Investigating the Leadership Competencies Challenges of New Leaders from the Perspective of General Managers in the Norwegian Hotel Industry
Master thesis
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3022988Utgivelsesdato
2022Metadata
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- Studentoppgaver (SV-NHS) [545]
Sammendrag
The aim of this thesis was to gain an understanding of the leadership challenges and the essentialskills needed for new leaders based on the leadership competencies in the Norwegian hotelindustry. We specifically focused on the challenges for newly graduated hospitality students withpositions as middle managers in the hotel industry who are eager to be general managers in thefuture. This study was conducted to explore how the lack of competencies can cause challengesfor new leaders and hence which competencies are important to obtain. No previous studies haveexplored leadership challenges based on leadership competencies for new leaders in theNorwegian hotel industry. This thesis adopted qualitative methods to conduct semi-structuredinterviews with general managers at Norwegian hotels to obtain their perceptions of challenges fornew leaders based on these leadership competencies in the Norwegian hotel industry. The resultsdemonstrated that leadership challenges exist with regard to communication, problem-solving, andself-management skills. Some aspects of teamwork and financial skills also present challenges butIT knowledge presents no challenge. These skills were divided into four dimensions: social orinterpersonal, cognitive, meta, and functional competencies, which are similar to Bharwani’sconceptual competence framework for general managers in hospitality. However, this thesis addsanother competency domain, local cultural competence. In addition, the study revealed that theskill of creativity and the combination of education and experience as a competence are essentialfor aspiring new leaders. The competencies were found to be essential for all leaders but may beinterchangeable depending on the needs of the hotels, and some may be less demanding thanothers.Keywords: leadership competencies, leadership skills, leadership challenges, new leaders,Norwegian hotel industry.