customers. The other strength can be good employee retention which means it has
low employee turnover rate. They are well reputed in the market with hotels around 78 countries.
It highly focuses on technical innovations to improve satisfaction of the customers.
Weakness - The main weakness of Hilton is that even after being a good brand, the
market share of the company is limited. Also as it is expanded in many countries, it gets affected
by different government policies and regulations (Small and et.al., 2016).
Opportunity – The opportunities available for Hilton group is that it has high potential in
emerging markets and ca lead to many innovative techniques to provide services to the customer.
It can invest in digitalization for better use of technology.
Threat – This industry has slow growth and faces economic and political instability in
most of the countries. Also, entry of international brands can be a threat of Hilton group.
Pestle analysis
Political – This factors impact Hilton's long term profitability and expose it to political
risks. The political instability and legal framework of countries affect working operations of the

group. The other factor that impact the growth of Hilton is mandatory employee benefits which
reduces the profit of the company (Biancamaria, 2016).
Economic – It includes economic factors like inflation, interest rate etc. which can affect
Hilton group. The factors that affect its growth are level of education in the country as unless the
customers are no0t educated enough to understand the services that hotel offers they would not
avail them. The other factor is skill workforce in lodging industry which affects prodcutivity of
the hotel.
Social factors – This factors include attitude of the consumers which shows how they
perceive the value of services offered by Hilton. It also includes leisure interests of people as
most of the people in their free time like to visit hotels whereas some does not so this factor
affects the sale of the hotel.
Technological factors – These factors include recent technological advancements done
by Hilton group which has increased it sales and base of customers. This factors impact on cost
structure of hotel industry and also on value chain of service sector.
Legal factors – The employment law and health and safety law affect the Hilton group in
which it has tot take care of its employees health and safety along with their fair wages.
Environmental factors – These factors include laws relation to pollution and climate
change which affect the working of the hotel. Along with that, the other factor is waste
management is service sector which if no done by Hilton can create issues for it.
LO 3
Assess current and future management and leadership skills for service sector
The current hard and soft skills for service sector
Hard skills – This skills are easy to quantify and requires specific knowledge and its easier for
companies to hire candidates based on their hard skills. These are :
Knowing different languages – The current hard skill required in Hilton is knowing
different languages to deal with customers from different countries to avoid confusion and for
smooth business operations.
Mathematic and numeracy skills – This skill is important in Hilton group to maintain
finances of different departments like IT, accounting, logistics etc. This skill can help it in
creating budget, making decision of expansion in other countries etc.

Soft skills – This skills are people oriented ad are related with customer satisfaction. These are :
Customer service – Customers provides funds to the business for continuing business
operations and therefore its the duty of manager to satisfy its customers by providing them
delightful services and understanding their needs.
Networking – The key soft skill needed in Hilton is to able to network properly. It is a
way to confluence customers to come and visit the hotel. It includes client relationship
management and maintaining guest relations to enhance individual's chances of being hired.
The future hard and soft skill in service sector
Hard skill
Planning skills – The future hard skills required in Hilton is to have planning skills
where employee can use business fields like marketing, project management, sales, logistics etc.
and can apply tools and techniques to these fields by doing affective planning (Whitehurst, G.J.,
2016).
Soft skills
Commitment – The future soft skill required is commitment towards to work as many
people start working in service industry with an enthusiastic attitude and get bored quickly as the
work is same. If they fail to commit themselves to their role then they will never get progress.
Cultural awareness - This sector is more likely to deal with customers who belongs to
different nationalities and backgrounds. The employees working in Hilton need to be culturally
aware about different cultures. It is important to help customers in feeling comfortable in the
hotel and break free from cultural barriers.
LO 4
Demonstration of leadership and management skills in service industry
To demonstrate leadership and management skills in service industry, the companies uses
different models which are :
Kotter's 8 - step change model : Hilton group can use this model as it can focus more on
people that are experiencing changes in organisation (Acevedo, and et.al., 2016). The steps to
adopt this model in order to demonstrate leadership and management skills are first to create
sense of urgency which means that each member need to know that managing change is urgent.
After that Hilton needs to build a strong coalition between employees and management along

with creating a strategic vision. After doing all this, the changes need to be implemented by
removing restrictions and focus on short term wins. After that, it should sustain the speed and
changes can take place regularly. The employees in reaction to change can give 5 responses that
are denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance and depression. With right tools and planning changes
within the organisation can be possible.
Lewin's change management model – It is simple yet effective model to adopt changes
and can be broken down into 3 steps which are unfreeze, change and refreeze. It can be used by
Marriott hotel group. At first, the organisation need to unfreeze their current process and
perception which will help the organisation in approaching the challenge without any bias
(Hussain and et.al., 2018). The next step is to implement the change in the organisation which
can be done by effective communication and clear deployment of tasks in different channels of
the organisation. At last, comes the step of refreeze in which accurate feedbacks are assumed
during the change step and new changes in the organisation get locked and it fits into a new one.
It is a simple process and can uncover old patterns and issues and can hep in finding solutions for
the same.
CONCLUSION
The report concluded the classical management theories and style of leadership which can be
implemented in the organisation and are of utmost importance for the smooth working operations
of the company. The report outlined external and internal factors that affect structure and
management style by using swot and pestle analysis. It assessed current and future soft and hard
skills that are important for management. However, at last the report has depicted change
management models and their implementation in order to adapt change.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Acevedo, P., and et.al., 2016. Soft Skills and Hard Skills in Youth Training Programs. Long
Term Experimental Evidence from the Dominican Republic.
Acevedo, P.,and et.al., 2016. Soft Skills and Hard Skills in Youth Training Programs. Long
Term Experimental Evidence from the Dominican Republic.
Balcar, J., 2016. Is it better to invest in hard or soft skills?. The Economic and Labour Relations
Review. 27(4). pp.453-470.
Biancamaria, S., Lettenmaier, D.P. and Pavelsky, T.M., 2016. The SWOT mission and its
capabilities for land hydrology. In Remote Sensing and Water Resources (pp. 117-147).
Springer, Cham.
Hussain, S.T., and et.al., 2018. Kurt Lewin's change model: A critical review of the role of
leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation &
Knowledge. 3(3). pp.123-127.
Niskanen, J., 2017. Bureaucracy and representative government. Routledge.
Rastogi, N.I.T.A.N.K. and Trivedi, M.K., 2016. PESTLE technique–a tool to identify external
risks in construction projects. International Research Journal of Engineering and
Technology (IRJET). 3(1). pp.384-388.
Shafritz, J.M., Ott, J.S. and Jang, Y.S., 2015. Classics of organization theory. Cengage Learning.
Small, A., and et.al., 2016. Using Kotter's change model for implementing bedside handoff: a
quality improvement project. Journal of nursing care quality. 31(4). pp.304-309.
Waring, S.P., 2016. Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory since 1945. UNC
Press Books.
Whitehurst, G.J., 2016. Hard thinking on soft skills. Evidence Speaks Reports. 1(14). pp.1-10.
Online

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