Abstract
The new age requires awareness of different types of leadership. Every enterprise may need a different type of leadership for their various purposes. Determining the most suitable leadership type for a specific industry is a quite complex issue so it can be considered a decision problem. This chapter aims to determine most suitable leadership type for hotel industry using best worst method (BWM) which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools. The results have revealed that transformational leadership is the most suitable leadership in hotel industry, followed by visionary leadership and authentic leadership. It is recommended that hotel managers should adopt these three leadership types to motivate followers, create positive culture, and maximize productivity in the hotel industry. This chapter is believed to fill the literature gap since limited studies have integrated MCDM methods with this area. Moreover, the findings of the study have revealed useful insights for hotel managers.
TopIntroduction
Leadership has become a major research in management with the growing awareness of the importance of leadership (Hilton et al., 2021: 1042). Leadership has an important place in achieving the goals of the enterprises. Previous studies on leadership provide strong evidence that the importance of determining the most suitable leadership type in a specific industry is too great to be ignored. Leadership is a concept as old as human history, is essential management skill that is the process of directing the activities of an organization to achieve of goals (Keklik, 2012: 75; Hilton et al., 2021: 1043). Leadership is one of the most researched management topics since it can affect many variables in terms of businesses, sectors, and countries (Çelik, 2019: 518). Today's managers should have leadership skills, regardless of the field in which they operate. At this point, the leadership qualities of the managers have gain importance (Serinkan, 2005: 86). Determining the most efficient type of leadership for an organization is closely related to the success of the organization (Zendeh & Aali, 2011: 20). Which leadership type is the most suitable for an enterprise is a very complex issue. Every enterprise may need a different type of leadership for their various purposes. At this point, determining the most suitable leadership type can be considered as a decision problem.
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC, 2022) have revaled that tourism accounted for 6.1% of the World’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021. In addition to this, tourism is growing sector in the world and it plays a major role in economic development of countries (Sandıkcı et al., 2015: 166). Similarly, as stated by Çelik (2019), tourism is a growing sector day by day and it continues to be the focus of attention of researchers. The growth of the tourism industry means the growth of the hotel industry. For this reason, hotel industry is one of the sectors that attracts the attention of both managers and academics. The purpose of this study is to evaluate leadership types and determine most suitable leadership type in the hotel industry by Best Worst Method (BWM) which is one of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tools. The main question of this study is “What is the most suitable leadership type for hotel industry in Turkey?” For this reason, ten leadership types as criteria have been determined based on review of literature. However, autocratic leadership has been excluded from the among criteria because it has been found to be the least suitable type of leadership according to expert opinion and in many previous study findings. Therefore, leadership types are determined as digital leadership, democratic leadership, authentic leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, charismatic leadership, visionary leadership, and delegative leadership. Brief descriptions of the nine leadership types handled in the study are given below.
Digital leadership is a process that brings about changes in attitudes, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, supported by information technology. Digital leaders utilize technological tools in their leadership process (Salamzadeh et al., 2022: 198).
Democratic leadership is primarily about the decision-making. Decision making are done by the leader and the group. Democratic leaders give importance the opinions of the followers and offers them the opportunity to make contribute in the decision making process (Hilton et al., 2021: 1044).
Authentic leadership can be expressed as a process to build leader obligation by honesty, respect all the opinions from followers. Authentic leaders improve engagement and satisfaction so folllower's identity is strengthened (Purwanto et al., 2021: 3).
Servant leadership is basically based on promoting the development and well-being of its followers (Hai and Van, 2021: 247). Servant leaders have some distinct characteristics such as: honesty, humility, focus on followers' success and decentralization (Küçük & Yavuz, 2021: 83).
Key Terms in this Chapter
BWM: The Best-Worst Method (BWM) has been developed by Rezaei (2015) . BWM is one of the MCDM methods to obtain the weights of the criteria in the decision-making process. The BMW offers a flexible decision methodology that makes it possible to apply it in different areas.
Consistency Degree: Consistency degree is a very important issue when using MCDM methods. For this reason, consistency degree of the pairwise comparisons should be checked. If there are no consistent comparisons for some evaluations, comparisons should be made again until an acceptable degree of consistency is achieved.
Hotel Industry: The hotel industry is large subsection of the hospitality industry, and it provides accommodation services to customers. In addition, they are facilities that can include different units for various needs such as food and beverage, meetings, and events.
MCDM: MCDM is one of the branches of operations research (OR). One of the application areas of MCDM methods is to evaluate multiple conflicting criteria in decision making. For this reason, many MCDM methods have been introduced so far and still continue to be developed.
Leadership Types: Leadership theories include many approaches to explain leadership and it is generally described depend on leader characteristics. Many leadership theories have been defined until today. However, in the changing world, different leadership types may be needed, and new leadership types are emerging.
Leadership: Leadership can be defined as motivating followers to achieve their common goals. Leadership is very important among management topics as it provides various functions vital to the success of an organization.