Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Katy Tran
HTMi Switzerland
Introduction
Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville, a small organisation with less than one hundred rooms, is
presence of both male and female employees, there are more male than female
leaders. However, leading this hotel are the GM and his wive with management’s
2009). Gaining experienced by having an internship here, the author observed the
success as well as failure from both male and female traits in leading people,
styles by carrying out this study. Leadership today appears as one of the most
concerned problem that organisations have to deal with. Regarding that, choosing a
great leader is not an easy job for most of companies as there is many aspects need
to be considered. Therefore, gender differences have been brought to the scale for
leaders in academic institutions encourages this study to figure out their unique
ways of leading compared to men. For this reason, scholars always have been
investigating the differences between male and female, which are represented under
helping and inspiring (James and Ogbonna, 2013), which is more suitable for
exchange” (Woods and King, 2002), which can be described when leaders promote
their subordinates by reward and punishment. While some scholars claim to have
gender differences in the behaviour of male and female leaders (Kolb, 1999;
Shimanoff and Jenkins, 1991 cited Steven et al., 2003), others argue there are not
(Taleb, 2010). Helgesen (1990 cited Steven et al., 2003) and Bass (1990) insist that
feminine traits as communication and intermediary skills make more advantages for
woman than man in leading. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts and contribution
that woman achieve, they are not often selected as male leaders (Kolb, 1997).
Scholars has also released findings proving that different leadership styles leads to
different performances on subordinates (Tsai, 2008) and leadership styles are not
only based on gender but also from different cross-culture context (Dickson et al.,
2003). Leadership area has just attracted the concern of researchers over the past
century leads to the limitation in the number of existing studies. Consequently, the
author wishes to do more research about this concerned issue in order to provide
more clues on gender and leadership behaviour by analysing not only their
Despite the number of leadership researches, how to actually define leadership still
remains a certain problem. Stogdill (1974, p.259) claims there are “almost as many
definitions of leadership as there are persons who attempted to define the concept”.
Notion of leadership, therefore, is difficult to described in a short definition as the
2004). As of that, the author would like to stress more on leadership behaviour
indicates that most of them are based on followed common themes where
common goal”. However, this definition has also been criticised by Bolden (2004), as
is about leaders and their followers in which both sides have responsibility to the
needs of each other (Goffee and Jones, 2007). Therefore, Tannenbaum (2002 cited
situation and directed, thorough the communication process, toward the attainment
of a specific goals”. Regarding the concept of gender, Kawanar (2004 cited Taleb,
2010) indicates that gender is the differentiating naturally created attributes of male
and female. In addition to that, Fernandes and Cabral-Cardoso (2003) bring another
intuition, emotions and sensation while male lean toward rule, regulation and tends
1993 and Miller, 2005). However, reality has shown that man still can have feminine
The thought that those masculine terms are far more suitable to leadership position
leadership have approved for more feminine behaviour. Feminine traits, which are
also believed to be potential traits for leading positions in hospitality industry (Eagly
transformational was first introduced by Burns (1978) who later also argue that a
another school of thoughts emphasize that a single leader can have both styles of
things, achieve a common goal and work effectively as a team (Kelloway et al., 2002).
In the theory, Burns (1978) and Bass (1985) state four I’s characteristics needed to
with many good characteristic that deserver to be followed by the followers (Avolio
and Bass, 2002 cited Stone et al. 2003). Individualized motivation is determined as
leaders urge and inspire their followers by “providing meaning and challenges to
their follower’s work” (Avolio and Bass, 2002). Intellectual stimulation holds the
stresses on guiding followers by listening to identify their needs and desires for the
growth of organization (Avolio and Bass, 2002). The theory is all about leaders build
positive changes in followers in order to make them act as a group (Warrilow, 2012
cited James and Ogbonna, 2013). However, the theory has shown some gaps that are
connection of leadership style and work outcomes, being too overemphasize the
leadership has, its reputation has kept on growing recently (Yulk, 1999). To get
followers exchange” (Woods and King, 2002) can be described when leaders
completion, not staff needed (Conner, 1992 cited Growe, Montgomerz, unknown
year). This leadership style emphasizes on the role of supervision, performance, and
things the same. Almost of the authors conclude that these two styles of leadership
are different. However, Bass (1985) presented the thought that these two leadership
styles are not facing each other but appearing as different concepts to help to clarify
each other.
Although the relationship between gender and leadership styles which are
to link with female leaders as they care more about subordinates, pay attention to
seek input from others (Powell and Graves, 2006; Rosener, 1990; Ross and
Offermann, 1997). Daft (2011) also contributed to this field with the finding that
intellectual stimulation and being more individually considerate. Men, on the other
hand, adapt more transactional leadership style as they often stress on mistakes and
problems.
These differences may be explained that while men considering leadership as
leading, woman seeing it as facilitating (Schaef, 1985 cited Growe and Montgomery,
Unknown year). However, Vecchio (2002) argued that the impact of gender
2013). Kabacoff and Peters (1998 cited Taleb, 2010) support that assumption by
concluding that man and woman have different ways in leading, but either ways are
equally effective.
Being the service industry, hospitality entrepreneur sees the important in improving
Consequently, employees are also considered as key factor as their valuable role in
however, did not meet the author’s expectation due to not enough attention given on
well as creates subordinate satisfaction (Hater and Bass, 1988; Seltzer and Bass,
style is more likely to be accepted by staff and high rated with employee’s
Yaman and Denizci (2009) follow the track with a similar finding, which is woman
leaders tend to adapt transformational styles more than men do, and this leadership
Conclusion
The hospitality industry has witnessed many changes for the last few decades
a trend. With a number of leadership definitions together with relevant theories, the
different ways they lead their subordinates. Also, specific attributes from both male
and female leaders were recognised to give a clearer comprehension about their
on followers with an effort to reach better changes in organisation, which suits more
for all kinds of business. As of that, in the context of this research, the author would
conclude that transformational leadership styles are way more efficient than
Recommendations
This research has given a better overview as well as contributed more evidence on
the effect of gender differences on leadership styles. However, during the process of
researching, the author has met some limitations due to the lack of attention in
Consequently, some aspects were not clearly clarified. Further research could be
on European leadership styles not to mention the small size of the chosen hotel.
future research. Another factor is worth evaluating in further paper is the size of the
location as well as its standard. By achieving those concerns, the credibility of this
Furthermore, as the collected findings in this study involve participant’s opinion and
their enthusiasm, the accuracy of those data might be affected due to lack of
collected answers not to mention the author’s role in motivating the participants.
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