The elements of what it takes to be a successful leader have not changed. They are simple and obvious, or should be: motivating those who follow you to share your vision; inspiring through example; a sense of duty and responsibility to those who trust and depend on you; the capacity to see a problem and the skill to fix it; developing and maintaining a proper perspective on yourself in the face of success or adversity; setting and achieving goals; understanding people's limits and knowing when to drive hard and when to ease up on both subordinates and competitors.
" A leader leads by example, not by force. "
Sun Tzu
Emotional Intelligence In The Experiential Hospitality
This is a trend that leads to an increase in the number of hotels focused in producing holistic positive experiences in their guests, as the management starts to realize that the application of this kind of knowledge makes a strong impact on the loyalty more sought in a guest: the emotional one.
However, we cannot talk about experiences in a given context without mentioning the generation of emotions and feelings, even less if deprived of emotional relations and ties. It is precisely at this point where the Human Resources plays its more prominently role in the Experiential Hospitality, as it is responsible for managing the experience designed for the host.
In this kind of Hospitality the guest vision suffers a rearrangement due to the need to see him primarily as an emotional and not only rational human being, which allows us to decipher his emotional needs, however, this deciphering only takes place if links and emotional relations are established between the host and the experience makers so that the Human Resources goes through a new reordering also in their role within the company.
However, how can we recognize other people’s emotions and feelings without recognizing our own, and be able to establish the level of interpersonal relations and bonds required for such purposes? That's why all Human Resources intended to work in the Experiential Hospitality must achieve the aptitude to develop skills and capabilities linked to the Emotional Intelligence.
The empathic capacity of the "Hotel Experiences" makers can be a further tool of differentiation since in achieving greater ties and relations with guests, what they are trying to seek emotionally will be better known, hence adapting the attributes of each service in order to be used as experience detonators perceived as their own, and impossible to repeat outside the context in which they were lived.
The use of Emotional Intelligence by experience makers, seen like the capacity to manage his own emotions and hence the ability to recognize the others’ emotions, to know what they want and need and basically to develop skills essential to establish social relations and personal ties, will provide to the service a new added value which will be expressed in terms of Emotional Quality, i.e. the guest feels that he is emotionally understood and satisfied.
In the Experiential Hospitality is just not enough to have Human Resources with a high level of technical expertise, but also a high level of emotional expertise, which is mainly the ability to incorporate the emotional intelligence into the offered service. Human Resources lacking emotional expertise will render services perceived as emotionally empty, which will be felt as the famous and always feared “perception of cold services”. Higher levels of Human Resources´ emotional expertise will provide higher levels of Emotional Quality to the services rendered.
Nowadays, the Experiential Hospitality is avidly seeking hoteliers able to develop and use the emotional intelligence in the services, permanently asking themselves: What am I doing to make emotional contact with the guest who I am attending now? That is why the job of all centers training personnel for the Hotelier Industry is to focus on the development of the skills mentioned above. On the other hand, the selection of the Hotel Human Resources should be based not only on the level of technical expertise but also the emotional one, that is to say, the ability of generating empathic links with the attended guest.
In short, we can say that in the Hotel Business Experience the managing of people intensifies. We are emotional human beings serving and attending other emotional human beings, thus establishing emotional bonds between the person who is receiving the service and the provider of the service and a synergy of influences which will mould the degree of bonding and relations that can be achieved as well as the behavior.
Summing up, we can say that the Emotional Intelligence applied as a tool for support in the Experiential Hospitality, provides the Hotel the possibility of establishing a new level of positioning in the market : the emotional one.
5 Essentials every manager should do
Great business owners become great based on their actions. Intentions are meaningless. Words are important. Results are everything.
But probably not the kinds of results you might have in mind.
Consistently accomplish these five functions and you, your company -- and most importantly your employees -- all reap the benefits. Fail at these five functions and no matter how hard you work, you and your business will eventually fall short.
1. Develop every employee. If your sole focus is on hitting targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals your leadership cart is well before the horse. Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it's your job to help every employee become capable of achieving more.
Plus, even the most self-starting employees can only do so much to improve their skills. As a manager you owe it to your employees to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities they need and deserve. In the process you listen, guide, and develop loyalty and commitment. Reviewing results and tracking performance is transformed from enforcement into personal progress and improvement -- both for the employee and for business.
Employee development is your primary responsibility as a boss. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of employees; goal achievement becomes a natural, long-term result.
2. Take care of problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale quicker than issues that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, inter-departmental feuds all negatively impact employee motivation, enthusiasm, and even individual work ethic.
Small problems never go away. They always fester and grow into bigger problems -- and when you ignore an issue, employees immediately lose respect for you. Without respect you can't lead.
Never hope a problem will magically disappear (or someone else will deal with it.) No matter how small, deal with every issue head-on.
3. Rescue a struggling employee. Every team has an employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, blew up in a meeting, or just makes particularly slow progress. Over time a struggling employee comes to be seen by his peers, and by you, as a weak link.
When that happens it's almost impossible for the struggling employee to turn a corner on his own. The weight of team disapproval is just too heavy for one person to move.
But that weight is not too heavy for you to move.
Before you remove a weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rehabilitate that person instead. Step in and address the situation, but do so in a positive way. Say, "Mike, I know you've been struggling. I also know you're trying. Let's find ways we get you where you need to be." Express confidence, be reassuring, and most of all tell him you'll be there every step of the way.
Don't relax your standards, though. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.
Granted, sometimes it won't work out, so see the effort as its own reward.
4. Serve others -- never yourself. You can get away with this once or twice, but that's it. Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did. Never say, "This took a lot of work, but I have finally convinced upper management to let us..." If it should go without saying, don't say it.
Your glory should always be reflected, never direct. When employees excel you excel. When your team succeeds you succeed. When an employee rehab project turns into a superstar, remember they should be congratulated, not you.
You were just doing your job the way a great manager should.
Consistently act as if you are less important than your employees and everyone will know how important you really are.
5. Stay humble. As a business owner, you've reached a level many of your employees also hope to someday reach. Some admire what you have accomplished; most respect you for your hard work and achievements. So sometimes an employee will just want to talk or to spend a little time with you.
When that happens you can blow that person off, or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, motivate, reassure, or give someone hope for greater things in their life.
The higher you rise, the greater the impact you can make, and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.