Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Traits and Culture on Leadership Style in Hospitality: Propensity of Green Management Practices Implementation

Abstract

[eng] The PhD dissertation aims to investigate the impact of emotional intelligence, leadership traits and culture on leadership style in hospitality and the propensity of green management practices implementation.

The entire dissertation focuses on the following five leadership styles, being transformational, transactional, ethical, servant and non-leadership style.

The first part the thesis attempts to investigate the impact of gender on leadership styles of leaders in top-level and/or mid-level management positions, specifically in the hospitality sector. Furthermore, the chapter investigates how gender impacts leadership traits of self-confidence and self-assurance and attributes of emotional intelligence being self-awareness of leadership styles employed in the hospitality industry. This chapter will elucidate the impact of gender on leadership styles in the hospitality industry, and the relationship between self-awareness, self-confidence and self-assurance with gender and leadership style.

The second part attempts to investigate the influence of culture on leadership styles. Profound knowledge is provided elucidating the relationship of cultural dimensions, emotional intelligence, leadership traits, age, gender and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions country index considering the participants backgrounds with leadership styles. This is an important aspect in today’s frequently international workplace settings due to globalization. Furthermore, the impact of emotional intelligence and leadership traits on leadership style is elaborated on from both, the quantitative and qualitative perspective. In this chapter, the quantitative research has been conducted globally, while eight different cultures are analyzed in the qualitative research segment: Brazilian, Spanish, Argentinian, German, Dominican, Peruvian, U.S. American and Indian. In addition, the participants of the focus group have been employed in the industry for more than half a decade, which despite their nationality has influenced them in their leadership styles and intercultural awareness. The participants indicated that those cultures have also become a part of their leadership traits which affect their leadership positively and resulted in being more successful.

The objective of the third part of the thesis is to elucidate the propensity for leaders to adopt a hybrid leadership style in the hospitality industry. The research speaks to the generational differences in form of the impact of age and gender as a composite on leadership style in top-level and/or mid-level managers. This dissertation attempts to create a more comprehensive conceptual framework explaining what hybrid leadership styles are and which hybrid leadership styles are likely to be present in the hospitality industry globally in top-level and/or mid-level managers. In addition, this research contributes to further understanding of the additional phenomenon, investigating the relationships between leadership styles executed and work motivation and job satisfaction of the leaders. While also the influence of leadership style on the relationship between leader and employees through the Leader-Member-Exchange Theory (LMX) is being extrapolated. Ultimately, the influence of leadership style on employee motivation and performance is described.

The purpose of the last part of the dissertation is to investigate the correlation between a specific leadership style and the inclination towards green management practice implementation in the hospitality industry. One major research limitation for this chapter was the ambiguity that is associated with green management practices globally. The impact of emotional intelligence, leadership traits, culture, age and gender on leadership style has been studied through previous chapters. This research will expand on the aforementioned variables and their impact on a leader’s inclination towards green management practices implementation in the hospitality industry.

The conclusion of the dissertation will weave all the results with the five recognized leadership styles.