The Hidden Costs of Hiring the Wrong Hotel General Manager

Unfortunately, there are many more ways to be a bad Hotel Manager than a good one. Throughout our professional careers, we have all come across one or more of these types: the Abrasive Hotel Manager, the , Weak-Spirited Hotel Manager, also known as the Lazy Manager, or the Distracted and the Micro-manager. When a hotel hires the wrong sales professional, the impact can be damaging to the organisation in terms of lost revenue, lost accounts and the time required to recruit and train someone new. Such damage is painful and often long-lasting, but at least it is tangible, so it can be detected almost immediately. However, the effects of hiring a bad Hotel Manager, or one who is not the right fit for a hotel, spread throughout the entire organisation, and the damage can prove even more costly.

The Abrasive Hotel Manager

This person sees themselves as tough and demanding, and expects high standards from people. He believes that employees are here to work, not to play. Fair enough, he certainly sounds strict, but not unfair. He also believes feelings are for greeting cards and that you should leave your emotions at home. He has no time to listen to the team’s concerns or ideas. He will make the decisions. Employees need to keep quiet and work. Employee development? Work hard and you will be promoted. Don’t like it? There’s the door. Teamwork? A constructive environment? This isn’t school! Ultimately, nobody wants to work for a character like this. Therefore, organisations led by this type of manager are subject to high staff turnover. An abrasive manager often remains in their role for quite some time because, in terms of productivity, they deliver results. However, when it comes to long-term profitability, it is a different story. Such turnover not only entails the cost of recruiting, hiring and training new team members. We must also consider the intellectual capital and untapped potential of future leaders who remain stuck in the hotel, unable to thrive. Overlooked high-potential people are generally hired by another hotel, and what could have been intellectual capital is now an intellectual liability, as the competition now has access to it. Not to mention the reputational damage, as these people, from their new positions, will surely talk about their former workplace—and not very favourably, at that. Before long, word gets around, and hotels run by an Abrasive Hotel Manager struggle to attract talent. Meanwhile, the hotel across the street has a Weak-Spirited Hotel Manager...

The Weak-Spirited Hotel Manager

The truth is, they are great to work for. A weak-spirited manager never holds anyone accountable. Employees say nothing, because they are having an easy life and collecting their salary every month. Why interfere with a good thing? Everything is perfect until the day reality comes knocking and it is time to catch up. Management notices that results are not quite what they should be, and it is time to react. But the culture of laziness has infected the entire hotel operation, and employees who were once reliable have lost their focus. Employees who showed promise have been moved into more relaxed positions or, worse still, have found work at another hotel because they were tired of carrying the load and receiving no recognition for it. The problem with this type of management is that high-potential staff who leave are replaced by low-profile employees. The Weak-Spirited Hotel Manager feels intimidated by good professionals and replaces those who leave with ineffective people who will not challenge them.

The Micro-manager

I have seen quite a few of these too. The micro-manager produces the same results as the previous type by disempowering people and leaving them utterly demotivated and underutilised. As a side effect, the micro-manager believes they do everything, that they are the roadrunner, that they are the only one who knows how, and thinks that if they want something done properly, they have to do it themselves. But in the end, they burn out doing all the work that should have been delegated. They become the invisible man, riding on a past reputation, something like a dead star that once shone brightly and now hides beneath a faint shell, drifting aimlessly. When hiring a Hotel Manager, this is where one of the problems lies: none of these people thinks they are a Bad Manager. So it is easy to be deceived by appearances and end up being sold a lemon. What is clear is that hotel managers who invest in staff growth and development achieve better results. Better-trained and empowered employees not only do a better job, but also stay longer at their hotels because they enjoy working there. Composure and resilience are other competencies displayed by good managers. Lazy, distracted or burned-out managers were not always that way; otherwise, they would not have been promoted into management positions (at least, that is what one would expect). Many of them decline because they encountered too many challenges and obstacles they could not overcome. Inherently, they lack the resilience to remain calm, keep going and recover when things do not work out. Yes, avoiding hard work limits exposure to stress, but it also removes any possibility of achieving positive results. That is why a little help is always welcome.