Servant Leadership in Hospitality Industry

Providing an excellent service to your customers, starts with solid and well-trained team. Your team is the one creates first impression, unforgettable memory, and return customer. Each team member needs to know their duties and pass on that ball each other. A team has many expertise that are served in different departments of the hotel.

To give the perfect service, you need that team and a leader. There are many types of leadership in hospitality but one is remarkable than the others: Servant Leadership.

What is Servant Leadership?

Canavesi & Minelli (2022) stated that servant leadership is a form of moral-based leadership where leaders tend to prioritize the fulfillment of the needs of followers, namely employees, customers and other stakeholders, rather than satisfying their personal needs. A leader who can empathize with his team and who cares the growth, well-being and empowerment of employees.

Why Servant Leadership in Hospitality?

Servant leaders care their employees' interests and this makes employee feel valuable. It provides positive work environment and increase the engagement between employee and the company (Kaya & Karatepe, 2020). Hence, employees perform and complete their duties with high commitment since they have "belonging" feeling. It is a way to strengthen the relationship between leaders and employees as well. Moreover, leaders are the important factor for emotional connection, which directly increase employee engagement, between employees and organization.

Written by B. Gizem Kunt