An Analysis of Leadership and Management at Marriott Hotels: A Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of leadership and management practices within the hospitality industry, specifically focusing on Marriott Hotels. It begins by exploring classical management theories, including bureaucratic, scientific, and administrative approaches, and examines different leadership styles such as autocratic and democratic. The report then delves into internal and external factors influencing Marriott's management style, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It further identifies current and future management skills essential for the service sector, encompassing both hard and soft skills. Finally, the report examines change management models, such as ADKAR and Lewin's model, and how they affect leadership and management skills within the organization, providing a comprehensive overview of the key elements shaping Marriott's operational strategies and competitive advantages in the hospitality market.

Leadership and management
for service industries

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1 ................................................................................................................................................1
Classical management theories and leadership style...................................................................1
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................2
Factors that influence different management style and structures in a service industry.............2
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................3
Current and future management skills for the service sector......................................................3
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................4
Management and leadership skills in a service industry..............................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership and management are key element of hospitality industry that lead and control
all the functions and human resources of an organisation. This present study is based on Marriott
that is an American multinational hospitality company. It is the largest hotel chain in the world.
This study will show about different classical management theories and leadership style that is
being followed by this hotel. Internal and external factors impacts on its management style and
performance in a positive and in a negative manner. Further this study will show about change
management system that helps this sector for being in a competition.
LO 1
Classical management theories and leadership style
There are various management theories and leadership style that help an organisation in
achieving their pre determined goals in an effective manner. Classical management theory is
based on the belief that employees only have mainly 2 types of needs such as physical and
economic. Classical management theories includes bureaucratic management theory, scientific
management and administrative management theory.
Bureaucratic management theory: This management theory has mainly 2 elements
such as its hierarchical organisational structure and organisation that is governed by clearly
defined rationale legal decision making rules. Both elements of this theory can help service
sector industries to achieve their goals (Shafritz, Ott and Jang, 2015). This bureaucratic theory
has some features and characteristics which can make Marriott hotel able to apply in their
organisation and achieve their goals such as it has hierarchical management structure, it has
clearly defined all the tasks to labour and it divides of labours on the basis of their skills, it is
career orientation and all the legal rules are applied uni formally to everyone.
Scientific management: Scientific management theory is called as a Taylorism as this
theory's main aim is tom focus on improving the efficiencies of each worker in an organisation.
By implementing this theory manager of service sector industry focus on increasing the
production by using of advanced and intensive technologies. There are some principles of this
theory such as financial incentives that should be given to employees in order to encourage
workers to boost their productivity and motivate them for performing well.
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Leadership style also play a vital role in an organisation. There are various styles of
leadership that helps leaders in leading and guiding employees in an effective manner.
Autocratic: Autocratic leadership style is known as directive style. In this style of
leadership, leaders have the authority of taking decisions. They do not involve their employees in
their process of decision making. It de motivates employees and also become the reason of
labour turnover. But this is an effective at some situations where they require to take immediate
decisions and employees do not have experience (Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016).
Democratic: This style is called as participative style because in this leadership style,
leaders give opportunities to their employees to involve in their decisions making process and
give their suggestions. This style is being followed by Marriott hotel in order to motivate their
employees.
LO 2
Factors that influence different management style and structures in a service industry
There are several internal and external factors that influence and impacts on the
performance of Marriott hotel. All factors have some positive and negative impacts that can
affect the management style which is being followed by Marriott hotel.
Internal factors
Strengths
 The main strengths that have positive
impact on the management style of
Marriott hotel is it more focuses and
invests in technical innovation with the
main aim of improving customer
experience (Cipriano, 2018).
 It has various brands range from
attainable to aspirational.
Weaknesses
 There are various hotel chain that
increases competition for this hotel as it
limits market shares.
 Global expansion also leads to brand
dilution.
Opportunities
 The biggest opportunity for this hotel is
Threats
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it shows its high potential in emerging
markets.
 It has better interior that helps them in
attracting more customers.
 Currency fluctuation of different
countries is a big threat that impact on
its management style in a negative
manner.
External factors
Political
Political factors includes the instability of
politics and the risks of terrorism and military
conflicts are some examples of political factors
that is s big threat for Marriott hotel.
Social
New trends of people is beneficial for this
hotel. People are showing more interest in
travelling internationally and want to spend
away from the home. They also pay more for
getting experience that increases sales of
Marriott hotel.
Economic
There are some economic factors that impacts
on kits performance in a negative manner
includes slowing of economic growth in China.
Due to this growth this hotel has to face the
problem of high exchange rate for the U.S
dollar overseas.
Technological
Advanced technologies is having more impact
on the hotel business. People are getting
online rental services such as AirBnb that lets
private individuals rent rooms directly to
travellers (Toppinen and et.al. 2019). It can
decrease the profitability of Marriott hotel.
LO 3
Current and future management skills for the service sector
There are some hard and soft skills in which employees and managers have some skills
which help them in performing all the activities in an effective manner. On the other hand they
lack in some skills which create barriers in the path of their success. There are some examples of
current hard and soft skills that employees of Marriott hotel posses.
Current hard and soft skills
Hard skills
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Computer programming: Computer programming means to have a proper knowledge
of programming language. Employees of Marriott hotel have a greater technical skills and
software architecting capabilities. It makes them able to solve critical technical problems.
Soft skills
Communication: It plays an important role. Employees of the hotel have an effective
communication skill which make them able to deal with different types of customers. This skill
also prevent them from conflicts that occurs because of misunderstanding. With the help of this
skill manager can perform their basic functions with effectively (Matteson, Anderson and
Boyden, 2016).
Team work: Employees have skills of working in a team and collaboratively. It makes
them able to solve critical problems and also improve their interpersonal relationship. When
employees work in a team then they have the great opportunities to share their views and learn
new things from their seniors.
Future hard and soft skills
Hard skills
Proficiency in foreign language: Marriott is a multinational hospitality company that
provides services to different countries people so it is very important for them to have a language
proficiency. It is an ability to speak language with fluency. It shows customers that they have
great knowledge of their language. By developing this skill, employees and managers of this
hotel can easily share their messages to customers.
Soft skills
Time management: Time management skills also play an important role for managing
all the tasks on the time. There is a lack of this skill in employees which is weakness of them.
For managing all the tasks and delivering a good quality services to customers on the time it is
very important for Marriott hotel to focus and develop this skill (Kapoutsis, Papalexandris and
Thanos, 2019).
LO 4
Management and leadership skills in a service industry
There are some change management models that can affect management and leadership
styles and skills in a positive manner as they support them in managing changes that occurs in
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an organisation. This model also make managers and leaders able to increase their skills and
knowledge and being in a competition. Marriott hotel use ADKAR change management model.
ADKAR model: It is s people focused approach that make leaders and managers of Marriott
hotel able to adapt situations and changes without getting influenced.
Awareness: In this first step, it is important for employees to be aware of changes which
occurs at workplace. For making and implementing changes, manager of Marriott hotel try to
make aware to its employees.
Desire: In this stage, Employees have desire for the changes strategy. Managers do not
require to force the changes upon employees.
Knowledge: Changes which is being implemented by Marriott hotel increases knowledge
and skills of employees. Employees are also being fully supported y their managers and leaders
in the context of development of these skills (Karambelkar and Bhattacharya, 2017).
Ability: If employees have certain ability to increases their skill then only knowledge can
be increased.
Reinforcement: In this last stage of change model, manager of Marriott hotel rewards for
employees for changing their methods and way of working. It motivates them towards achieving
their goals.
On the other hand Hilton that is also an American multinational hospitality company. It uses and
follow Lewin's change management model for maintaining their position in this sector.
Lewin's model
Unfreeze: It is the first stage in which Hilton hotel makes all the employees agree about
having changes and improve the readiness. The main aim of this stage is to move on from the
comfort zone to a transformed situation for improving skills. Managers also tell their employees
about the need and importance for change and also tell them the new ways of working for
achieving better results.
Transition & change: In the second stage of change management, Manager of Hilton
hotel implement changes. It also includes the acceptance of changes by all the people of an
organisation. It is critical stage as it is not possible for implement changes because organisation
has to face various problems and uncertainties so they need to make careful planning about
changes.
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Refreeze: This is the last stage of change management in which all the people of hotel try
to move from the transition and change stage to a much more stable state. In this changing stage,
manager provides rewards to their employees for motivating them and for improving better
relation with them. All the policies and strategies help Hilton hotel in reinforcing the transformed
ways of working (Hussain and et.al., 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been concluded that leadership and management style played
and important role in a hospitality sector as it helped managers in managing all the resources
and employees effectively. It has also show some internal and external factors that have
impacted on its management style and performance in a positive and in a negative manner.
Change management system and model which has been used by hospitality industries showed
the importance by which they made themselves beneficial in taking competitive advantages.
Further this study will show about some current and future hard and soft skills which made
managers able to achieve their pre determined goals.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Cipriano, N.A.A., 2018. The effects of internal and external factors in manufacturing industry
towards operational risk.. pdf.
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.
Kapoutsis, I., Papalexandris, A. and Thanos, I.C., 2019. Hard, soft or ambidextrous? Which
influence style promotes managers’ task performance and the role of political skill. The
International Journal of Human Resource Management. 30(4). pp.618-647.
Karambelkar, M. and Bhattacharya, S., 2017. Onboarding is a change: Applying change
management model ADKAR to onboarding. Human Resource Management
International Digest. 25(7). pp.5-8.
Matteson, M.L., Anderson, L. and Boyden, C., 2016. " Soft Skills": A Phrase in Search of
Meaning. portal: Libraries and the Academy. 16(1). pp.71-88.
Shafritz, J.M., Ott, J.S. and Jang, Y.S., 2015. Classics of organization theory. Cengage Learning.
Toppinen, A. and et.al. 2019. Internal and external factors of competitiveness shaping the future
of wooden multistory construction in Finland and Sweden. Construction Management
and Economics. 37(4). pp.201-216.
Yahaya, R. and Ebrahim, F., 2016. Leadership styles and organizational commitment: literature
review. Journal of Management Development. 35(2). pp.190-216.
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