A Real Story of Silent Toxicity in Hospitality

For a time, we had a restaurant manager at the hotel who did not know how to lead, had no desire to learn and, on top of that, generated more bluster than service. That period was an exercise in resilience, observation and, in many cases, injustice for the entire team. But as so often happens in Hospitality —and in life— time reveals what fear and appearances conceal.

That restaurant manager did not speak English. He knew neither the cuisine he served nor the customs of the country. His relationship with wine was that of someone who knew the names of a couple of labels through repetition, not tasting or judgement. He could not tell the difference between cannelloni and lasagne —and yet he voiced his opinions with confidence—. He did not know how to use IT systems. He organised neither rotas, orders nor inventories. He delegated these responsibilities to waiters who, in good faith, managed to keep things running despite his neither understanding nor attempting to understand them.

But the most serious issue was not his operational incompetence. It was his ability to poison the environment.

Aware of his limitations, he developed a sinister talent for intrigue. Instead of taking responsibility, he blamed others. He projected his mistakes onto them. When something went wrong —a complaint, an incident, a service breakdown— it was never down to his management, but to "everyone else". And he repeated it. And embellished it. And strategically fed it to management. Until the lie became the official version. As a result, committed waiters, dedicated chefs and shift supervisors ended up being unfairly singled out, without fully understanding where the torpedo had come from.

In time, it emerged that he was behind many of the tensions, complaints, staff departures and internal conflicts... The root of many of the hotel's problems lay in his actions and omissions. And in his ability to sow suspicion where there had been honesty. His speciality was not serving tables, but dividing teams. Not leading people, but manipulating them.

The day he was dismissed, the hotel gained more than efficiency. It gained better mental health.

360° Hotel Intelligence

Stop managing isolated systems. Start managing the whole hotel.

HotelGEX connects guests, operations, Revenue, F&B, Groups & Events and Management into one intelligent hotel context — so every decision starts with a clearer picture.

See what your hotel could become

Discover HotelGEX →

✓ 30 days free · no commitment

One hotel. One context.

Customer 360 Revenue Intelligence Operations F&B Groups & Events

Start free trial →

It was like opening windows in a space where the air had been stale for far too long. Within days, clear changes began to emerge: there was a sense of calm in the corridors, the team started smiling again, processes flowed, and, most importantly... people began trusting again. Because for a long time, distrust had not stemmed from mistakes, but from the narratives he spun around them.

Today, quite some time later, he is still trying to weave networks from another hotel. But now without credibility. Because when a career has been built on fear, deception and irresponsibility, all it can reap is distrust and failure.

What did I learn —and what do I share— from that experience?

• In Hospitality, leadership cannot be faked. You can pretend to know about wine, but you cannot pretend your team is united when you are the one dividing it.

• Rumour as a management method is poison. A workplace culture is built on trust, not fear. A team's defensive silence is often the clearest symptom of unhealthy leadership.

• There is no innovation or excellence without accountability. You cannot expect quality results when the person in charge avoids effort, delegates judgement and manipulates the data.

• Mediocrity may not show on a CV, but it does in the corridors. It reveals itself in the atmosphere, in disorganised rotas, in conflicts with no real cause, in the sense of injustice that seeps into briefings.

• Time always settles the score. With those who do the job well... and with those who sabotage it from within.

Sometimes, the departure of a single person can heal an entire ecosystem. And the most painful part of this story is that for months, while others suffered consequences they did not deserve, he continued fabricating narratives to keep himself afloat.

Let this serve as a reminder: in Hospitality, as in every service environment, excellence starts from within. With the invisible dynamics. With what cannot be seen in reports, but can be felt on the faces of the team.

And above all, with the courage to recognise that not everyone occupying a seat deserves it. Because making a mistake is one thing. Manipulating others into carrying the burden of your mistakes is something entirely different.

Update | One year later

A year has passed since then. And it is worth saying so. Today, the hotel is different. Not because the walls, processes or manuals have changed —although some have been refined—, but because the team is different. There is cohesion, motivation and, above all, a genuine desire to learn. The noise has disappeared, making room for work done well.

Today, the day-to-day operation is sustained by young, enthusiastic and responsible people who do not wait for someone to tell them what to do in order to do things well. They take on responsibility naturally, ask when they do not know, make suggestions when they see room for improvement, and demand more of themselves than anyone else could demand of them. They do not look for people to blame: they look for solutions.

The most rewarding thing is not that service works better —which it does—, but seeing how motivation is no longer imposed, but arises from within the team itself. When fear disappears, judgement emerges. When manipulation goes, trust arrives. And when there is trust, learning stops being a threat and becomes a shared tool.

This evolution has not happened by chance. It proves something that Hospitality should never forget: healthy teams are not built by adding brilliant talent, but by removing toxic dynamics. Sometimes, the greatest act of leadership is not adding... but knowing when to subtract.