Visionary Leadership, Motivation, and Creativity in Hospitality

This essay delves into key aspects of effective management within the hospitality industry, focusing on visionary leadership, motivational theories, and strategies to overcome barriers to creative thinking. The essay begins by defining and illustrating visionary leadership through the example of Shirley Alexander, highlighting how such leaders inspire teams and align individual goals with organizational objectives. It then explores the core concepts of "content" theories of motivation, such as Maslow's hierarchy and Herzberg's two-factor theory, and their practical applications in understanding and enhancing employee performance. Furthermore, the essay identifies and discusses individual barriers to creative thinking, such as fear of failure and criticism, and suggests actionable strategies for managers to foster a more innovative and supportive work environment. The conclusion reinforces the interconnectedness of visionary leadership, employee motivation, and creative thinking as essential components for organizational success in the hospitality sector.

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Community management and organization
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Introduction
In an organizational context, Leadership is a key determinant of how organizations
functions, performances and sustains rapid competition. Research conducted by Haslam, Ryan,
Kulich, Trojanowski and Atkins (2010 p. 487-497) shows that when an organization receives
poor leadership, management issues and there are no shared values, employees become
demotivated and demoralized and therefore they end up failing to perform as expected. In the
case of underperformances, claim and blames are usually experienced in an organization with
employees and management blaming each other for the failure. Employees’ claim they are
underperforming due to lack of visionary leadership and other human resources support that can
transform their goals and objective. On the other hand, Leaders claim underperformance results
from employee’s motivation issues due to lack of effective compensations and reward packages
from management.
A visionary leader in the hospitality industry
According to Greer, Homan, De Hoogh and Den Hartog (2012 p.203) a visionary leader
is a person who can inspire team members to reach organizational goals at a stipulated time. In
the hospitality industry, a visionary leader focuses on the long- vision of the organization and
ensures that hospitality products and services are adequately resourced to seize opportunities in
the future. Furthermore, a visionary leader in the hospitality industry prioritizes the need of
people in order for them to work hard and bring benefits to stakeholders and organization.
An example of a visionary leader in the hospitality industry was Shirley Alexander, Lead
Consultant, Learning & Development, and Macro Vision Hospitality. Shirley Alexander worked
also worked as general manager at West Sussex Hotel. The visionary leader was effective as he
had a desire of “putting people first” and ensured there were effective communication channels

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within the organization for staff to express their concerns. Furthermore, the leader knew how to
verbalize his goals and dreams and explain to the team members for them to realize how their
efforts are needed to support the goals. In addition, Shirley Alexander as a visionary leader
shared his vision for future and effective listened to other team member’s thoughts and ideas and
then incorporated them into the larger goals. Furthermore, Shirley Alexander also helped the
team members to meet their personal goals hence motivating them to achieve the organizational
goals and targets.
The basic idea behind “content” theories of motivation.
The basic ideas behind “content “theories of motivation are to understand how staff can
be fully utilized in the organization in order to be more productive. Furthermore, “content”
theories of motivation try to explain why human need keep on changing and not how they
change in order for an organization to come up with measures of motivating staff and improving
their performances. Further research conducted by Chalofsky and Krishna (2009 p.189) shows
that encouraging an organization to “focus on the internal factors that energize and direct human
behavior” is also an idea behind “content” theories of motivation. The content theories of
motivation include; Alderfer's ERG theory, McClelland's three-needs theory, Maslow's hierarchy
of needs and Herzberg's motivator-hygiene theory. The main aim of the theories is to assist the
organization to improve its performances by motivating workforces through diverse ways such
as the provision of effective leadership, promotions and recognizing efforts of the staff.
The theories of motivations help managers in the hospitality industry by providing insight
into what makes an employee perform better. Furthermore, when a manager understands the
needs of employees it comes easier for them to capitalize their efforts to fulfill their needs in
order for them to perform extraordinarily. Research conducted by Zhao, Lu, Wang, Chau and

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Zhang (2012 p.574) showed that “the organizations which were highly motivated and employees
developed a sense of ownership performed extraordinarily as compared to organizations that had
low motivations and low level of engagement and commitment. Therefore, in the hospitality
industry, theories of motivation provide managers with a tool of motivating employees and
helping them to understand how the staff can be managed better to feel like part of the company
and be satisfied in their roles. In addition, with managers learning motivators or intrinsic
(recognition and achievements) and extrinsic (job security and pay) factors, they are able to
improve performances in their organization by creating participative-group systems that develops
confidence in employees and motivation takes the form of economic rewards.
Individual barriers to creative thinking
The most challenging individual barriers to creative thinking in the hospitality industry
are; fear of failure, lack of effective directions, striving for constancy, policies preventing
creative thinking, fear of criticism, poor leadership and commitment to be creative and
innovative. The individual barriers to creative thinking need to be addressed in order to develop a
learning organization that will support employees to be innovative and come up with ideas of
addressing the key contemporary management issues. Managers can overcome these individual
barriers to creativity by developing an open and learning organization that will support staff
psychologically in order for them to contribute their ideas effectively without the fear of
intimidation. Furthermore, providing effective feedback mechanisms such as suggestion box can
promote creative thinking to employees who are facing individual barriers like “fear of criticism
or failure”. Furthermore, turning to visionary leadership and motivating employees to reach out
their visions and goals can promote creativity in the hospitality industry.
Conclusion

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In conclusion, visionary leadership and motivation help to develop creative thinking in an
organization. Visionary leaders should address the underperformance claim in the organization
by encouraging creative thinking and providing the right support to employees in their daily roles
for them to achieve their set targets. Furthermore, leaders need to create a conducive
environment, creating the right constraints and having the right processes in order to experience
good innovation environment.

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References
Chalofsky, N. and Krishna, V., 2009. Meaningfulness, commitment, and engagement: The
intersection of a deeper level of intrinsic motivation. Advances in Developing Human Resources,
11(2), pp.189-203.
Greer, L.L., Homan, A.C., De Hoogh, A.H. and Den Hartog, D.N., 2012. Tainted visions: The
effect of visionary leader behaviors and leader categorization tendencies on the financial
performance of ethnically diverse teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), p.203.
Haslam, S.A., Ryan, M.K., Kulich, C., Trojanowski, G. and Atkins, C., 2010. Investing with
prejudice: The relationship between women's presence on company boards and objective and
subjective measures of company performance. British Journal of Management, 21(2), pp.484-
497.
Zhao, L., Lu, Y., Wang, B., Chau, P.Y. and Zhang, L., 2012. Cultivating the sense of belonging
and motivating user participation in virtual communities: A social capital perspective.
International Journal of Information Management, 32(6), pp.574-588.