Management and Leadership in Action: Marriott Hotels Analysis Report

This report examines the critical roles of leadership and management in organizational success, using Marriott Hotels as a case study. It begins by defining leadership and management, differentiating their perspectives, and highlighting their importance for organizational effectiveness. The report explores various leadership and management theories, including trait, behavioral, and situational theories of leadership, as well as scientific, contingency, and system management theories. It then analyzes the effective leadership styles employed by Marriott, such as the democratic style, and the importance of ethical considerations and value frameworks. The report further discusses the impact of leadership and management on organizational vision and mission, emphasizing the role of managers and leaders in setting and communicating these goals. Finally, it evaluates how leaders and managers facilitate organizational change using tools like the Kurt Lewin and ADKAR models, concluding that both effective leadership and management are essential for any organization's success. The report emphasizes Marriott's practices, highlighting their approach to change and their focus on employee engagement.

RUNNING HEAD: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN ACTION
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Management and Leadership in Action

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Introduction
Management and leadership play a critical role in organizational effectiveness and
performance. These two concepts are taken as the same in most organizations but their
perspectives are not similar. Leadership is defined as the ability of a leader to influence and
motivate others to achieve organizational goals and on the other side, management includes
actions to control and manage people and resources in an organization in order to bring
efficiency and effectiveness business operations. Both leaders and managers are important for
the success of the organization (Nienaber,2010).
In order to understand the concept and role of leadership and management in organizational
success and effectiveness, an organization has been selected that is Marriott Hotels. This
essay will highlight the leadership and management theories, effective leadership style used
in the organization, the role of managers and leaders in Marriott Hotels and tools used by
leaders and managers to manage change in an organization. At last, a conclusion is given on
the role that leaders and managers play in the organization's effectiveness considering the
case of Marriott Hotels.
Leadership and Management
Leadership is considered as the process of influencing others in order to attain organizational
objectives in a way that makes it more coherent and cohesive. According to Vermeeren et.al,
(2014), leadership includes motivating, inspiring and guiding others to pursue their vision.
Leaders have some characteristics or traits that influence followers. These traits of leadership
can be understood with different theories such as trait theory, behavioral theory, and
situational theory. As per the trait theory, the skills or characteristics of a successful leader
are ambition, honesty, intelligence, self-confidence and desire to lead (Bethel,2012).

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Behavioral theory focuses on the concept that a leader’s actions and behavior affect to make
the leader effective and behavior can be learned from experience and training. On the basis
of this theory, the leader requires three skills in order to be successful that are conceptual
skills, human skills, and technical skills. The situational theory focuses on the idea that no
leadership style is best suitable in the situations rather different situations require different
leadership styles. This theory states that an effective leader adapts leadership style according
to the situation and this is further classified as telling, selling, participating and delegating
(Stacey,2012).
Management is the process of planning, organizing, managing and controlling the activities in
an organization with the motive of profit maximization and bringing efficiency. The popular
management theories are scientific management theory, fielder contingency theory and
system management theory (Morden,2017). Scientific management theory is a famous theory
of management that emphasizes the fact that “forcing people to work hard was not the best
way to optimize results” rather simplifying tasks leads to an increase in productivity. System
theory focuses on the coordination and harmony amongst operations and departments in an
organization and considers the company as a human body that runs effectively if all parts are
in harmony. On the other side, Fiedler contingency theory focuses on the idea that there is no
one approach of management that can be acceptable in all the organizations rather some
internal and external factors affect the organization (Berry et.al,2016).
Marriott International is an American based company that operates in the hospitality segment.
The hotel chain was founded by Willard Marriott and at present ranked as the third-largest
hotel chain in the world. It has a presence of over 131 countries with holdings of 7,005
properties. Marriott hotel adopts contingency management theory as this provides flexibility

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to management to adopt policies and frame strategies as per situation and both internal and
external environments (Marriott,2020).
Effective style of Leadership and Management
The management of Marriott gives major importance to its associates and staff members
because of their services and hard work the brand is successful in the hospitality industry.
The manager interacts with employees and guests in a professional manner in order to ensure
a positive environment. In Marriott manager links performance management with employee
motivation as employee’s performance is measured on a weekly basis on the basis of
parameters such as guest satisfaction, number of complaints and level of involvement. The
manager adopts human relation approach in order to connect with staff and employees this
resultant in increasing productivity, reducing turnover and more efficient services to
customers. However, effective leadership is not required in the service industry as this
industry requires efficient management skills (Nair, 2019).
Ethics and Value Framework
On the other side, in terms of ethical decisions leaders play an important role. Bill Marriott
runs the hotel chain and in order to do so, he follows a democratic leadership style. The
democratic style includes delegation of some power to subordinates in order to motivate them
and to bring quick solutions to a problem. This type of leadership style is followed in
Marriott because it helps the company to make its employees feel valued and motivated
during the tenure. Bill Marriott focus on this style because he believes that human resources
are asset for the organization and he believes that “ treat employees the way you would like
to be treated” and in order to retain employees and to make them interested in their job it is
essential to give some power to employees (Shekhar,2016).

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With that leadership style, manager of Marriott involve employees in the decision-making
process and at the time of changing policies and procedures as this participate style help
manager to implement change in the organization in a positive way by reducing the resistance
from employees. However, from this scenario, it is analyzed that Marriott follows a
democratic leadership style and the manager plays the role of a leader in managing the
activities in Hotels such as managing individuals, motivating others, implementing change
efficiently and decision making (Connell, 2016).
Impact of leadership and management on organization vision and mission
In general terms, management and leadership go hand in hand as both managers and leaders
have a set of functions and activities. They both have some similarities in their role because
both focus on influencing others by using their power to attain certain goals. In today’s
competitive environment effective leadership and effective management both are required for
the growth and success of an organization (Amanchukuwu et.al,2015). Managers and leaders
play a critical role in the vision and mission of an organization. For instance, Marriott Hotel's
mission is “to enhance the lives of customers by creating and enabling unsurpassed vacation
and leisure experience” and vision is “to become the premier provider and facilitator of
leisure and vacation experiences in the world”. In this aspect of the organization, leadership
is considered the important function of management because a manager or top executive
leader sets vision and mission and works accordingly an order to align activities with the
mission of the organization. The mission and vision of an organization are set by the leader
and communicate by the manager to employees. This helps employees to get a clear
understanding of organizational direction and their responsibilities and role in the
organization. Manager plan, coordinate, organize and control activities as per the vision and
mission of the organization. Considering the case of Marriott it is analyzed that staffs are well

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aware of their responsibilities and role because of the effective communication and
management approach adopted by the organization. Managers in hotel counsel their team
members with difficulties and issues that they are facing. Managers in the hotel industry
require maintaining a strong relationship with their team members in order to build team
effectiveness so that collectively they can work on attaining the goals and vision of the
organization. Here manager qualities of leading, planning, directing and coordinating play a
vital role (Ponting, 2019).
Change using Tools
Nowadays organizations are working in a competitive environment where a change in the
external environment has a greater influence on business operations. Due to that company
need to change their policies and procedures in a timely manner. Organizational change is a
process of alternation of relationship, the role of people and the structure of the organization
in order to grow and compete in the market. In order to bring change in an organization or to
manage change in an organization, leaders or bosses or managers execute change in their
span of influence. In order to implement change successfully different tools are used by a
leader such as Kurt Lewin change model or ADKAR model (Hayes,2018). Both of these
models are used by leaders mainly in order to manage change effectively. Leaders play
different roles in order to manage change and implement change in an organization such as
role model, decision-maker, sponsor, communicator, and change agent. These roles are
played by leaders to reduce resistance, boost up change process and to maximize return.
In the context of Marriott, the hotel chain faced challenges because of competition in the
luxury services hotel and people-centric approach adopted by most of the organizations. But
Marriott has its legacy to take care of its people that make the hotel a well-known brand in
the hospitality industry and helps to gain competitive advantage. Leaders in Marriott focus

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proactive approach in order to plan for change and to manage change. Leader focus on
planned change in Marriott as need of change is communicated to staff and employees on
timely manner, after that leader ensure that staff members accept change as expected in order
to do so leader use Kurt Lewin change model that states that firstly status quo is changed and
leader influenced people to understand the need for change and the expectations that the
organization have from staff members during the change after that at the second phase staff
member ready to accept change, some react negatively and resist change and some react
positively and accept change. The people who resist change in Marriott are given training and
counseling sessions by their managers so that benefits and need for change can be
communicated effectively to them. With that at the last stage, everyone accepted the change
and perform new roles and duties (Dhir,2019).
Conclusion
It is concluded from the above study that management and leadership are closely linked to
each other but there are some differences and similarities in the role of manager and leader.
Manager role is to plan, coordinate, organize and influence others to attain organizational
goals with efficiency and effectiveness but on the other side role of the leader is to motivate,
influence, guide and direct their followers to work in order to achieve goals for mutual
benefits that are for own and for the organization. From the study, it is analyzed that there
are different theories and concepts of management and leadership that are applied by the
organization in order to be successful and grow in a competitive environment.
Marriott Intentional hotel is well renowned in the hospitality industry and the organization
follows a democratic leadership style and contingency approach of management in order to
succeed in the industry. On the other side, it is concluded that the role of the manager is more
diverse and widens in the service industry and the role of the leader in this industry is not that

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highlighted as in Marriott managers play important role in managing and coordinating
activities of their human resource. Further, it is concluded that managers play an important
role in bringing organizational effectiveness as they manage resources of the organization in
order to increase efficiency, boost up productivity and increase customer satisfaction. At last,
it is identified that a leader is considered as a change agent and implement various tools in
order to manage change in the organization. Hence, it is concluded that leader and manager
both have different roles and responsibilities in an organization and effective leadership and
effective management are important in the success of any organization.

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References
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