Leadership And Supervision Challenges In A Restaurant Setting

Developing Employees

Three leadership challenges that were faced during the time helped to learn some basic real time aspects that were related to effective leadership and management. As a restaurant supervisor various challenges were faced out of which three challenges were greater than the others.

Developing employees- developing employees was a significant challenge that was faced. This is mainly because different employees have different types of learning processes. Hence, it becomes difficult to develop all of them with the help of the same coaching or mentoring methods. The challenge that was mainly faced was to monitor and manage all the employees at the same time. The level of cooperation among the employees were also different. So one cannot expect that all the employees of the restaurant will cooperate in the same way. Developing employees is a difficult task and developing employees requires much development from the side of the leader as well (The Journal: Tourism and Hospitality Essentials Journal, 2018). Hence, the leader should learn along with the people whom he is developing. This helps him to understand what effective strategies can be utilized for developing each individual employee and the group of employees as a whole. Taking steps towards developing the employees changed the attitudes greatly towards mentoring and coaching. Essential relationships were developed in the process. The most important challenge was faced with the waiters and attendants. Some of the recruits were without any proper experience. Hence, it took much time for them to learn. They eventually improved a lot after working for a significant amount of time. The main issue that was noticed among the new employees of the William Blue Dining was nervousness. This was because they had to interact directly with customers, many of whom had more expectations than the others. This created an environment of uneasiness among the employees. Hence, the new employees had to be motivated psychologically and technically in order to prepare them for their job roles. Many made mistakes in the first phase of their employment. Hence, they had to be redirected in regards to handling their works.

Inspiring others- Inspiration is a much required factor in the hospitality industry. However, effectively inspiring other is a challenge concerning the role of the leader. In this case inspiration was required in order to motivate the employees. However, in order to be an inspirational figure one must himself be motivated and lead by example. Inspiring other requires the leader to partake in inspirational leadership. People skills become very important and this is the main area that poses the challenges. If the leader is not good enough, the employees will be greatly demotivated (Jaiswal & Dhar 2015). Given the fact that the restaurant had to remain open through the night in peak seasons required the employees to stay motivated throughout the day. This was a strong challenge for any leader as employees often turn to their reporting personnel for gaining motivation at these times. Hence, at this time employees had to be guided throughout the day. This was very tiresome and exhausting experience. The supervisor who was being reported to helped to overcome much of the issues that were faced. The experience gained however was important and good. In similar situations that can arise in the future this experience can work well to help better handle the situations. In the time spent at the William Blue Dining it was understood that the mangers and other leaders at any hospitality oriented organizations held significant responsibilities for the success or failure of the organization. The short time spent required the handling of some basic leadership roles. It was very difficult to inspire others. There were many managers that sometimes even worked in their off days in order to provide support to their subordinates. This is greatly inspiring as it build a feeling of teamwork within the workers.

Inspiring Others

Developing managerial effectiveness- Development of managerial effectiveness is a strong challenges as it requires the leader to gain significant amount of expertise. However, within this short period it is impossible for one to understand all the essential aspects that are connected to effective management skills. Thus, it was understood through the 11 week journey at the hotel that developing effectiveness of management is a significant issue that can affect the running of hospitality businesses (Ryan, 2015). The leadership challenge with regards to development of effective skills composed of significant threats to leadership roles. If effectiveness of the role is not developed it will mean that productivity will be hampered, resulting in the ineffective management of the restaurant that will subsequently harm the career (Harms et al., 2017). The significant challenge was regarding ways in which one can better manage the employees. This was difficult as many of the employees were senior employees that had garnered possibly more expertise than the manger himself. Many of the employees were juniors that sometimes had out of the box ideas that they wanted the managers to implement. However, a conflict was there between the senior and the junior employees in regards to how they will perform their responsibilities. This was difficult for the manager as he would have to create an understanding between the senior and junior employees. He has to make sure that all their work mindsets are effectively combined towards increasing the productivity of the restaurant.

Three service experience that stood out from the rest while in the restaurant were very important towards pointing out the various effects of occupational situations on service quality.

Anticipating customer request- anticipating the request of the customers was a positive experience. This helped to improve the service quality of the restaurant greatly. The waiters and attendants became well versed with the requirements of most of the customers.  A positive thing that was noticed was the restaurant workers actually identifying the needs and requirements of the customers based on time of the day they visited the restaurant. Once a customer came much late in the evening alone. The waiters asked what he would like and the customer only gave hint that he wanted a snack and a drink. He was served beer and the most popular snacks that is given with it. The customer became happy and told that this was the exact thing he wanted at that point in time but was not sure what to order and was genuinely satisfied with the service. It was understood that there is a need to understand the actual requirement of the customer even before the order is given.

Reservation problems- This was a largely negative experience that was noticed in the given period. The reservations were normally done by the reception team and many times they did not do their work properly. Once the reservation team booked a single table for 2 different set of customers, who were due to arrive within less than an hour of each other. The issue became large when the 2^ndcustomer arrived when the 1^stset of customers had only began their meal. This greatly dissatisfied the other set of customers and they complained to the manager. As a result of this mix-up the customers had to be given a complimentary treat in addition to their order. This was a good learning as hospitality is also about time management. Restaurants reservation order management teams should work in coordination with all the other teams in order to effectively do their work. Moreover, it was understood that teams need to pay attention to time management. Individually speaking this was a great lesson in the necessity of time management in hospitality industry.

Developing Managerial Effectiveness

Disapproval between departments- This was a negative issue that was seen much often and was one of the significant problems that affected the restaurant. The main issue was the problems between the kitchen department and the attendants. One such incident was when an attendant informed the customer about the availability of a specific dish that was not available. The attendant informed about the availability of the dish. However, the dish was not available at the given time due to supply shortage of the ingredients. The cook became furious as wrong expectations were set with the customer. A minor argument took place between the team of the attendants and the kitchen team. The customer was informed of this and was very disappointed and a new order for another dish was placed. This helped to understand the meaning of communication between the various departments. It can be said that communication is a much necessary aspect in the hospitality environments. Without proper communication and coordination between the departments this incidents are bound to occur.

There were specific problem areas that were realized as far as the individual learnings were concerned. The learnings helped to understand the personal strengths and weaknesses.

Being an introvert person was a major challenge in the role of the supervisor. This is because as a manager one needs to interact with people from various backgrounds. The employees tend to be from diverse background and need to be effectively directed. Thus, being an introvert caused some initial problems. The communications were not clear and taking sessions with the subordinates became very difficult. Hence, it proved to be a major hassle towards doing the job effectively. However, after a few initial days the communication improved and from being an introvert, effective interactive skills were developed due to the constant interactions with the customers and the subordinates. Introvert mentality changed towards a more relationship building mentality. In the future this can help towards further growth as a leader.

There was an issue with the use of spoken English language. The main issue was communication as due to poor spoken English an individual feels uncomfortable while interacting with the customers. This was reported to the reporting supervisor who advised to take English speech classes. English was the second language, which was the main reason for not being able to cope up with the levels of English that was required. However, constantly speaking in the language helped as well as weekly classes for English speech was taken. It was understood that English speaking is vital to the job role. This is because English was the language spoken by the majority of the supervisors and the customers. The constant interactions helped to increase the language skills greatly. This in turn in the rest of the days helped to interact more clearly with the customers and the subordinates. Spoken English skills improves with constant interactions and helps to communicate effectively. In working environments these become crucial. Hence it was learnt that in the hospitality industry there is a great need for communication. Eventually this leads to development of better understandings.

References

BusinessDictionary.com. (2018). What is self-evaluation? definition and meaning. [online] Available at: https://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/self-evaluation.html

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Shin, Y., Sung, S. Y., Choi, J. N., & Kim, M. S. (2015). Top management ethical leadership and firm performance: Mediating role of ethical and procedural justice climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), 43-57.

The Journal : Tourism and Hospitality Essentials Journal. (2018). Retrieved from https://ejournal.upi.edu/index.php/thejournal

Wang, C. J., Tsai, H. T., & Tsai, M. T. (2014). Linking transformational leadership and employee creativity in the hospitality industry: The influences of creative role identity, creative self-efficacy, and job complexity. Tourism Management, 40, 79-89.