Leadership Competencies: Impact on Workforce and Organization

This essay delves into the essential leadership competencies vital for success within the hospitality industry. It begins by defining leadership competency as the ability to guide and inspire others, aligning individual and organizational goals. The essay identifies four key leadership competencies: self-management, people management, project management, and organizational management. Self-management skills, including accountability, customer focus, and problem-solving, are highlighted as foundational. The essay then explores people management skills like conflict resolution and team leadership, emphasizing the importance of diverse team building. Project management skills are also considered, focusing on technological application and results-driven approaches. The essay also emphasizes the importance of organizational management skills such as strategic thinking and budget management, creating a vision and creating a sustainable organization. The essay uses examples from the hospitality industry to illustrate the practical application of these competencies, such as the practices of Marriott and Four Seasons. The impact of these competencies on workforce motivation, organizational development, and overall performance is also analyzed. Ultimately, the essay underscores the importance of visionary leadership, cultural competence, and sustainable business practices for leaders in the globalized hospitality landscape.

Running head: LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
Leadership Competencies
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
According to Marshall et al. (2011), leadership competency is the ability of an
individual to guide people. The people that they are guiding could be their peers, colleagues,
clients, workers and organizations. The ability of the leader is in being able to visualize the
goals and achievements that they want to acquire and to align those with organizational and
people’s aspirations (Ghanem and Castelli 2019). A successful leader has many competencies
that make them effective. Mindfulness of self-awareness is the most important competency
that impacts the qualities of the leader and is a deciding factor for the kind of leader one
would become. In the globalized context, leaders need to be able to inspire people, guide
people and show them the way to success while thinking about the organizational
achievements. In this essay, the leadership competencies that are essential for leaders have
been explored. Moreover, the impact of these competencies on workforce and organization
has also been analyzed.
Leaders need four kinds of leadership competencies to become a truly effective
leader. These qualities are self-management, people management, project management and
organizational management. Skills like interpersonal communication, mindfulness and
awareness, teamwork and team management, conflict resolution, strategic management are
all skills that completes these competencies (Saviano et al. 2018). Self-management is the
first approach to developing leadership qualities. Among the self-management skills,
accountability, customer focus and responsiveness, flexibility, integrity, problem solving and
teamwork and collaboration are key to success for leaders in the hospitality industry
(Friedman 2019). Accountability leads to ethical leadership through self-leadership, self-
motivation, self-monitoring and self-regulation. This makes the leaders more accountable to
their own self, people and organizations. These leaders earn trust of their followers and think
about a sustainable future. They are customer oriented and responsive in all the needs of the
workforce, the customers and the organization. For example, Steve Jobes, one of the greatest

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leaders ensures organizational growth through constant innovation, employee growth through
free and flexible work culture and client engagement through new product launches each
year.
Flexibility and integrity are among other necessary competencies that create better
leadership skills. These competencies are key to motivate a large workforce. Respect and
ease of work are necessary for workers in the hospitality industry. Leaders who have
flexibility and integrity are able to invoke respect and fellowship within the workforce so that
they are willing to provide better service for the sake of the leader (Giousmpasoglou et al.
2016). The qualities that leaders show are somewhat get reflected and transformed within the
people that are following him. For example, the famous hotel chain Marriott, believe in
serving with integrity and this gets reflected in the workforce as the leaders ensure that they
follow the organizational goals. According to a survey, they have maintained a steady
number of employees, more than 150 thousand since 2016 (Statista 2020)
Problem solving skills is another important self-management skill that helps
individuals to face difficult situations and find viable solutions. This skill is essential for
organizational competency as while working in an organization, a leader might face situation
where they need to come up with a solution (Nilsson 2018). For example, working in a
restaurant, a leader might find that the meat supply of a particular day is of bad quality. In
this scenario, they must decide their next course of action. The leader might decide to change
the menu and add some specials that would ensure that they do not serve bad food or they
might try to get a supply through other channels so that they do not have to compromise on
the diversity of the menu options.
Teamwork and collaboration is a self-management skill that enables the team leaders
to build competency for emotional and cultural intelligence. As the workforces are becoming

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more diverse and inclusive, the leaders must be able to work with diverse people and must
have the ability to manage teams that have diverse culture. Collaboration brings the best of
people into one unit and leaders can use this element to the best use. These self-management
skills make the leaders more efficient for the people and business related leadership
competencies making the business more sustainable (Davis et al. 2018). According to Nilsson
(2018), Leaders are responsible for handling projects and thus they also need project
management skills to be able to guide the people to achieve their targets and meet the project
deadlines. While handling a project, application of proper technology and a drive for results
is necessary competency for the leaders. The project delivery needs to proper allocation of
people in requires sections with matching skills and competencies, allocation of proper
timeline and milestones. In order to be able to do these tasks, they need analytical thinking,
the leaders need to think critically and understand the specific requirements of the projects.
They should also be able to recognize the technological requirements for the same (Knight
and Paterson 2018). The hospitality industry is advancing in technological field and the
leaders must have the requisite skills to bring necessary changes in the organization. Proper
technological skills also reduces the time needed for project delivery.
People management skills are the most important skill that leaders need to acquire
when they are working in the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry is a labor intensive
force that employs a large number of human resource and across nations. In this regard,
leaders need superior people management skills to work in the hospitality industry. The most
important skills in this regard is conflict resolution and team leadership. It has already been
established that diverse team building and collaborative work has become a mandatory in a
sense in the globalized world (Knight and Paterson 2018). Leaders thus need to be prepared
for the conflicts that might arise in the teams. Their team management also needs to be
developed to be able to manage cross cultural teams. Effective team management skills and

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conflict management skills ensure that the teams get the chance to understand each other and
settle down in a new environment. Marriott is an exceptional example in this regard as they
provide daily training for the contracted employees and managers too, go through a diverse
training program before they become eligible. Another example is when employees are
appointed in the Four Season’s hotel chains, they receive intensive training that are designed
to provide them with all the requisite skills to perform their jobs (Davis, Alibašić and Norris
2018). The leaders also provide on job training that further enhance the skills of the
workforce.
As leaders, individuals have the responsibility to assist the people that are following
them in development of the personal and professional context. Other than that, the leaders
also need to have some managerial qualities so that they are able to manage the day to day
work and take decisions. In this regard, having managerial courage to take certain risks are
also necessary (Broman et al. 2017). For organizational excellence, taking some risks become
necessary in many cases, and leaders need to be able to do that. Leaders that are able to
develop the competency of others and take courageous decisions are respected by the
workforce and have significant influence on others. They become the natural leaders for them
and the leader can use that dedication for organizational development. Leaders also employ
performance management strategies for employees to ensure that they are able to realize their
personal and professional development which is an effective way to motivate employees.
Performance management is also necessary for leaders. They need to track the
working records of the employees and align them with their responsibility. Effective leaders
are able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of people align their tasks and
responsibilities to their strengths so that they can give their best. They also ensure that
employees receive training at regular intervals so that they can convert their weaknesses into
strengths. Performance management can be performed through appraisals and promotions.

5LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
Leaders take different approach like self-evaluation, 360 degree approach for this. The
leaders can ensure organizational performance through transparent review and promotions
and thus, retaining the top talents. Other than these organizational and people skills, leaders
must also possess certain abilities like diplomacy to be able to work in hospitality sector.
Diplomacy enables leaders to negotiate and represent the interests of the people and
the organization to the clients. The leaders are responsible for managing client relationships
and diplomacy is key element for that. In the hospitality industry, the clients are the most
important concern for the organization. Diplomatic leadership enables the leaders to find
solutions to a situation without causing any bad feelings to the clients (Heizmann and Liu
2018). This enables better relationship building for the organization and a loyal base of
customer remains with the organization. In this regard, interpersonal communication skills
and relationship building is essential for the leaders. Many of the recruiters consider
interpersonal communication skill as one of the key soft skills that make candidates likely to
get selected in the hospitality industry.
Leaders are known for their impact and influence on the organization, consumers and
people that they lead. For example, the leader of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs had much influence
on hos workers and customers. The people followed his vision and dedicated their best
abilities to achieve the vision that he had (Shum, Gatling and Shoemaker 2018). They
believed in what he said and were highly motivated workforce that contributed to Apple’s
success. In hospitality industry too, leaders need to ensure that they have enough influence on
the workforce so that they are motivated to follow the path that the leaders shows so that
organizations can achieve their mission and vision.
Leadership competencies are also related to organizational development. Leadership
competencies like strategic and critical thinking, management of budget, increasing

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organizational agility and creating vision for the organization. Overall, the leaders need to
build a sustainable organization so that the organization is able to operate on a long term
basis (Broman et al. 2017). Strategic thinking and budget management allows the leaders to
allocate proper resources according to necessity. They are able to meet their deadlines and
deliver projects within the limited budget. Strategic thinking allows them to manage all these
aspects without making it an overwhelming task. Leaders create both the short and long term
plans to increase organizational performance (Kurucz et al. 2017).
Creating a high performance organization has become a requisite for the hospitality
industry. Leaders in the hospitality industry thus, need to ensure that their leadership
competencies align with the requirements of a high performance organization. High
performance organization depend on the ability of the leaders to channelize the motivation of
the workers and build their competencies so that they produce more. Thus, increasing
organizational agility and flexibility is a necessary skill (Knight and Paterson 2018). Leaders
who are able to practice such leadership are influential and train employees for betterment
continuously. The employees too, remain motivated as they gain new skills and have the
sense of contribution to the larger picture.
Visionary leadership qualities are essential for all leaders. As leadership needs
direction, creating a vision and communicating that vision, and helping others to see that
vision is what makes a successful leader. Most of the powerful leaders in political and
business arena have this quality. According to Alexakis and Jiang (2019), diversity in
workforce is a natural outcome of globalization and leaders working in international
organizational must be able to manage the workforce. In order to do that, leaders need
cultural competence, cultural intelligence, an idea of sustainable business and managing
customer experience.

7LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
The concept and practice of sustainable business operations is becoming popular as
scholars have found that sustainable businesses are likely to gain competitive advantage in
the long run. The idea of sustainable business needs sustainable leadership which is also
based on the idea of value based leadership (Fry and Egel 2017). Sustainability in leadership
competency ensure that the leaders, in their zeal to increase organizational agility, does not
overlook the finer details and responsibilities to the society and community. For example,
many of the international hospitality chains. Including Marriott, recruit many of the local
people into their workforce in order to maintain their social responsibility. It brings more
local customers and creates a diverse and inclusive environment that increases the employee
morale.
From the above discussion, it can be inferred that leadership competencies have much
impact in the outcome and future of an organization. Leaders need to have four core
competencies that makes them effective leaders. The self-management competency allows
them to manage their personal aspects and develop their own self for their personal and
professional development. The people management skills, one of the most important ability
that the leader must have, enables them to interact with the people that they work with and
their customers. Skills like interpersonal skills, team management, conflict resolution and
cultural competence becomes key to success. Project management competencies allow the
leaders to deliver projects in time and ensure that client satisfaction increases while the
organizational leadership skills enable the leaders to manage the organization and make way
to a better future. Thus, individuals aspiring to become leaders in the hospitality industry,
need to ensure that they aspire for these core competencies to become successful leaders of
the industry.

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