Can a Hotel Operate Without a General Manager? A Risky but Thought-Provoking Experiment
Julen Iturbe’s proposal to eliminate the general management role raises a compelling debate around leadership and business management. In hospitality, where operations are a dynamic ecosystem requiring constant decisions, the idea challenges us to rethink the hotel general manager’s role. While decentralising leadership and empowering teams are essential, removing a unified strategic vision altogether could undermine business-model consistency. The answer may not be to eliminate the GM role, but to transform it into a more distributed leadership model built on trust and autonomy. Hotel success does not depend solely on decisions made at the top, but on every team’s ability to act with sound judgement and strategic alignment. This is where Iturbe’s proposal prompts an important question: how far can hotels embrace flatter management structures without sacrificing operational efficiency?
Recently, Julen Iturbe put forward an idea that, for many, may sound like sacrilege in business management: what if we eliminated the General Manager role? In his post, he refers to the experience of several cooperatives that have opted for rotating coordinated management, arguing that a well-managed company should be able to operate without the constant presence of its General Manager.
I must admit that when I read the proposal, my initial reaction was a mix of scepticism and curiosity. As a hotel General Manager, I asked myself: could a model without a central leadership figure be viable in our industry? Let us explore it.
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