Reflecting on MY Leadership Style...

Looking back at this past semester and the past four years as a whole, my leadership style has been formed and transformed time and time again.

My style was first developed as a "group leader" in Venture and Entrepreneur Management. In the course I was assigned to lead a group of 10 students to develop a business plan for a new restaurant. As the youngest member of the group, and the leader this prepared me for what is to come in the near future. I had to build credibility and I did this by emphasizing my past experience working in a fast casual restaurant similar to the restaurant we were designing.

As I am about to embark on a new adventure, joining a new team of people in a new environment I will look back to these experiences. As discussed in my leadership map, I am at a point where I am building my relationships. These will hopefully be the ones that I impact in the future.

This leadership development course has served as a great capstone to my HTM experience. I have learned a lot more about leadership theories and tactics than I ever would have expected and many of these tools will be very helpful in just a few months, when I am put in charge of my first team in Maui!

My Leadership Map

My leadership map shows what I see as the progression of leadership over time.

1. A Born Leader refers to the theories that someone is either a leader or not, leadership is not developed over time.
2. Building the Bonds is the stage of building relationships with employees. This will benefit the leader in the long run.
3. The Nitty Gritty is the time to show that you can do work as a leader. During this stage the leader proves himself to his superiors.
4. The final stage is Making the Impressions. During this stage the leader has an impact on his followers and helps to develop them as leaders.

Right now I see myself at the Building Bonds stage. I am currently networking and learning the aspects of leading in a hotel setting. With my next move into Corporate Management Training I will be getting to know people and their jobs throughout the hotel. After this stage, I will then be managing other people, which will move me into the next stage.

Participative Leadership

While researching the realm of leadership theories I stumbled upon a new theory that I have not heard of, participative leadership. Participative leadership assumes the following:

• involvement in decision making improves understanding
• people are more devoted to a decision when they were involved in the process
• people are less competitive when working towards joint goals
• several people deciding together make better decisions than when people act alone

I believe the participative approach is a good approach for small teams, but completely impossible when leading a large group. With a large group it is logistically impossible to get everyone's input and that why with large groups, such as the entire US population, a leader is voted on.

As with all theories, there are multiple stages of participative leadership. From least participative to most participative, the stages, according to Changing Minds are:

• autocratic decision by leader
• leader proposes decision, listens to feedback, then decides
• team proposes decision, leader has final decision
• joint decision with team as equals
• full delegation of decision to team

A balance is what I see fit in most situations. Most of the time when making a crucial decision, the leader is not the one directly affected. For example, when a teacher makes a decision to postpone an exam the students are the ones affected. In this instance, participative leadership would be the most logical form.

Leaders shy away from using participative leadership for the following reasons according to Suite 101:

• "they think they need to be strong, tough, independent and decisive to be seen as an effective manager"
• "they feel that being participative might make them seem weak or indecisive"
• managers want to be in control
• time pressure 

  
  
    More from Suite 101

           More info from Changing Minds

I see participative leadership as an important tool in an arsenal of leadership theories. Keeping your leadership balanced, while still involving your team is important. Suite 101 also explains its importance and relevance with the following, which I think are all very applicable to hospitality:

• your employees are intelligent, highly skilled professionals
• people feel valued when you ask for their advice
• the best form of motivation and buy in is involvement

Participative leadership is sure to play a role in my future career. As a part of a constantly evolving industry, involvement is important from top to bottom.

"If there is no worker involvement, there is no quality system.”
~Lloyd Dobens