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... essential to believe that what we do is great; otherwise our activity is doomed to failure. Summary of the key leadership features Summarizing the core features of Jobs's unless as leader are the following: innovation; trust in success; striving for perfectionism; ability to create small team of top talents; brand fanaticism; radical customer devotion; 'killing products' bringing 'killing profits'; ability to express the ideas to the team for their realization; transforming self-interests into business interests for both the leader and his team. Coming to the end of the discussion of leadership characteristics of Steve Jobs, and starting the discussion of his ideas in application towards hospitality industry, the following quotation can be used: Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice; and the most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. (Jobs, 2005) This idea is also supported by Young (2005), who writes about Jobs not paying attention to any side opinions, which come in the form of marketing research and financial indices, but he always relied on his feel and intuition in developing products and deciding what product will be popular among his customers. Jobs leadership ideas within the hospitality industry Though hospitality industry may seem the one in which leadership ideas are not fully applicable and probably, demanding another approach, but leadership is relevant, and the modern management admits the necessity of developing leadership theories for the hospitality industry, while it is one of the most rapidly developing branches of the world economy. As any organizations, hotels also need to improve their performance through promoting the personalities who display their leadership potential; it is even more useful and easier to use the ideas and principles of leadership coming from other areas of business activity (technological sector is the example of giving the world numerous prominent leaders), and it is possible to analyze their leadership patterns, extracting the best ideas and using them within any hotel and related hospitality organization.
Leadership, thus, is the integral part of hospitality industry: management and leadership complement each other and a person who is a manager should be a leader committed to the guests in a hotel as well as to the employees and suppliers and the community at large. (Testa, 2001) The core of the Jobs leadership style is innovation. Is innovation important in hospitality industry? It is essential, because while hospitality industry is the industry which earns profits through giving its customers pleasant emotions, innovation is what will keep these customers within the industry and will attract them to this or that hotel or other related hospitality organization. Innovation here appears to serve as the pushing factor for the development; however, innovation here is in somewhat different form than it used to be within the Silicon Valley; what I mean here is that while Jobs strives for the creation of killing products, the same attitude in the hospitality industry may have opposite effect.
The customers choosing this or that hotel strive for constantly high quality of services and the feeling of being at home which presupposes some kind of stability for the services which a hotel or a resort offers to its devoted customers. Innovation is welcome here as the means of improvement, but radical changes can change the traditional structure of customers, peculiar of each specific hotel and not always these changes will be positive. This is why innovation is both desirable but should be applied with caution. (Gee, 1999) Trust in success is essential for achieving positive results within the hospitality sector; this idea is universal for any business. As far as the role of the leader is to persuade the team of the fact that what they do will certainly bring success, his trust in this is crucial. In the hotel seeking to inculcate values of workplace harmony and a where a strong common vision is nurtured amongst all employees, the leader is generally facilitating understanding of the companys vision by making them understand the aim of performance, trust in success and caring for them as well. Motivation of employees is a common leadership practice, and as long as the leader is able to create the team which will willingly work together for achieving common aims and directing their efforts towards realization of these goals with their belief they will realize them, this leadership will be profitable and will ultimately serve for the increased profitability of the hotel chosen. (Chung-Herrera & Lankau, 2003) The ability to create a team of talented workers and the ability to deliver the vision to them and make them cooperate effectively is the integral part of successful leadership.
In the hospitality industry the size of the team may be not very important, but making them understand the vision of the leader in terms of the level and kind of services he sees as necessary for the customers, is essential for profitable performance and stable market position. Team performance is one of the determining factors within hospitality industry and the idea of Jobs as for the creation of small teams may be appropriate through understanding that the number of workers should be optimal to provide excellent services and minimize costs. (Testa, 2001) Brand association is important within the hospitality industry, as it is often that the name of the hotel or resort determines the attitudes and trust of the customers. Brand should be supported through providing permanent high level of services and making customers the center of business. These ideas which were and are used by Steve Jobs in his company and which have led him to the success of his CEO being, are also the factors of success in the hospitality industry. The leader is the person who defines ethic and morale of his team, who motivates them and who is also a conflict manager and the person who delivers his vision to his team and makes them understand the ways of realizing this vision and putting into some form (in our case this form is the services provided by the organizations of the hospitality industry). Brand is important because it is connected with quality and tells much to the customer.
Successful leader should be able to support brand at the high level of trust by the customers and promote its association on the market. As far as Jobs was called to be transformational leader, and according to Chung-Herrera & Lankau (2003) theory, leaders are seen as role models for the employees, stimulating them both morally and intellectually, displaying their charisma and respecting the employees whom they empower, the same characteristics are attributable to leaders in hospitality sector. While Jobs was sure that innovation is what distinguishes leader from the follower, this expression is applicable in the computer business; hospitality industry may amend this idea and make it work, stating that emotional intelligence is what distinguishes good leader from bad leader. First of all, a good leader should be aware of his own strengths and weaknesses; thus he will be able to promote and share his strengths with his team, and fight against his weaknesses, helping his employees to minimize the same weaknesses within themselves. True leader in the hospitality industry must be able to adapt his leadership style to the organization he works in and the customers whom he is meant to provide with high quality services. (Testa, 2001) While the leader is creating his team, he will value diversity, but he will also give his team members equal opportunities for career development. The team members should value and share vision which is promoted by the board of directors, giving employees the necessary training and education.
Within the hospitality sector, 80 % leaders are stated to have developed at workplace through practical experience. (Gee, 1999) Conclusion The present work has been designed for the discussion of the relevant leadership ideas to be applicable to the hospitality business, based on the example of the Apples CEO Steve Jobs, who is supposed to be one of the most prominent leaders in the US business circles. It has become clear, that despite the fact that the leadership style of Jobs is sometimes considered to be too authoritative and his company to be personality-centered, it is evident that he was able to achieve success and to make his company profitable; his has concentrated his efforts on minimum products but made them of high quality. Some ideas can be universal and easily used in the hospitality business, but some should be used with caution or modified depending on the exact situation. Besides, one of the essential characteristics of the true leader is that he should be able to adapt to the changing environments.
In the hospitality business transformational leadership, as Jobs is characterized, is absolutely useful and can be applied for the improving business performance in hotels; customers are essential to be radical center of the hospitality business; brand association is important to make customers have stable trust towards trade mark they see or hear about in terms of any hotel, resort or related organization. The true leader in hospitality business, as well as in any other business, has to know how to motivate his employees, use his charisma, deliver his or his managements vision to them and direct them towards realization of the set goals. This will make any hotel recognizable, trusted, known and successful, with stable market success and high profitability. References Anonymous 2002, Transformational leadership @ Apple, Strategic Direction, 18, 6, pp. 5 - 7 Anonymous 2006, Steve Jobs: He thinks different, available from < web > (accessed 02 April 2007) Bass, BM & Avoid, BJ 1994, Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership, Sage Publications Benezra, Karen & Jennifer Gilbert 2002, The CEO as brand: their names are synonymous with their companies products and that presets a slew of unique challenges, The Chief Executive, January. Burrows, P 2006, Steve Jobs magic kingdom, Businessweek Online, available from < web > (accessed 02 April 2007) Chung-Herrera, BG & MJ Lankau 2003, Grooming future hospitality leaders: a competencies model, Cornell Quarterly, 44, 3, pp. 121 - 137 Deutschman, Alan 2001, The Second Coming of Steven Jobs, Broadway Books. ICFAI 2006, Steve Jobs the Silicon Valley Pioneer, Center for Management Research.
Jobs, Steven 2004, Text of Steve Jobs commencement address (2005), available from < web > (accessed 02 April 2007) Even, Marc 2004, Temporal leadership, European Business Review, December. Gee, CY 1999, International Hotel Management, American Hotel and Motel Association. Harvey, A 2001, A dramaturgical analysis of charismatic leader discourse, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 14, 3, pp. 253 - 265 Testa, MR 2001, Hospitality leaders, Cornell Quarterly, 42, 6, pp. 23 - 40 Young, Jeffrey 2005, Icon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, John Wiley & Sons Inc.
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Research essay sample on Ability To Create Hospitality Industry
