The hospitality industry is fast-paced, people-focused and often operates under significant pressure. Managers are expected to balance customer expectations, staffing levels, employee performance and day-to-day operations, often while working evenings, weekends and busy seasonal periods.
One of the leadership challenges hospitality employers face is that high-performing employees are often promoted into supervisory or management positions because they are excellent at their operational role. However, being a great chef, front-of-house employee, bartender or team leader doesn’t automatically provide someone with the skills and confidence needed to manage people.
This is where a structured approach to how to develop leadership skills in the workplace can make a significant difference.
Common Leadership Challenges in Hospitality
Hospitality managers face a unique combination of people and operational challenges.
Promoting from within
Internal progression can be a fantastic way to retain good employees and provide clear career opportunities. However, new managers need support to make the transition from being part of the team to managing it.
Without training, they may struggle with delegating, setting expectations, giving feedback or managing former peers.
Managing in a fast-paced environment
When a restaurant is fully booked, a hotel is at capacity or a venue is short-staffed, operational pressures naturally take priority.
This can mean important people-management conversations are delayed or avoided altogether. This is one of the most common leadership challenges we see.
Difficult conversations
Managers may need to deal with lateness, absence, poor performance, conduct issues, conflict between colleagues or complaints from customers.
Without the confidence to address these issues early, relatively minor problems can quickly become much more difficult to manage. You can find out more about how to handle difficult conversations in our latest blog post.
High employee turnover
Hospitality continues to experience significant challenges around employee retention. The relationship employees have with their manager can have a major impact on their experience at work.
Developing better managers can therefore form an important part of a wider employee retention strategy.
Managing different shifts and teams
Unlike a traditional office environment, managers may be responsible for employees working across different shifts, locations or departments.
This makes clear communication, consistent standards and effective handovers particularly important.
Why Leadership Development Matters in Hospitality
A hospitality manager has a direct impact on both the employee experience and customer experience.
Employees who feel supported, know what is expected of them and receive regular feedback are more likely to perform effectively and contribute positively to the workplace. Therefore, reducing the leadership challenges many employers in the hospitality industry face.
Good leadership can help hospitality businesses:
- Build confident supervisors and managers
- Improve employee engagement and retention
- Address performance and conduct issues earlier
- Manage absence more consistently
- Reduce workplace conflict
- Improve communication between shifts and departments
- Maintain consistent standards of customer service
- Develop future managers from within the business
Practical Ways to Develop Leadership Skills
1. Provide Practical Management Training
Management training should reflect the situations hospitality managers actually encounter. IT also addresses leadership challenges and how to overcome them.
This could include:
- Handling difficult conversations
- Managing absence and lateness
- Managing performance
- Giving effective feedback
- Managing conflict within a team
- Setting clear expectations
- Managing disciplinary and grievance issues
- Supporting employee wellbeing
- Communicating effectively during busy periods
Training managers before problems arise gives them the confidence and tools to respond appropriately when they are faced with a difficult situation.
2. Use Real Hospitality Scenarios
Leadership training is much more effective when managers can relate it to their day-to-day role.
Rather than focusing solely on theory, training could explore situations such as:
- A team member repeatedly arriving late for shifts
- An employee regularly calling in sick before busy weekend shifts
- Two members of the kitchen or front-of-house team falling out
- An employee whose performance is affecting the customer experience
- A previously high-performing employee becoming disengaged
- A new supervisor struggling to manage former colleagues
- Managing an employee complaint during an exceptionally busy period
Working through realistic scenarios helps managers understand not only what they should do, but how to actually have the conversation.
3. Support New Managers After Promotion
Promoting from within can create fantastic career pathways within hospitality, but the support shouldn’t stop once someone receives their new job title. This is where leadership challenges arise.
New managers may benefit from regular check-ins, mentoring, HR support and opportunities to discuss situations they are dealing with.
Having someone available to ask, How should I handle this?, before acting can prevent small issues becoming formal HR problems.
4. Give Managers Clear Processes to Follow
Managers shouldn’t be expected to remember every aspect of employment law or HR procedure.
Instead, give them straightforward processes and practical guidance covering areas such as:
- Absence management
- Performance management
- Disciplinary procedures
- Grievances
- Probationary periods
- Flexible working requests
- Employee wellbeing
This gives managers confidence while helping the business apply its processes consistently across different teams, shifts and locations.
The Impact of Getting Leadership Right
Strong hospitality managers don’t just manage rotas and operations. They create the environment employees work in every day.
When managers are properly trained and supported, businesses can benefit from more confident decision-making, earlier intervention when problems arise, improved employee engagement and greater consistency across teams.
There can also be a direct impact on the customer experience. Employees who are well-managed and supported are better placed to provide the high standard of service hospitality businesses rely on.
Building the Next Generation of Hospitality Leaders
Hospitality provides fantastic opportunities for people to progress quickly into supervisory and management roles. However, businesses need to make sure that progression is supported by the right development to avoid leadership challenges.
Someone can be brilliant with customers, run an extremely busy shift or be technically outstanding at their job, but managing people requires a different set of skills.
By investing in practical training, coaching and ongoing HR support, hospitality employers can develop managers who are confident dealing with people issues as well as operational challenges.
This can help improve retention, develop future leaders and create a stronger and more consistent employee experience.
HR Support for Hospitality
At The HR Booth, we work with hospitality businesses to support both their managers and wider teams.
Our HR consultants can provide practical management training, ongoing coaching and HR advice, helping managers deal confidently with issues such as absence, performance, difficult conversations, disciplinary matters and employee relations.
We can also work with hospitality employers to identify skills gaps within their management teams and develop training around the real situations their managers face.
Whether you’re looking to develop newly promoted supervisors, strengthen your existing management team or provide managers with ongoing HR support, we can help you put the right structure in place. Contact us to discuss any leadership challenges we can help with.
