10 Habits of a Bad Hotel General Manager

When one aspires to be recognised for one’s management, or wants one’s hotel to be recognised as an example of efficiency led by a high-performing team, one must be able to identify the signs of poor management. If no action is taken against underperforming Hotel General Managers, a hotel can never be efficient or competitive, let alone profitable. Below, I set out ten habits—a decalogue of the bad manager—which no owner should tolerate in their hotels:  

1. A bad Hotel General Manager is always fixing their predecessors’ messes, even when there are no messes

When they are hired or put in charge, the bad manager always claims that their predecessor made such a huge mess of the hotel that it will take at least a year, if not longer, to put everything right and, of course, they cannot yet work towards this year’s targets... perhaps not next year’s either.

2. A bad Hotel General Manager is always busy, very busy, or incredibly busy

They are involved in many, many projects; in fact, they are so busy that they do not have enough time to deal with the basic things they should be doing. And because these projects are vital to the hotel’s success (or so they say), bad managers cannot be expected to work on their targets. They will get to them when their other projects are finished... which never happens.