Conclusion and Recommendations

Introduction

Chapter 5 is the last and dedicated to conclusion and recommendations of this research, the
research was aimed to explore leadership styles in connection with employee motivation and
service excellence. Effective leadership is critical in today’s competitive business
environment and hospitality industry is not an exception instead the need for effective
leadership is even more important, particularly in the context of internationally renowned
luxury hotels such as Marriott with highest service standards and customer care.

Managers in hospitality industry are identified with unique personal and professional
charisma and characteristics mandatory to be a successful hotel manager. The first and
foremost is the ability to lead from the front by setting an example for others to follow, ability
to take initiative and charisma to influence the staff in a positive and creative manner. A hotel
manager is the one who can understand the needs, ability to resolve problems and motivate
people in most demanding situations. Resilience and passion for success, last but not least
personality and intelligence

Conclusion

The success of leadership style Marriott hotel is the vision given by its founders who were
born business leaders, one can easily conclude from the literature related to Marriott history
that present day Marriott is a long journey of success, continues evolution to excel further
made possible by the great contribution of its founding members and owner, who had a
vision, they translate that vision into reality and that reality stands tall in the hospitality
industry. Marriott and its present leadership is developed according the same vision and
values laid by its founding members. It is also a fact that hospitality industry used to have the
most autocratic leaders in the past and most of the decisions and activities by one person as
general manager, with absolute focus on profit generation through conventional hospitality
norms, with passage of time hospitality industry has gone through a lot of change as s result
today’s industry is far more democratic and reflects employee aspirations both in services and
employee welfare.

A number of theories attempt to describe and explain the variety of management styles that
exist. The theories range from the simplistic trait theories to the transactional leadership
theory, other significant theories includes cultural leadership and the more recent theories
also focus on the influence of culture the leadership styles. However, this study will be
focusing more on the theories with particular relevance to employee motivation, perception
and performance for excellence. Someone who is perceived as a leader must have a degree of
compatibility between the leadership perception and leadership prototype. A leadership proto
type is associated with attributes like vision, decisive, influential, exemplary and
administrative etc. a leader is the one who can unite people, create consensus and motivate
people for out of ordinary situations.

The leadership theories with the passage of time has gone through an evolutionary process
based on the change factor, during the last couple of decades change in every aspect of
business and social life has forced business leaders to think innovatively and adapt
contemporary strategies to respond change effectively. It has led to shift in leadership
theories and leadership traits, more recent trends have suggested that employee issues such as
motivation and perceptions provides the basis for leadership success, leaders capable to drive
their work forces with the instrument of motivation and inclusive decision making can create
lasting difference in performance and service excellence. This is more relevant in the context
of hospitality industry.
Management style in theory and in practice may differ; it means that management styles are
less about declaring type but more about dealing the realities in a real way. However, an
autocratic leadership style or democratic leadership style does have its impact and colour on
the organisational culture, which is an important determinant of the organisational
performance. A leader is the one who creates a culture, a culture that reflects the values and
vision for the organisation, a culture of respect and equality promotes goodwill and nourish
talent, all that ensures motivated people striving hard for service excellence.

As part of the conclusion from management interviews that every manager has his/her own
personality, unique upbringing and education, family history and influence and other human
behavioural complexities etc have some sort of influence in their leadership style as part of
their overall personality, despite the fact they are provided with training and professional
qualifications. Hence every leader may have his/her personal traits in their leadership traits.
However, strong organisational culture and norms is also important in shaping and
developing leadership styles e.g. Marriott hotels have a specific organisational culture based
on employee welfare and respect and in return Marriott expects from them to adhere to
Marriott service excellence and commitment to customer care. Successful organisations strive
hard to develop a distinct culture overwhelmingly powerful to emerge on the personal traits.
Marriott encourages and promotes inclusive, consultative and fair treatment leadership style.
Marriot operates a “Guarantee of Fair Treatment” policy and gives employees a degree of
liberty to express their views and problems and expects from managers to listen such views
carefully to make them realize that are important for the organization. It will also provide
managers an opportunity in sensing and preventing problems by anticipating them.
Recognition for good work done is considered equally important as monetary and other
rewards in motivating employees.

This study has reiterated the perception that luxury hotels staff like Marriott is composed of
students and agency staff keen to get work for their long-term objectives, since these jobs are
not their desired career jobs hence, they tend to ignore psychological and behavioral aspects
of the work environment, as a result they focus to perform to keep the job going as long as
they need it with minimal problems for the management. Most hospitality jobs are minimum
wages paid jobs and require minimal skills; Positions that pay below minimum wage depend
entirely on customer satisfaction and generosity, i.e. Tips, which works as catalyst to perform
well to increase the likelihood for more income in the form tips from happy customers. It
serves the interests of the management. It is due the very fact that hospitality industry
normally have higher employee turnover than the industry average. According to the
employee survey most employees responded averagely about most questions asked about the
management, but the responses on their personal performance and perceived standards of
service quality were high performance indicators and maximum customer satisfaction.

There is a strong relationship between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction and
interestingly both of them are an outcome of managerial functions. Effective managerial
practices have a strong impact on employee perception and emotions and the service quality.
Managers who have the skills to influence employee emotions in a positive way are more
likely to motivate their workforce. Managers should concentrate to evoke employee emotions
and perception as in constructive way to engage them in a more productive work
environment. However, there is less work done in the past to explore more concrete
relationship of employee emotion and perception on service quality.

Employee motivation is an important managerial function and the success or failure of most
organisational endeavours depends upon how much motivated workforce that organisation
has. Motivation is strongly linked with two important constructs i.e. job satisfaction and
organisational commitment. Employee with low level of satisfaction is likely to be more
vulnerable in terms of performance and gradually to switch altogether or result in termination
and high employee turnover. Higher the job satisfaction higher the organisational
commitment will be which suggest that mangers need to look into employee motivational
issues on an ongoing basis to ensure employees motivation reinforcement on daily basis
particularly in the context of hospitality industry.

Communicating with employees is essential to make employees realize that management is

sincerely interested in them as individuals. This communication also means listening to them
if they have a problem with their job or management. Managers need to frequently get their
people together and ask them "How are we doing?" and "What can we do to Improve?" For
the communications process to work effectively, it's important to listen to and act upon the
answers to those questions. Employees must know that his/her employer appreciates their
ideas and suggestions. Wherever possible, ensure they are given the opportunity to participate
in every decision that affects them. This communication through Participation will result in
employees being more motivated, more enthusiastic about their jobs, happier in their work,
and much more effective

If employee concerns and quires are promptly addressed through a pro-employee attitude
they may be able to performance to an optimum level resulting in improved gross
performance of the organization. Building employee loyalty, pride, team spirit, and morale all
begin by meeting needs as basic as clean uniforms and proper equipment: You can't expect an
employee to provide a good product or service to customers when his or her own needs are
not being met."Take good care of your employees and they'll take good care of the customers

Recommendations

Marriott hotels needs to consolidate its leadership practices to make them truly reflective of
its values and norms as claimed on the paper.

Employee feeling of indifference with regard to the managers approach creating a gap and
that gap needs to be bridged with real efforts on the ground otherwise it may undermine
employee motivation resulting in negative management perception.

There are barriers in personal and structural capacity to embrace change in a positive and
creative manner.
There is a tendency in managers to turn to autocratic style for whatever reasons but again it
would create resentment within management positions.

Future direction for further research

The future research initiatives can undertake a variety of issues in the realm of hospitality
industry e.g. Health and safety needs and the role of management or environmental concerns
and the responsibilities of hotel industry; sustainability and hospitality industry etc

Limitations of the study

The most significant limitations were the scarcity of resources both in terms of time and
money, which of course have an impact on the quality and reliability of the primary data.

The research may have little specific commercial value due to various reasons e.g. the
research problem is not identified by hotel industry or specifically by Marriott but it is
constructed by the researcher for academic purposes.