Communication Challenges: Hilton Hotels Leadership and Management

This report provides an in-depth analysis of leadership and management practices within Hilton Hotels, focusing on the critical issue of communication. It identifies various communication challenges, including passive listening, cultural differences, and the difficulty in conveying decisions and engaging employees. The report explores the impact of these issues on employee motivation, service quality, and overall business performance. It also highlights the importance of effective leadership styles, such as transformational leadership, and suggests strategies to improve internal communication, build trust, and foster a more collaborative work environment. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the need for leaders to adapt their communication styles to different audiences and to address sensitive topics with courage and authenticity. The findings aim to offer insights for leaders and managers in the hospitality industry to enhance their communication skills and create a more productive and positive workplace. This report is a valuable resource for students seeking to understand the nuances of leadership and management within a real-world business context.

Leadership and management
for the service sector

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1. Issue in leadership and management in hospitality industry..................................................3
2. Communication Issues in Hilton Hotels.................................................................................6
3. Improve Internal communication in Hilton Hotels...............................................................10
l4. Challenges of communication issues in leadership and management.................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14

l壱INTRODUCTION
Leadership and management are the terms used in every organisation whether small or large
as they helps in developing various strategies and motivating the employees to follow the same
to achieve personal as well as professional goals and objectives. Leaders have the people who
follow them and the managers have people who work for them. All the organisations in order to
be successful need to have effective leaders and managers where the leaders believes in the
vision for the company and the managers administers and ensures that the daily activities happen
in the way they must be. But there are many issues in leading and managing the employees such
as communication issues, equality and diversity issues and many more.
Hilton Hotels and Resorts is brand of hotels and resorts which are full service and operates
globally. It was founded by Conrad Nicholson Hilton in May 31, 1919 in Virginia, US. The
company has more than 584 hotels and resorts in various countries across the world. It is
considered as one of the largest hotel brand in the world (Hilton, 2021). The report will shed
light on one of the major issues in leadership and management which is the failure to
communicate. This is more prevalent in the hospitality companies in UK like Hotel Hilton. The
report will be discussing the issue as well as various suggestions will be highlighted which will
help the leaders and managers of the company.
l壱1. Issue in leadership and management in hospitality industry
Leadership and Management contribute majorly in the success and progress of the
organizations in the hospitality industry. The leaders and managers of Hilton hotel are capable of
performing their responsibilities and the duties on time which is the main reason for the rapid
success of the Hilton group. The transformational or transactional leadership style is followed by
the leaders of Hilton hotel and resorts. This states that there is an effective leadership between
the leaders and the followers of the company which helps the leaders in conveying the
information to the followers which are mainly the employees (Harris and Jones, 2018). This will
also help in gaining the opinions and views of the employees regarding their reviews. Though
leadership and management help the company greatly in the continuous profitability but also
there are many issues connected with the same. The main issue identified in the leadership and
management in the hospitality industry in the companies like Hilton.
3

In today’s emerging hospitality industry and with the increasing complexity in the businesses, it
needs the leaders and managers to have effective communication on different multiple levels.
For example, if the leaders and managers of Hilton create a specific vision and also motivate
their teams so that it becomes the vision of the employees also. The leaders need to connect to
the employees on the individual level and must inspire the employees from working alone to
working in a team (Van Wart and et.al., 2017). The leaders also face the problems when there is
a need to build trust in the employees by making sure that the verbal interaction reinforce with
the non-verbal communication.
The communication is considered as an issue for the leaders and managers because it needs
commitment and firm determination. The leaders need to make effective communication the top
and first priority with the other people of the Hilton Group and which can be done by being
disciplined, consistent, willing and also conveying the messages with clarity. The leaders of the
Hilton group must develop structured communication system at the workplace which can help in
connecting with all the stakeholders who can directly improve the leaders’ effectiveness by
driving faster top and bottom line growth. The communication is considered as the biggest issue
in the hospitality industry because if the leaders of the company are so competent also, they still
face many difficulties in communicating with the teams, clients and the supervisors. The key to
successful leadership is to learn about the way in which communication skills can be honed and
to convey the message clearly to others (Golensky and Hager, 2020). This will help the
employees in satisfying the guests coming to the hotels.
The main issue which is found during communication is conveying the reason to others for
taking certain decisions. The leaders must be able to convey that the decision taken by them is in
the best interest of the business’ future and the way in which the decision can align with the
vision of the company. This will motivate the people to work for the decisions taken by the
leaders and to give their best towards the same. Along with this, the leaders also face problem in
engaging the people while delivering anything. The leaders sometimes are left with one-sided
communication and they communicate whatever they feel to communicate and do not focus on
the expectations and needs of the audience. The leaders of Hilton face the problems in thinking
ahead and being curious about the style of other person. There must be assertive communication
between the leaders and the followers which involves mutual respect, mutual listening and
4

mutual sharing of needs and expectations. This will facilitate not only the guests of the hotel but
the overall profitability of the company.
The leaders of Hilton hotel also face problems in avoiding the difficult conversations. This is too
much difficult for the leaders to be engaged in critical conversations. Few leaders were found to
be practising the skills required but as the result so much of mental pain was observed. The
leaders must have the courage to make the people aware of the fact that they strive so much hard
just for the success of the employees as well as the organisation (Hotels & BB’s, 2021). This
becomes the issue for the leaders who do not have much courage by which they can express their
goals and objectives to the employees.
If the leaders have effective communication, then the person has the power for transforming and
deepening the relationships. If the leaders cannot communicate effectively, then the result can be
toxic stew of resentment and anger. The leaders and managers of hotel Hilton must involve the
audience and motivate them so that they can take the action and see the things according to the
leader (Delanoy and Kasztelnik, 2020). The message given by the leaders must provide some
sort of benefits to the employees and also the message must fulfil one or the other needs and
demands of the employees which will motivate them to listen and implement the message of
leaders.
The leaders of Hilton also face the problems when they start telling the things instead of sharing.
The leaders must have more honest, open and authentic time with the team or many teams.
Sometimes, they do not focus on the employees and only focus on conveying the agenda to the
public. The audience wants to see the leader as the person instead of becoming a figurehead. The
leaders must be sharing to the audience their work which can help in building trust which
increases employment retention and attracts more tourists to the hotel Hilton.
Not only has this, the communication of the leaders sometimes sounded unauthentic. The leaders
sometimes fail to realize that there can be change in the contract of employee and employer.
Leaders of Hilton must be focused to improve their contextual intelligence.
There are sometimes complaints from the employees of Hilton that the leaders of Hilton do not
communicate enough. Leaders think that they constantly communicate but after listening to This
complains they get shocked. The leaders feel this because they talk about something frequently
and thus the message is delivered to those people who need to hear it. For this, the leaders must
be embracing more structured plan (Donert, 2018).
5

The leaders also face problems while communicating the feelings and vulnerabilities as they
become hesitant to share the areas to the employees where the support is needed. The leaders
must be able in creating an environment in which every individual feels free in communicating
and supporting each other. For this, the leaders need to communicate authentically. Leadership is
considered as professional along with becoming soulless.
The leaders of Hilton must be aware of the preferences of the communications of people. The
leaders must not think that their preferences and the preferences of the audience are same. The
things delivered to the audience must be resonating with the employees of hotel Hilton so they
can be striving hard to achieve the goals of the company (Zia, 2020). Leaders of the hotel have
two options: one in which they get to the point and the other in which they are required to
become accurate and detailed. The leaders of hotel must know that when to become to the point
and when to become detailed. This totally depends on the employees who are to be
communicated.
This is why the leaders and the managers of hotel Hilton must focus on the employees and must
convey the required things to the employees so that they can be able to satisfy the needs of the
guests coming to stay at the hotel.
l壱2. Communication Issues in Hilton Hotels
In organization communication is priority for all, and every organization face issues in
communication similarly hospitality industry also face issues in communication, They face
communication issues, Leaders and managers also face challenge in communication. Leader and
manger have ability to motivate, inspire, and to encourage their followers and employees. They
approached challenge in different ways and their communication skills are also great. But they
also face particular issues in workplace with their employees and colleagues. Some different
issues and challenge they need to overcome in their workplace environment. They make sure
that their communication is effective and open so that their client and customer can easily
understand (Rosenbach, 2018). Hilton hotel also face communication issues with their staff
members. In their industry communication is most important part for their promotion and for
delivering services in effective, so they can attract more customers. They face different
communication issues such as,
6

Passive Listing: This issues is occurred because receiver not listen carefully sender message or
information. Basically passive listening is just listing sender information without understanding.
In this issues people not truly understand what the sender is saying they just pretend that they are
listing. They lead misunderstanding and lack of communication which decrease work and its
productivity. To overcome this issue receiver make sure that they actively listen sender message
or information, then misunderstanding situation is not occurred. Leaders and managers make
sure that they explain the difference between active and passive listing to their clients so that
they can do their best performance and result for work and also in their personal life. They also
can set role model to motivate their employees and staff member so that they can do more
efficiently their work.
Cultural Difference: This issue is most common in communication issues in worldwide because
of different cultures organizations have different cultures clients and employees who work
together in organization. In every workplace there is various cultures clients and staff are
present. Their background, languages and culture are different because of different culture
communication is decrease and in the result productivity is also decrease. Leader and manger
can develop an environment in which different culture people can communicate easily. They can
collaborate with different people and with different culture, they can also organize different
events and game such as brainstorming activities, project on different cultures etc. They can also
use different tools which can help organization and work place to communicate in different
cultures. Different tools also help in written communication it will increase employee
performance (Johnson, and Lacerenza, 2018). In Hilton Hotels employee face culture issues
when they communicate with their clients customers to overcome this issues leader and manger
can give them environment there they can practice and overcome this issues.
Poorly written communication: If employees written skills is not better than also they can face
communication issue. If employees or staff members written communication is not clear they
their message is not sent properly to receiver or customers and it also impacts on their
performance. Leaders and manger make sure that their employees and followers always check
their messages before sending it to receiver. They can also assign mentor to employees so that
they can check their work.
7

Lack of interest or motivation: In this issue people are not interest in communication then also
they communicate to the people for formality, they also have lack of motivation. In result of this
they disagree or ignore the person who and communicate with them. Leader and Manger must
try to train their employee and followers to check their internal communication try to stay
motivated and communicate with the person.
Ego and attitude: This issue is occurred because of some overconfident employees who have
ego and attitude issue. The egoist employee do argument in conversation and try to prove
themselves right. In this they also not accept other person information they just try to prove
themselves. These kinds of behaviour reduce performance and productivity in team work. To
overcome this communication issue leader and manager must constantly check their employees
behaviour and work so that they can check their performance.
Delayed Communication: In hospitality industry delay communication also create issue and
decrease its sales growth in market. This also create issues in emergency service. Delay
communication overcome with the proper practice which help to improve performance. Leader
and manager can help to create positive environment in which they can improve their
performance (Back, 2020). In Hilton hotels effective communication is important, if delay
communication is happened in emergency they it will create negative impact on guest.
Miscommunication: This will create negative effect on organization. Miscommunication issue is
harmful for industry growth. This issue is also not goof for Hilton hotels it decreases its growth
and also it sales, just because of one person miscommunicate something. This will create
negative impact on guest. Due to miscommunication issue Hotel staff also don't able to properly
communicate with their customers.
Missed messages: This issues is occurred when person wants to share some information with
someone but other person missed that information than the person face difficulty to share the
message or to complete communication. After so much technology innovation also some time in
workplace this issue is occurred.
Leadership and management is a process in which a leader or a manager guide, motivate, direct
and influence their employees and followers to do their best performance. Leadership is an
ability of manager or leader to lead or manage task or project in team. They must follow
8

communication rules and should try to avoid communication barriers such as different cultures,
background, noise, perception, environmental barriers, stress etc. Leaders and managers use in
leadership and management open and effective communication in which they try to share all
information with all levels of the company (Martinez, and Hurtado, 2018). Effective
communication in Hilton hotel take discipline, thought, consistency, commitment, perseverance
and constancy etc. These will also help to overcome these communication issues.
In Hilton Hotels to overcome communication issues
they use effective leadership communication for overall hotel management it increases its sales
and growth in the market. Effective leadership communication is the process which is used to
develop regular leadership communication in organization. By leadership communication the
information or idea in the form of message deliver to their employees and staff members.
Leadership communication effected by various factors such as vision and mission, call to action,
culture transformation, manage expectations, inspire/guide/motivate and build trust and by
leaders' character.
Developing the message:
There are various method which can Hilton hotels leader and managers used to develop their
information and message which can help hotel by growth in market and sales. Such as,
Creditability: In this leadership communication leader try to develop their message and
creditability to motivate and inspire their employee and followers. Creditability is important for
leaders and for their communication. It will help them to speak truth. By the help of creditability
they also try tell everyone the bad news. It also helps them to say what they want to say. This
also help them to acknowledge their employees and if the done any mistake then with
creditability they have courage to apologize with everyone. Creditability and developing the
message help leader and manger to manger their effective communication in organization.
Meaning: This method help leadership communication to maintain their communication and
overcome communication issues. It helps leaders to develop message and ask question such as
why this message is important. In leadership communication by meaning leader and mangers try
to keep message precise and concise. They help to think before they share their messages or
information with others. Some people take time to understand meaning of the message.
9

Four I's: It consists inform, involve, ignite and invite. These 4 I's help leadership communication
in effective and advance communication. In first 'I' leaders try to inform about message and
information to employees, in second 'I' they try to involve the employees with their message or
information, in third 'I' leader ans mangers try to set motion for message and in last 'I' they try
to invite other to take participate in their communication and ideas. These I's help to develop
leaders message.
Communicating Up: This method help leadership communication to develop their message
according to various factors which affect such as keep everyone in loop, carry important
information when necessary, spread facts, read signs and in the last they should try to understand
that everyone doesn't like same information idea.
Assess the Audience: In this leadership communication they try to evaluate their audience needs.
In this method they want to know audience expatiations, and they try to fulfil and satisfy their
expectation. They also take objections which help them to achieve their objectives (Jelani, and
Nordin, 2019). Pre-empt objections such as deliver the message, determine the objection,
acknowledge, empathize, open the door for compromise and remind the audience of the shared
experience. These factor help to overcome communication issues and also help to establish
effective communication with tourist and guest.
Be Authentic: This will help leadership communication to be accurate and authentic. For this
leader and mangers try to reflect their mood, and they try to share information with creditability
and real information. They also try to use effective communication for they non-verbal
communication in this they try to use their body language, eye contact, their presentation skills,
gestures, inflection etc.
l壱3. Improve Internal communication in Hilton Hotels
In Hilton Hotels success is measured by happy and loyal customers. Loyalty and loyal customer
come from their needs satisfaction by fulfil their expectations. To fulfil and satisfy Hilton
customer they need to trend their staff beyond customer expectations. Communication issues are
barrier in the growth of Hilton Hotels. By above developing message methods and by improving
internal communication Hilton can increase their growth and sales. Hilton has various technique
to improve their internal communication with the help of their leadership management. Various
techniques from which Hotel staffs can improve their internal communication skills it includes,
10

Establish a Mobile Friendly Digital Workplace:
In this digital world employees must try to access their workplace information digitally, so they
can save their and their customer time. In hotels sally employees or staff waste their time to
search guest information this portal help staff and employees to save their time provide services.
Hotels can establish mobile employee portal so that employees easily can communicate with
each-other and also they get all information on time. This mobile portal help employee to find
guest location and information easily and anywhere (Ahmad, and Scott, 2016). In this digital
portal employees can also include features such as incoming VIP Guest list, trainings classes, on-
boarding initiatives, healthy and safety details, maintenance announcement. Etc. IT will
beneficial and help them to attract more customers.
Improve the guest experience through accessible Information:
By this technique Hilton Hotels front-line employees create great experience for guest by
providing information. This technique is used in such way so that they attract more customer
and satisfy guest needs. It helps to encourage staff members and share their best practice with
guest, In this they also create group chats so that they can provide VIP services to their special
guest without and delay communication. It also provides notification before their shifts o that
they can reach on time on their service and give their best work to the guest. In leadership
communication these informations help to allocate guest to specific employees' so that individual
employee can give required service to their guest (Pappas, and Michopoulou, 2019). For Hilton
hotel this improvement and use of this technique help to attract more customer rand increase its
profitability. This technique also help staff and employees to get entire hotel information
immediately rather than wasting time for manager order. It also helps to provide fast services.
Hold Regular employee Training Workshop to up skill and Re-onboard Hilton Hotel
workers:
This technique will help to improve internal communication of the employees and hotel staff
members. By this technique hotel staff and employees get training on regular basis. This will
help employees to improve their performance and their knowledge and skills and these training
also them to improve effective communication skills. These training also provide then non-
verbal communication technique. Non-verbal communication help employees to impressed
11

customers and guest by their personality and body language. Hotels well-trained employees help
Hilton to increase its growth rate and profitability. It also gives opportunity to hotel management
to improve their internal communication. It also helps staff and employees to understand various
hotel operation as well as their needs and expectations (Watson, Maxwell, and Farquharson,
2017). Digital workshop help Hilton hotels to up skill their employees which include different
features such as documentation or written communication, workflow automation and integration
this features also help employees to up their skills.
Shared Updated health and safety information:
To improve hotel industry overall internal communication this technique is helpful which help
Hilton hotel and recover and maintain safety standard. This technique help hotel industry to
update with safety information it also helps in food safety and guest check-on check out. This
technique help in leadership and management and help leader to provide safety related
information easily so that they can easily spread the information between their staff and
employees (Bowen, and Morosan, 2018). It also helps them to provide safety related
information such as contact free check-in and room access, making cleaning procedure and
guidelines more clear etc. this information help in leadership open communication. It also helps
to share instructional video for safety to the staff members and housekeeping teams. This
technique also help customers and guest to confirm their checklist and their safety requirement
in every room.
Speed Up Issues reporting and Response Time
In Hilton hotels leaders and management need to speed up their employees reporting time, for
this they can train employees to give their service on time it will also help to improve their
internal communication and create positive environment in the workplace. In now days' hotel
staff and employees internal communication is weak, and they don't have effective way to find
information and reporting issues to their manger or leader. By this technique hotel employees
can effectively and efficiently response customer or guest complaints and question.
Digital workplace help Hilton hotel to overcome
with its communication issues in leadership management and also help to improve internal
communication (Ettinger, Grabner-Kräuter, and Terlutter, 2018). These various techniques and
12

methods which above explained are help leaders and management to improve their
communication skills and increase hotel sales and also help in expanding their market and to
attract new customers, because communication skill is play important role in any area so if
communication issues are overcome in Hilton hotels than it will be increase it performance and
it also increased it profitability.
l壱4. Challenges of communication issues in leadership and management
The concept of poor communication strategy can be caused in turnover of high root staff
at workplace. Employee in company looks for new opportunities, but they are bust some else
where they are not engaged in vision and mission of company along with negative impact on
achieving goals. There should be positive impact so that could be better communication in work
such as higher productivity, better business growth, employee retention and less turnover of
staff.
The following are some challenges in Hilton group to effective communication which they
quickly discovered poor communication-
Incompatibility of communication:-
Hilton hotel leader and manager should be take care in which their staff are moving
towards some other direction. As they are not working according to leaders rules and following
their own rules and regulation (Liao, 2017). Employee at company begins to assume things as
per their understanding and try to communicate some other irrelevant information.
Relying on technology:-
Leaders and manager should make proper use of technology so which they can easily
transfer the information according to them about any changes in Hotel policies. This is one of
most effective challenges at Hilton group as they are facing more problems while not using
upgrading technology which make them more development from other competitors. Email and
internet are faceless communication strategy in company, through which various employee are
facing problems in understanding any tasks.
Not listening to employee:-
13

As time changing leader and manager in Hilton group become more power as they try to
ignore employee conflicts and avoid their goals. They are not ideas and innovative strategy from
people plus they always go according to their wish. People fear from any companies, they shared
from leader and manager but when they are only ignoring than they have to switch company.
Not including communication in leadership activities:-
Hilton hotel have to make part of communication in leaders and manager activities as
they are more powerful in passing information. They are required to follow rules and regulation,
if leader and manager will not follow rules in sharing information, hotel have to pay loss. As
they are following autocratic leadership style in which employee are not given proper direction
of work and guidelines of company (Zerfass, Verčič and Volk, 2017). Organizational culture do
not motivated for having conversation, exchanges of innovative thinking and ideas that helps
company for more developing. Leader and manager in Hilton need to acquire some ideas from
their employee, meanwhile that can be important for them.
·CONCLUSION
From the above report it had been concluded that communication requires in each and
every company in which they can easily pass information regarding any policies and procedures
if might be changed. There should be active listening skills so that can increase effective
communication. The leader and manager involve motivation to employee for doing well in work
plus manager messages have some benefits in which they can easily fulfil their demands and
complete goals. Leadership and management in company are also facing problems due to have
lack of communication. They should include team members while at time of decision-making,
when guest are coming to hotels manager need to inform their members, that could help them in
keeping customer satisfied.
14

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmad, R. and Scott, N., 2016. Managing the front office department: Staffing issues in
Malaysian hotels. Anatolia. 25(1). pp.24-38.
Back, A.L., 2020. Patient-clinician communication issues in palliative care for patients with
advanced cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 38(9). pp.866-876.
Bowen, J. and Morosan, C., 2018. Beware hospitality industry: the robots are
coming. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.
Delanoy, N. and Kasztelnik, K., 2020. Business Open Big Data Analytics to Support Innovative
Leadership and Management Decision in Canada. Business Ethics and Leadership. 4(2).
pp.56-74.
Donert, K., 2018. The Cloud in Education: Policy, Leadership, and Management Issues.
In Handbook of Research on Educational Design and Cloud Computing in Modern
Classroom Settings (pp. 239-261). IGI Global.
Ettinger, A., Grabner-Kräuter, S. and Terlutter, R., 2018. Online CSR communication in the
hotel industry: Evidence from small hotels. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 68. pp.94-104.
Golensky, M. and Hager, M., 2020. Strategic leadership and management in nonprofit
organizations: Theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
Harris, A. and Jones, M., 2018. The dark side of leadership and management.
Jelani, F. and Nordin, N.S., 2019. Communication Issues at the Workplace. International
Journal of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistic. 2(1). pp.32-46.
Johnson, S.K. and Lacerenza, C.N., 2018. Leadership Is Male-centric: Gender Issues in the
Study of Leadership. In What’s Wrong With Leadership? (pp. 121-137). Routledge.
Martinez, L.A.M. and Hurtado, S.R.F., 2018. Internal Communication Issues in the Firms: Does
It Affect the Productivity. Rev. Eur. Stud. 9. pp.1.
Pappas, N. and Michopoulou, E., 2019. Hospitality in a Changing World. Hospitality & Society.
9(3). pp.259-265.
Rosenbach, W.E., 2018. Contemporary issues in leadership. Routledge.
Van Wart, M. and et.al., 2017. Integrating ICT adoption issues into (e-) leadership
theory. Telematics and Informatics. 34(5). pp.527-537.
Watson, S., Maxwell, G.A. and Farquharson, L., 2017. Line managers’ views on adopting
human resource roles: the case of Hilton (UK) hotels. Employee Relations.
Zia, N.U., 2020. Knowledge-oriented leadership, knowledge management behaviour and
innovation performance in project-based SMEs. The moderating role of goal
orientations. Journal of Knowledge Management.
Online
l壱
Hilton, 2021. [ONLINE]. Available through :< https://www.hilton.com/en/locations/united-
kingdom/>
Hotels & BB’s, 2021. [ONLINE]. Available through :<
https://www.hotels.uk.com/hilton/hotels>
15