This great leadership article found on leadertoleader.com, begins with a tale about the CEO of Chico’s, a women’s clothing chain, and forays into some lessons about high-performance leaders. Hint: for a leader to be high-performance, the leader must be accountable.
Given the year that the hospitality industry had in 2009, and looking ahead at 2010, the word “accountability” is probably going to appear more frequently in companies’ vernacular. Even the guest is apt to hold hospitality leaders accountable for the decisions they have made and the decisions they have yet to make.
For example, guests are going to hold hotel companies accountable for their strategies of lowering rates and increasing value-adds. It is not as if, once the economy recovers, guests are going to say, “Hey, go ahead and bump those rates up to 2008 levels, please. And really, I don’t need that free wi-fi anymore. I’ll be glad to pay for it. Look, I just got a shiny new credit card!”
The fact of the matter is, with the economic crisis, the very fiber of the hospitality industry was altered, and it was altered not only by external market conditions but also by internal leadership decisions. Leaders must be prepared to be held accountable for the strategic decisions they made, which impacted the company, the employee, and the guest. To learn how to do that, this article is a great place to start.
Read the article here.
