HOTO7016 Mentoring and Leadership Development Assignment Sample
Introduction
Social media and other online platforms play an important role in the hospitality industry, it basically allows the industry to reach out to more clients and offers strategic opportunities to develop trust with existing clients and new clients (Moro and Rita, 2018). It could be done by resolving doubts, problems of the customers and presenting benefits that customers could get from the services offered by the hospitality industry of Kerala.
Furthermore, this essay will address these key issues by establishing an effective leadership style using self-assessment test results. Two mentoring activities will be provided and along with my learning experiences during the process. Furthermore, leadership competencies will be provided in this essay along with my own self-development evidence. Finally, an action plan will be provided that will discuss my progress in the Master’s program.
Leadership style
“Big five personality test” provides an insight into the leadership style. Therefore, I have used the personality test to evaluate my leadership style. The findings of my leadership style spread across different factors.
Openness in experience-The score in this factor is 14 which shows inadequate experience in the marketing strategy.
Figure 1: Big five personality test results
Source: (123test.com. 2021)
Extraversion-The overall score in this factor is 47 which is considerable
A natural reaction-The score of this factor is 66 which is above average
Agreeableness-One of the important factors in marketing and has a score of 6.
Conscientiousness-This trait plays a vital role in marketing management and the score is 25.
Trait theory
The trait theory of leadership tends to state that natural qualities are essential to create a good leader. Certain qualities are necessarily important. The trait of a manager plays a very significant role in the identification of lacunas arising out of its leadership style (Chow et al. 2017).
The comprehensive knowledge of traits of the manager helps in determining the necessary changes for the development of the marketing strategy (Allen, 2018). If the manager is familiar with the trait he poses, it will give the opportunity to amend the approach he is having towards marketing strategy.
I as a leader must know my strength and weakness and trait gives a clear insight to work on certain leadership skills in order to bring a positive change in his behaviour which influences his traits.
I as a successful manager always strive to develop to benefit the company. According to the social capacity theory, I must always try to rise above my weakness by working constantly on weaknesses and maintaining my strength.
Knowing my strength with the help of trait analysis will empower me to utilize my traits according to the right set of skills in a particular situation. It will help me gain significant experience in terms of market management strategy and will make my skills more robust and upgraded to meet the demand of the leadership style.
Over the period, my traits and their in-depth analysis will surely bring positive up-gradation in my traits and it will increase the overall efficiency of the organization in terms of market strategy.
Behavioural theory
Behavioural theory talks about human behaviour by analysing the individual’s experiences acquired from his working environment over a period of time. It helps the individual to perform and bring positive development towards professional growth (Harrison, 2018).
After the analysis of the big five personality test, I found that I am more leaning towards an authoritarian type of leadership. The score of different factors projects that an authoritarian leadership styling creates sabotage to the professional growth.
Due to authoritarian leadership styling, my engagement with employees is limited. This creates an important gap in leadership skills.
Learning from past mistakes is the necessary trait of a leader and this can be achieved by getting feedback from other people which is absent in my leadership style. This creating the constrain for my professional development.
Therefore, I need to move from an authoritarian leadership style towards a more democratic leadership style.
The democratic leadership style will allow me to take the most inclusive approach towards any strategy involved in business marketing. It will create an engaging work environment for me and allow others suggestions and feedback which will contribute to my professional growth.
Democratic leadership style will make me more approachable and open for necessary discussion with the people having better experiences in some areas. This will create an equilibrium of knowledge and will result in the exchange of ideas for better leadership skills.
Mentoring activities
Experiential learning developing technical competencies through mentor guidance
Learning experiences are gathered only from practical works and mentoring plays an important role in this period. An effective mentor could assist its supervisor in different ways.
As I have come across such mentors during my tenure as a social media marketing executive in a travel agency, situated in Kerala. My responsibility as a social media marketing manager includes managing social media channels, developing social media strategies to engage with new customers, and maintaining customer satisfaction.
Activity 1
During my training period as a marketing manager in the travel & tourism company, I have come across many traditional techniques in order to promote a variety of services, attracting customers, and maintaining customer satisfaction individually.
During my period of on job training, I have interacted with few new customers because the covid 19 situations were worsening each day. I was failing to maintain customers or to attract new customers to avail services offered by the tourism company. The main manager of the facility was very much disappointed with my performance, as I was retaining no customers at all.
It was pointed out that lack of technical knowledge and inability to grasp social media marketing skills were the prime reasons I was failing at my task. Therefore, I was again sent for further training for the development of technical knowledge and honing social media marketing skills.
The trainer was quite efficient in both subjects. Under this person’s mentorship, I have learned that traditional marketing approaches no longer attract customers but social media marketing. The profound learning experiences have changed my perspective on the marketing approach especially for social media marketing in order to retain customers.
The trainer has identified some faults in my characteristics that include, ineffective communication skills via social media, lacking creativity, inability to write technical terms, poor project management skills, and more. After honing these skills I was able to communicate with new customers through social media and able to retain more customers.
Due to the effective mentorship, I was able to use technical knowledge while developing engaging content. After the development of project management skills, I was able to resolve problems and queries of the customers through social media and knew the importance of feedback that significantly improved my customer handling skills as well.
Furthermore, the overall experiences that I have gathered under the trainer’s mentorship have improved my social media marketing skills significantly, which would help me to capture a new customer base from social media.
Furthermore, I am now completely proficient with customer service skills that are required more in the tourism industry. After developing social media marketing skills, I get to learn more about flexibility skills and organizational skills.
These skills are part of marketing management skills. During this pandemic situation, utilizing these skills are proven beneficial and therefore assisting me to maintain customer satisfaction.
Gaining awareness under marketing head of department for guidance
Mentoring is an act of emancipation. It includes the notion of assessing and guiding a person for the growth of his inner capabilities. Mentoring is influential in bringing out the inner possibilities (Alston et al. 2017). In addition, it is an act of encouragement for self-growth and learning.
I was assigned with the role of the marketing head of a travel agency. For my role, I was being guided by my mentor. My mentor helped me to learn regarding the role of the job and about the assigned task. Being the marketing head of the department of the travel agency I was responsible for building marketing strategies for the agency.
I was developing strategies to attract more customers. I was guided by my mentor to perform my task efficiently. He helped me to understand the market of the travel industry.
The travel and hospitality industry is regarded as the most competitive in nature which he helped me to understand. Before developing any strategies for the travel agency, he advised me to identify the challenges associated with the agency.
Knowledge and understanding gained about marketing activities
Under his guidance, I became aware of those challenges which include identification of the players who are dominating the market. I realized that I was being traditional when it came to marketing. The other travel agencies dominating the market do not use the conventional way of marketing (Chen and Lin, 2019). Before my mentor’s guidance, I was using the word-of-mouth strategy for marketing.
My mentor helped me to consider that I should also use the modern approach of marketing. The key player agencies in the travel industry use online methods of marketing. Following my mentor’s advice, I adopted online marketing methods and developed new skills to handle the job. Following his advice, I opted for social media marketing tools and understood that it is the most affordable tool for marketing.
Obstacles faced while performing the job role
On my job, I encountered certain difficulties regarding online marketing. I realized that I am not capable enough to handle the technological tools for marketing. I was struggling to deal with the new tools and technologies. I became very anxious and frustrated due to my inability to perform my roles effectively. In this respect, I must include that my mentor motivated me and asked me to acquire technological skills.
He assisted me to gain awareness about the latest technological tools regarding marketing. I gained knowledge about the different social media platforms for marketing my travel agency. The different social media platforms that I used for marketing are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram only. However, I realized that those were not enough and I needed to know and learn about other platforms to draw more customers to increase popularity.
The conventional word of mouth strategy of marketing is outdated now. Under my mentor’s guidance, I enrolled in a training and development program for developing technical skills essential for my job. The training and development program helped me gain knowledge about the marketing automation tools such as MailChimp and Marketo.
In addition, I acquired knowledge regarding the customer relationship tools such as HubSpot and Salesforce. My mentor pointed out that I lack interpersonal skills. In this respect, he guided me to develop interpersonal skills such as communication skills, teamwork to effectively perform my task.
Leadership competencies
To handle the situation the company needs a good focusing on competency-based leadership, my belief is that I can handle it very well due to my existing competencies in the required areas. I have that potential and qualities that are listed below:
Natural reaction
I believe that in any situation a leader’s best quality should be that the lead loses his mind, if there’s a situation comes to handle the leader should focus on that par citationalities first. I always make sure that I should go to the main reason for the problem. I always try to understand everyone’s opinion. The problem could be in any management decision in previous years or could be another problem. I am always trying to be fair to my job.
In order to benefit the company, I work for, I have effectively built certain networking that can be highly profiting. This includes building official contacts for effectively making tourists experience better. I have made professional connections with local tourist guides, hotels, and accommodations.
It secures that travellers’ experience with our company is worth satisfying that leads to effective word of mouth and promotes our company on all social media platforms. I have noted that potential networking is highly beneficial and can strategically contribute to business feasibility.
Extraversion
To do a work Extraversion quality is important for the leader, and I can say that I have that quality. In the workplace it’s important to be talkative, have sociability and assertiveness, those qualities help me to do my job smoothly in my workplace and for those, it’s always easy to communicate with my co-workers from that I can easily handle that situation.
In reflection, it’s being beneficial for the hotel because it maintains a happier atmosphere between workers for that tourists also feel a good vibe from hotels. And help to promote my travel agency in word of mouth by travellers. In this scenario, it is most important to market our business in as many ways as we can and I have the efficiency to do that.
Consciousness
To grow a business most important is to marketing, and to market any business or business idea it’s necessary to have awareness of the market (Shafique and Beh, 2017). To be a good leader it is important to have Consciousness or awareness about the business or industry, market trends, and customer preferences in order to make effective decision-making in the business.
Market changes every day so it’s always important to know and aware of the market and that’s way I am always trying the market trend, I always trying to learn the customer behaviour to find out the customer’s needs.
I can handle management properly so that business can run smoothly. Therefore, I can operate the business in a good way so that the business company gets a good profitability in the year end. Also, I can help the company make market strategies so that the company can expand itself and its reach to customers.
Action plan
Action plan mainly refers to a suggested strategy or course or action, precisely, used in project management. It is also referred to a list of steps that are required for one individual to achieve goals and objectives (Papke-Shieldset al. 2017). Therefore,
it also suggests the necessary resources that are needed to complete a task within the expected deadline. Therefore, I will create an action plan that would indicate what are necessary things I need to do in order to achieve professional growth.
| Goals | Flaws and lacks | Action plan | Time scale | Resources |
| Development of technical skills and knowledge | I was unable to perform technical tasks and assignments due to lack of technical knowledge and practical skills | In order to achieve technical skills and knowledge, I must invest more effort and time on training and development programs that are offered by the facility.
I need to attend online classes that offer free courses on technical skill development. |
The estimated time for the training program will be 6 months. | Books on advance technology learning and practices, PDFs, Journals, Online classes, trial practice on different software’s |
| Decision making skills | I have poor knowledge on research matters. Therefore, i am unable to make right decisions in group projects and fails to meet deadlines | I need to attend classes, where professors would assist me to develop individual research. Online classes on social media usage and its impact, individually complete the assignment projects on social media impact on tourism industry | Estimated time for the training program will be 5 months | Books on social media impact, paid journals on social media marketing, pdfs, articles, online classes, participation on the individual assignment projects |
| Digital marketing | I have poor knowledge on digital marketing, as a trainee in the tourism company i use traditional marketing approaches to retain customers. Therefore, fail to determine customer issues that lowers customer satisfaction | Attending classes on digital marketing, getting digital marketing courses from online marketing agencies, implementing digital marketing strategies on real situations | Estimated time for this training program will be 4 months | Books on SEO and marketing, PDFs on Social media marketing trends, famous articles of digital marketers, online digital marketing courses |
| Interpersonal skills | I do not have verbal communication skills, non-verbal communication skills | I need to engage often in group discussions to improve verbal communication, I need to start practicing meeting deadlines while doing an assignment to speed up my writing and nonverbal skills, | Expected time is 6 months | Online classes, PDFs, books on interpersonal skills |
Table 1: Action plan
(Source: created by learner)
Conclusion
Based on the above analysis, it can be concluded that social media marketing strategies are necessary in the tourism sector. Due to the, covid 19 situation, the tourism sector of Kerala merely faces customers directly and focuses more on the social media marketing opportunities.
Therefore, I have also used SEO and social media marketing in order to retain more customers and gained so much experience from mentors about social media marketing.
References
123test.com. 2021. Big Five personality test report. [online] Available at: <https://www.123test.com/report/V4DIXNARAOZN5EBCN7/> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Allen, W.E., 2018. Leadership Theory: A Different Conceptual Approach. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(2).
Alston, G.D., Guy, B.S. and Campbell, C.D., 2017. Ready for the professoriate? The influence of mentoring on career development for Black male graduate students in STEM. Journal of African American Males in Education (JAAME), 8(1), pp.45-66.
Alston, G.D., Guy, B.S. and Campbell, C.D., 2017. Ready for the professoriate? The influence of mentoring on career development for Black male graduate students in STEM. Journal of African American Males in Education (JAAME), 8(1), pp.45-66.
Chen, S.C. and Lin, C.P., 2019. Understanding the effect of social media marketing activities: The mediation of social identification, perceived value, and satisfaction. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 140, pp.22-32.
Chen, S.C. and Lin, C.P., 2019. Understanding the effect of social media marketing activities: The mediation of social identification, perceived value, and satisfaction. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 140, pp.22-32.
Chow, T.W., Salleh, L.M. and Ismail, I.A., 2017. Lessons from the major leadership theories in comparison to the competency theory for leadership practice. Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging Economies, 3(2), pp.147-156.
Harrison, C., 2018. Leadership research and theory. In Leadership Theory and Research (pp. 15-32). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Moro, S. and Rita, P., 2018. Brand strategies in social media in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Papke-Shields, K.E. and Boyer-Wright, K.M., 2017. Strategic planning characteristics applied to project management. International Journal of Project Management, 35(2), pp.169-179.
Shafique, I. and Beh, L.S., 2017. Shifting organizational leadership perspectives: An overview of leadership theories. Journal of Economic & Management Perspectives, 11(4), pp.134-143.
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