Leaders need to instil a sense of common purpose

"A leader knows what it is best to do, whereas a manager knows merely how to do it," according to US contemporary columnist Ken Adelman.

His words hold increasing weight for the hotel industry, where leadership is vital if it is to continue to successfully meet customers' requirements.

Customers, now more than ever, want a product beyond their expectations, at value-for-money prices, and want service delivered in double-quick time. What is more, these demands are set to intensify as the industry itself grows and offers customers more choice.

However, all too often currently, customers' needs and desires come face-to-face with a relatively conservative hotel industry which is struggling to change.

In the past few years we have heard a lot about the issues of empowering staff and decentralisation in order to improve service delivery and give customers what they want. They are issues that require creative solutions, and creative solutions require leadership rather than just management.

Leaders in this industry need to inspire their staff and encourage their trust and loyalty, because profits do not depend primarily on physical assets: they are achieved through employees and their enterprise and ideas.

A high-performance organisation is one where leaders and their managers work closely with those who deliver service, because it is they who are in constant contact with the customer and, therefore, they who drive its success.

A leader should stand solidly behind the staff and ultimately have the ability to supply what was promised himself/herself. A leader should also use "we" instead of "I" and admit mistakes, not look for someone to blame. A leader should recognise when someone has done a good job and court the opinions of the staff.

Real concern

To enlist the full potential of our employees, their creativity and their commitment, this industry needs to have a real concern for their needs, their self-esteem and their personal development. Above all, it must aim to give them some sense of purpose and meaning in their work.

As competition in the sector becomes more global, the industry's leaders must also develop a vision for the future and how to achieve that vision.

A good number of people keep asking me: "How did you commit the Savoy Group to such a huge capital expenditure programme in such a short period of time? What was your vision? What was your master plan?"

Strategic plan

The reality was that we created a strategic plan that would meet our customers' needs, satisfy the aspirations of our employees and provide the company with a strong foundation upon which to build another 100 years of success. In other words, to secure the future, we decided to invest in the present.

At the Savoy Group, we lead a large number of people who have a huge number of different skills. The challenge, as a leader, is to create unity out of this diversity and a feeling of one common purpose.

This common purpose has to be customer satisfaction. It is dangerous to focus on short-term profit only as this can create a distraction from the real objective - customer satisfaction.

Actions, not words, confirm our values and nothing in life is static; we either slide backwards or advance. We cannot depend on the authority of a title to get us anywhere: leadership is earned, through actions and through example to staff, not by ordering them about.

A true leader inspires an organisation through trust, integrity and openness.