What does the Industry need to know about Chinese Hospitality Leadership?

Abstract

This study examines the hospitality leadership characteristics that are essential, as perceived by emerging hospitality leaders. Four focus groups interviews were conducted in mainland China involving a total of 25 middle level hotel managers. The respondents identified the backgrounds and leadership characteristics of a total of eight admired hospitality leaders in contemporary China.The unique leadership characteristics that received comment were innovative and entrepreneurial.The study provided confirmation of earlier research -that Chinese hospitality leaders are transformational. Their major differences relative to leaders in other industries may be summarized as follows: career advancement, resilience and emotional control, open mindedness and expert knowledge. Young hospitality leaders exhibit diverse backgrounds which encompass the information technology and finance section. Leadership is impacted by Chinese cultural factors such as Guanxi and collectivism. Finally, the perceived future challenges for hospitality leaders relate to hotel brand building, recruitment of talent, enabling new technology and succession planning. The study concludes with recommendations for leadership development to capitalize on the growth of the industry.

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“…They found that the common leadership characteristics among middle-level managers are innovation and entrepreneurship. The identified leadership characteristics coincided with the four dimensions of transformational leadership style (Cheung et al, 2018). In China, scholars' researches on hospitality industry leadership mainly focus on cultivation, development and the relationship between leaderships style and employee's satisfaction.…”

“…Konstantin (2012) conducted on 209 respondents in the field of tourism and hospitality and found important characteristics and skills: energy, mobility, self-confidence, originality and creativity, communication skills and ability to set and track goals. Cheung, King, and Wong (2018) studied 29 middle-level managers in china. They found that the common leadership characteristics among middle-level managers are innovation and entrepreneurship.…”

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“…This may be due to the important role of moral obligations existing between H&T employees and customers (Ramdhony and D’Annunzio-Green, 2018). For managerial positions, talent is defined by demonstrating attributes often assigned to managers (Baum, 2019) such as having an entrepreneurship mindset (Bharwani and Talib, 2017; Cheung et al , 2018) – a characteristic that enhances talents’ ability to discover or create new opportunities, especially amid periods of uncertainty and increased risk (Nieto et al , 2011). Some scholars, such as D’Annunzio-Green and Ramdhony (2019), refer to talent as high-performers or high-potentials, while arguing that individual characteristics help talents demonstrate high performance and potential.…”

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“…Ho is a classic example of a company's investment in cultivating talents, To be a leader, the biggest challenge is to keep up with the changes in generations and technology advancement. In the case of China, it is particularly important to overcome cultural difference with a global mindset, and to stay abreast of new technologies and challenges in recruiting talents due to high turnover rate (Cheung, King, & Wong, 2018). Ho suggests not to stereotype but to segment different talents based on their desires and to provide them with succession plans.…”