Evaluating Leadership and Management Issues for Women at Marriott

This critical essay examines leadership and management issues for women within Marriott International, a leading multinational hotel chain. The introduction highlights the significance of leadership and its impact on business success, while acknowledging gender stereotypes as barriers. The essay delves into the challenges women face in leadership roles, including societal expectations, workplace biases, and the need to adapt to male-dominated environments. It analyzes Marriott's leadership and management development programs, emphasizing their role in achieving competitive advantages, adapting to industry changes, and fostering a flatter organizational structure. The essay also explores the leadership styles adopted by Marriott, particularly transformational and charismatic leadership, and their impact on employee performance and organizational effectiveness. A SWOT and PESTLE analysis of Marriott International is included to provide a comprehensive view of the company's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the external opportunities and threats it faces.

Critical essay

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The key phenomenon of leadership has been expansively investigated due to the fact
that it is supposed that it plays a crucial role in the success and growth of many business
corporations, societies and nations. Leadership and management are regarded as the main
important factor in impacting the results and processes of group. Nevertheless, stereotypes
are many a times regarded as an essential barrier in the advancement of women towards the
position of leadership (Northouse, 2015). Considering this, the main aim of the current
research essay is to evaluate the leadership and management issues that women leadership.
The essay will critically examine the role of leadership and management development from
the perspective of the organization. the company chosen for the current essay is Marriott
International, which is one of the leading multinational hotel chains of Maryland. The essay
will throw some light on varied leadership as well as management approaches being adopted
by the leaders at the hotel and will analyse their impact on the firm. Furthermore, emphasis
will also be made on different issues pertaining to equality and diversity and other leadership.
MAIN BODY
According to Wajdi (2017), when men are overloaded than it is a tragedy however
when women are overloaded than it is a tradition. Archaeologically, both men as well as
women has their own prescribed roles and accountabilities where are men are perceived to be
the provider of the family and on the other hand, women are being restricted to the familial
accountabilities. Astonishingly, it has been originated that in comparison with men, women
devote 4 to 5 times more on nourishment of children which is around twice as much time in
house care, however spend just a half of time on market work. In a male-controlled
community such as India, men are most of time considered to be occupied an important
visible role such as executives, leadership and politicians. Nevertheless, women who holds
these titles are supposed to follow the norms and rules being set by males so that their
contribution remains limited. Women are also less likely to be work, nonetheless they also
earn less as compared to men for the same type of job role. Furthermore, in most of the
organizations, women are also under presented in top positions. However, as per Algahtani
(2014), women are more capable than men in performing leadership and management roles in
organizations.
Not a single business corporation has an important benefit for women in relation with
work culture. The social environment of any type of firm is more masculine in nature because
it is conventionally as well as predominately being occupied by men. The previous gendered
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management style debate had the perspective that the features of a successful manager is due
to the features of men. Since, there has been augmentation in the entry of female managers
and leaders, they accept traits as well as behaviour typical of male managers for succeeding
in a masculine work environment. This is being regarded as an important constraint being
faced by women when they enter in any firm for a role of leadership. They often fail in
gaining inclusion as they are being analysed in a work culture being established by men
which has typically male standards. Furthermore, according to Pyke (2018) when a leader
who is women performs a leadership role, they generally tend to decrease her gender
stereotype for surviving in the firm. Further, they make efforts to decrease the role conflict.
Or else, women also invite prejudice in the form of biased performance analysis along with
negative viewpoints which might lessen her level of performance. When focusing in relation
with prejudice, men leaders are at gain in comparison with the females. Because of this
adjustment in role, there has been influence on health of women.
In each and every organization including Marriott International, leadership and
management plays a pivotal role. This is because of the fact that leadership along with
management development provides a great opportunity for the firms to seize a competitive
advantage in their industries. If the firm makes commitments towards development of leaders
and managers than they can gain an important competitive edge through making
improvement in the bottom line, attracting, developing as well as retaining talent, driving the
implementation of strategy and augmenting the success when navigating alteration. On the
other hand, as per Gradinarova (2021), leadership and management development help the
hotel in attainment of their pre-determined objectives effectively. Mainly because of the
industry 4.0, Marriott International is also finding themselves comfortable in keeping up with
the constant as well as rapid evolution within the workplace, mainly because of the exchange
of information and machine learning in some of the technologies. Leadership and
management development is critical for the purpose of maintaining this dynamism and
keeping the hospitality businesses more relevant as well as profitable.
According to Kotter (2017), in the industry 4.0 economy, organizations will be able
to achieve competitive edge from the other competing firms in the market only through their
capabilities of adding value. Moreover, this value is being derived by making optimized
utilization of knowledge by seeking help from products, system, technology and services.
Leadership and management development plays a crucial role in Marriott international as
they are being linked with the capability for a business to link this to internal innovation and
to partner resources for staying competitive in the present business environment. On contrary
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to this, according to Michie and Zumitzavan (2019), in this even increasing digitalization as
well as inter-connection of value chains, leadership along with management is similar to
thriving ecosystem instead of bureaucratic business structure of preceding age group.
Marriott has adopted a flatter structure of leadership and management and they are also
forced to evolve as they desire to remain profitable in the market. In addition to this, higher
degree if decision making and delegation can also be noticed in some of the departments of
the hotel. It is the leaders of the hotel that helps in guiding as well as communicating the
main vision and values and emphasize on leading the larger client projects plays making
investment in development of their teams. Furthermore, the managers in the hotel takes on
more accountabilities as well as delegate downstream move.
As per Ferguson and Reio (2017), leadership and management development
programmes offer a help to the hotel in the phase of transitioning right from leading them
towards a leadership position to allowing them to learn different skills and abilities for
managing the group effectively. For becoming an effective leader and manager, leadership
and management development programmes being conducted by Marriott offers opportunity
to people to acquire leadership and management skills and other attributes. Because of the
changes in the current business environment, leadership and management are significant for
the business in the hospitality industry in which the hotel operates. Flattered structure of the
hotel being adopted by Marriott signifies that more and more people can take up the
leadership roles, however with a lower cost to the firm, thus, most of the people feel
connected and encouraged to be at work. In addition to this, as per Bârgău (2015), more
senior managers as well as leaders have an opportunity to emphasize on the vision and
succession becomes quite easy.
Speaking in volume in relation with Marriott, it is a multi-brand corporation which
represents the hotels and inns and covers a variety of target groups. The hotel has built a
reputation for the service excellence, modern technology, quality and innovation. The main
philosophy of leadership style of Mr. J.W Marriott specified that people are being regarded as
the main asset for the firm and he appreciated the work and efforts of his workers and treated
them as the members of the family. In addition to this, the CEO of Marriott international is
also being known as for his charismatic leadership and his capability of driving
modernization and inspiring those around him for changing the world of hospitality (Takala,
2015). One of the key capabilities of a charismatic leader is that they are very skilled
communicators.
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Marriott international is one of the diversified hotels all across the globe. It is not easy
to portray the complete culture of the hotel due to its diversity. Further, the culture of the
hotel is quite varied as compared to nation to nation. Nevertheless, it is proven that workers
working in the firm are very cheerful and average workers working in year is quite more in
comparison with the different other leading hotel chains. The hotel has also been awarded as
the best firm to work for many times as per Glassdoor, Fortune magazine and news portal.
Thus, it can be attributed that the corporate culture and the leadership style of the hotel is
quite well designed. the leaders and managers of the hotel always make sure that they take
care of their workers through providing great advantages, better future career as well as
pertinent job opportunities (Mullins and Christy, 2019). The leaders of the hotel generally
follow transformational leadership style. This is being followed in the hotel as its constructed
motivation and on belief is appreciated by the hotel itself. Seeking help from this leadership
style, the managers and the leaders of Marriott are been in a position to maintain good
association and change oriented ways while motivating workers to keep the good works.
They also offer coaching as well as training for the workers for attaining the mission of the
company.
Both charismatic leadership style and transformational style have great impact on the
performance of the organization. According to Tajeddini and Trueman (2018),
transformational leaders are more likely to make their employees admire, trust and respect
through emphasizing on the idealized impact, individualized consideration and inspirational
motivation which in turn helps in augmenting their level of performance and capabilities. In
addition to this, transformational leadership style also helps in motivating the employees for
creating as well as sharing knowledge as well as generating knowledge slack which is quite
necessary for facilitating both professional as well as personal growth, innovation and
organizational learning. Overall, it can be said that transformational leadership helps in
achieving the goals of the firms. In regards with the charismatic leadership style being
adopted in Marriott international, the leaders and the managers inspires the workers for
carrying out things in a better manner (Zopiatis and Constanti, 2021). Such type of leadership
directly impacts through engagement of the self-concepts of the followers in the interest of
the mission being articulated by the leader. It strongly impacts the organizational
effectiveness as workers recognizes chiasmatic leaders without conflicts and carries out their
functions and roles well which prompts towards better effectiveness of the firm. In addition
to this, such types of leaders also help in building successful team which reflects that
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charisma leaders recognizes the capabilities and skills of the workers more efficiently which
leads towards the higher level of performance, innovation and organizational effectiveness.
SWOT analysis of Marriott
Strength
 Leader in the market
 Innovative and proactive
 Strong pipeline for expansion
Weaknesses
 Depends majorly on the market of
North America
 Influence of family feud
 Over emphasis of standardization of
services
Opportunities
 Augmentation in global travel
 Partnership
 Huge unexploited market
Threats
 Stringent travel norms in some of
the nations
 High level of competition
 Vulnerability to terror attacks
Pestle analysis of Marriott
Political Anti-immigrants’ statement, travel ban and uncertainty in the political
landscape of the European Union
Economic Fluctuation in the currency is affecting the tourism. Airline competition
is also increasing
Social Augmentation in the spending of the consumers, varied demands of
lodging and experiences and terrorism are some of the factors that can
impact the working and operation of the hotel
Technological Technological have a greater level if influence on the working of the
company. Innovations in the hospitality sector is driving competition
Legal The future business of the hotel can be influenced by the status of
services such as Airbnb. Achieving standardization in the face of legal
compliances is also important factor to be considered
Environmenta
l
Increasing preference of the consumers for sustainable practices and
integration of different norms might impact the operation of the hotel
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In this 21st century, women are still fighting for their rights and for achieving a
leadership position in the company. There are different leadership as well as management
issues being experienced by the women in the hospitality industry that act as a hindrance
from rising up to the corporate ladder. As per Bhatnagar and Mathur (2015), one of the most
common issues among all is social as well as cultural barriers. Due to gender roles being
defined by the communities along with the stereotypical behaviour of the families and
friends, the phenomenon that women cannot be a good leader and manager has been seized.
On the other hand, according to Hassana and Ehsan (2015), women are suitable at home
concept is being maintained in most of the tradition which act as a major hindrance in the
growth and progress of women. Women have determined stereotypes as one of the most
crucial barriers to the most senior position in business and scholars have also schooled this
perspective reliably for years. According to Zopiatis and Constanti (2021), this is dependable
with the commonly held notion that perception of suitable leadership is being impacted
through gender. Because of the stereotyping there has been self-fulfilling predication. When
there exists both negative and positive stereotype in regards with the specified group or
individuals then members of that group carry out function in such a manner that it confirms
this stereotype. This kind of phenomenon is being known as the stereotype threat.
For the women who has acquired the position in management, this might result in the
internationalization of the notion that women are not capable of assuming the roles of
leadership. As such, they do not determine themselves with the potential leadership positions
and take the firm as a territory of males and therefore, undermines their level of motivation,
encouragements and possibly resulting into lower level of performance. stereotype threat has
been proven to influence the women in a negative manner in academic fields and prominently
in the professional aspirations of women.
Secondly, Harrison (2017) on the other side has defined that there are different
organizational barriers as well such as wage gaps, promotions, mentoring and work cultures
are also some of the important barriers that restrict women to holds a leadership position in
the company. Thus, it is crucial for the firms and the industries to recognize the potential and
capabilities of women through different leadership and management development programs
and must combat gender discrimination at workplace.
Underpinning the discussion further, as stated by Poole (2015), organizational
development is being referred as the on-going procedure that not only include evolution
rather also leverages it for renewal over the years. The knowledge along with the experiences
related to learning being offered within Marriott international supports the individuals to
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adapt successfully to the dynamic corporate settings. Additionally, the values plus beliefs
indoctrinated in the culture of the firm have a direct impact on the performance as well as
behaviour of the workers at work. With the main aim of achieving gender parity workplace,
the hotel presently emphasizes on hiring women workers as compared to the previous years.
In addition to this, the hotel has also indeed initiated to appreciate the competencies of
women through breaking the barriers and offering them an environment where they can grow
and prosper. Diversity in gender most of time brings along different viewpoints to a shared
issue, thus fostering more innovation, creativity and enhanced decision making. This is
considered as a catalyst for bringing anticipated modification in the firm and in turn helps in
enhancing the level of development as well as productivity of the hotel. Thus, this is also
supported by Ely, Ibarra and Kolb (2017), who states that when women are being regarded as
an integral section of the cultural of the firm, as it helps in accelerating the speed with which
the firm attains growth and success across its tenure.
On contradiction to this, Schein (2017), has pointed out that there are many
challenges or issues being faced by the women leadership and management in this present
global competitive world. On this, Grant (2018) have asserted that irrespective of different
unique issues being encountered by the women leader, they continue to push through barriers
as they serve their goals and makes full effort to reach out their full potential. The very first
leadership and management issues being faced by the women leader is being treated equally.
Right from being held to a higher standard as compared to male counterparts, to coming
across with persistent gender stereotypes, women leaders are systematically placed on an
uneven playing field. Another problem is related with trusting their own voices. Most of the
women sometimes does not push by the internal as well as external barriers for finding the
level of confidence for expressing their ideas. When women act as a leader or manager, it
might be an issue to trust in the special facets of female executive presence and consider them
as one of the important personal as well as organizational asset. Thirdly, ambition in men is
being regarded as a sign of strength however women cannot depend on their ambition being
perceived as a positive attitude. Further, seeking support from the longstanding business
conventions men learn to play the game which helps them in building alliances as well as
impact the behaviour of others. On the other hand, women might require to find alternate
routes for building mutually advantageous business alliances as well as strategic association
(Marriott management philosophy, 2015). Other than this, another important issue being
faced by the women leadership in terms of equality and diversity is that women most of the
time have difficulties in forming an accurate self-assessment, a situation which is also known
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as impostor syndrome which can restrict with their capability of standing confidently in their
accomplishments.
According to Ely, Ibarra and Kolb (2017), because of the rising level of globalization
and alteration in the social as well as economic situations, there has been dramatic change in
the role and self-perception of women in the industrialized nations. As per Toma`s and et.al.
(2019) the appearance of women in formally all-male occupations is the resultant of this
dramatic change in culture. Certain to these trends, there are augmenting resemblances in the
management style of both men and women. However, irrespective of the social as well as
economic alteration in the role of women, there are certain beliefs in regards with the role of
women in leadership seems to persist and these opinions seemingly continue to flourish
throughout the cultures.
Firms are most of the time being defined publicly through its leaders and managers at
the top level and chief executive officer across the levels of management and prevalent in
much of the management literature. Even though the idea that the men and women are from
varied planets and their manners of leading fluctuate distinctively is rife in popular culture,
experiential indication does not point to important differences in gender in leadership. In
reality the tole of gender as well as leadership study over the last twenty years remain largely
inconsistent. Some of the study like as per Kouzes and Posner (2017), helps the notion of
differences in gender, for example that women tend to be slightly more transformational,
participative, democratic as well as inclusive. Studies in regards with the gender related
comparison of leadership styles as per masculine as well as feminine traits is quite extensive.
Other research findings like as per Kellerman and Rhodes (2014), nevertheless does
not support the idea of numerous dissimilar alterations amid men and women leaders. In
addition to this, a meta evaluation of 45 studies measuring varied types of leadership
behaviour have originated only small differences amid the styles of leadership of women and
mean leaders. Because of this higher level of similarity in the behaviour of both men and
women leaders, it has been concluded by many studies that an individual is male or male is
not being regarded as the consistent indicator of the leadership style of person. Stone (2014)
has also considered these effect sizes too small to matter in practice. Therefore, while the
study has not reflected important variation amid men and women in relation with the styles of
leadership, what matters more is the beliefs or sex role stereotypes instead of gender per se.
Talking in relation with the strategy of Marriott international, having women in the
leadership position plays a very crucial role for its growth as well as success. The hotel is
emphasizing on the advancement of women in the management as well as executive ranks,
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gaining of loyalty from the clients, development of financial opportunity including women
owned business in the supply chains (Răducan and Răducan, 2014). In addition to this, the
hotel has also emphasized on the initiative which is based on three main pillars that is
mentoring and networking, leadership and effectiveness of the workforce. Focusing on the
targets as well as goals in concern with the empowerment of women, the hotel desires to
augment the presence of women in the highest level of management along with the other key
decision-making positions. In addition to this, they also aim to increase the spending with
women owned businesses and minority and women owned hotels to 1000 to 2000. This is a
perfect example of the manners in which the company is dealing with the issues related to
equality and diversity.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that leadership and management
development is critical for the purpose of maintaining the dynamism and keeping the
hospitality businesses more relevant as well as profitable. The essay has critically reviewed
literatures related to women leadership and the issues being faced by women as a leader in
the present business corporations. Different leadership styles and management approaches
being adopted by Marriott has been critically reviewed and their impact on the organization
had also been discussed significantly. It has been found from the evaluation that even though
the hotel has adopted different practices related to equality and diversity, they are more ways
to go for achieving higher level of growth in terms of women leadership and empowerment.
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Online references
Marriott management philosophy. 2015. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.marriott.com/Multimedia/PDF/Marriott_Management_Philosophy.pdf>.
[Accessed on 17th May 2022].
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