Distributed Leadership in Tourism

Introduction

Literature relevant to this study has been examined in the previous chapters in addition to the methods adopted to collect, analyse and utilise data in understanding the definition, themes, attributes, challenges and benefits of distributed leadership in the tourism sector. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews administered face-to-face, via Skype or via telephone where participants were physically inaccessible. This study aimed to include 40-50 leader or managers in the interview process. In this regard, the research was able to engage 41 participants in the interview. Out of this, nine participants were female while the remaining (32) were male. The study avoided disclosing the participant namesin data collection and also in this chapter when analysing their responses and their organizations were not revealed to adhere to the ethical guidelines in research. The chapter has seven sections including the introduction of the findings, the meaning of distributed leadership, the themes of distributed leadership, challenges of distributed leadership, attributes of distributed leadership, benefits of distributed leadership and conclusion. The seven sections address specific research aim and objectives captured in chapter one restated as follows: the aim of this study is to explore the distributed leadership in the tourism industry and understand the challenges, benefits and attributes of distributed leadership. In order to achieve the aim of the research in an efficient manner, the following objectives and corresponding questions were going to be addressed by the research:

To examine the current conceptualizations of distributed leadership in existing research through a critical review of the literature

To identify the challenges of distributed leadership through qualitative interviews

To develop a conceptual model of distributed leadership themes in the tourism industry which contributes to existing theory and facilitates a greater understanding of the phenomenon?

To identify the distributed leadership attributes in tourism sector.

To identify the distributed leadership benefits in tourism sector.

Research Questions

What is Distributed Leadership?

What are the challenges of distributed leadership in the Tourism industry?

What are the attributes of distributed leadership in the Tourism industry?

What themes have emerged from the study of distributed leadership?

What are the benefits of the distributed leadership in the Tourism industry?

The Meaning of Distributed Leadership

This section gives a general overview of the 41 managers’ views regarding distributed leadership in the tourism industry. The 41 respondents had a view that distributed leadership is about delegating or assigning tasks to the employees to decide and solve problems on their own. The analysis gathers information obtained from other researchers that have explained the phenomenon of distributed leadership.

The Delegation

Among all the 41 respondents involved in the study, a common view of distributed leadership was that it involves delegating and assigning tasks to the employees to decide and solve them individually. For instance, GM4 views distributed leadership as a way to delegate and distribute authority to the departmental heads and to the staff. From this perspective, the respondents believe that any leadership that involves delegation of tasks falls under distributed leadership. This perspective supports the definition offered by Cleveland-Innes (2014) who argues that distributed leadership is a leadership approach that involves the random distribution of leadership duties.Mascall et al. (2008) also supported this understanding from the respondents stating that, it is an approach allowing leaders to delegate duty and share vital information as well as receives feedback. The aspect of delegation in this case arises from the distribution of the primary leadership activities among various people. Göksoy (2015) also offers the same explanation by referring to distributed leadership as an approach that requires identification and delegation of leadership acts. This definition concurs with the views of the respondents because it revolves around assigning different leadership activities to other people apart from the leader. GM15 also supported this explanation by stating that distributed leadership was like a way of distributing the leader’s tasks or assignment to other people. In the view of GM15, this leadership approach gives a leader an opportunity to nurture other people by giving them responsibilities and chance to perform.

Spontaneous collaboration

Similarly, GM5 thinks distributed leadership enables leaders to give departmental heads and staff the autonomy andauthority to sort out all problems and challenges and to deal with them in a good manner without any interference from other departments. From this perspective, the description offered by the respondents supports the definition provided by Harris et al. (2007) who described distributed leadership as a framework for leadership with planned alignment in which guidance, resources, and roles are assigned to individuals or groups that are effectively placed to accomplish a particular function or task.The coordination aspect in this definition stems from the allocation of resources and guidance while its collective element is in resolving the organizational problems assigned to them.

Collaborated Distribution

Another group of participants involved in the study describe distributed leadership as a style that involves delegation aimed at promoting sharing and collaboration among staff and leaders of different departments. For example, GM11 argued that distributed leadership is about the delegation and sharing of duties to the staff to increase management decisions through including the ideas of all the involved individuals. This leads to the creation of teamwork between all departments for enhanced decision making. This is in line with Bolden (2011)’s assertion that collaborate distribution includes two or more people working together in the same place and time following the same leadership activity. Interviewee GM14 also described distributed leadership as style of leadership used to empower and delegate teams and head of departments to do their task and also distribute the leadership to all staff to promote high-quality decision making. In addition, GM40 pointed out:

“I think when I give empowerment and delegation to my staff that lead to increase in job satisfaction and also create a family environment in the hotel, so that’s improve the efficiency of the staff to do their best.” (GM40)

The description offered by this group of respondents echoes the definition offered by Harris (2013) who describes distributed leadership as a collaborated leadership approach that emphasizes on sharing of duties. In addition to this, Jain (2016) supports this definition by referring to this phenomenon as a leadership model that involves sharing of vital information, beliefs, and new ideas. From this perspective, this framework promotes sharing and collaboration between teams to assist in making leadership decisions as well as undertaking duties.

Participative leadership

Another group of interviewees, GM3, GM8, GM10 and GM12 conceptualize distributed leadership in terms of a participative leadership because of its principle of empowering the staff to be able to multitask and engage on leadership activities. GM8, in particular, sees it as a style of empowering staff and letting them deal with issues and solve it on their own. GM10 also views distributed leadership in terms of staff empowerment whereby it is defined as empowering staff to accomplish their responsibilities and create a family environment to discuss all issues. Respondent GM12 for instance defined distributed leadership as: “The ability to empower the staff and delegate them to make goodness decisions.” (GM12). This description of distributed leadership resonates with the definition suggested by Budgen and Brereton (2006; Cope, Kemp & Parry, 2011) who view it as a normative perspective that promotes the usefulness and involvement or participation of others in the leadership process. The views from the interviewees resonate with the assertion from Leithwood et al. (2007) that distributed leadership can be used to integrate objectives of different organisational levels by allowing input in decision making across the organisation.From theseperspectives, distributed leadership is participative as it seeks to empower the staff to participate in the leadership process.

Challenges faced by Distributed leaders in the Tourism context

In this part, a description of the distributed leadership challenges identified following an analysis of the interview transcripts is presented, where it helps to fulfil the second research objective and answer the second question of the research effectively. These are some of the challenges encountered by those leaders promoting distributed leadership to ensure the tourism firms are successful. The analysis highlights the challenges and their frequency of appearance in the interview transcripts obtained from 41 participants. To have a complete understanding of the challenges affecting leaders promoting distributed leadership, insights were sought from different managers in the tourism industry. The managers work in different levels of hotels including 5 star, 4 star, 3 star and star hotels in the tourism industry. It had been expected that leaders engaging in distributed leadership face a lot of challenges as they deliver their duties and responsibilities in tourism organisations. This was proved as various challenges linked to the different aspects of the organisation were identified. The challenges are highlighted in table (1) including cultural and administration challenges, decision-making challenges, coordination and communication challenges and emerging challenges.

Cultural and Administration Challenges

The section highlights the challenges associated with the management of the tourism firms by leaders who support distributed leadership. These include management style, hiring and retention and cultural challenges.

Leadership challenges

From the analysis, five respondents acknowledged facing leadership challenges in their distributed leadership role. Respondent GM32 reported that among the many challenges encountered every day by managers or leaders using distributed leadership in managing tourism firms include leadership challenges. The major challenges are such as internal conflicts, lack of understanding and poor working practice as well as cultural diversity at the workplace, lack of communication and non-cooperation which affects the performance of the staff negatively. To address such challenges, respondent GM18 said that they must create and maintain team unity, establish open communication policies and make an effective information management system that can help in smooth functioning of the hotel. GM18 further argued that to successfully manage a hotel one needs to learn how to confront the numerous leadership challenges with determination and brilliant management skills. In addition, GM 23 also pointed out that leadership challenges are experienced. Particularly, the respondent said:

“…Hotel managers face leadership challenges in the form of industry corporatization. In this era, company structures are rapidly changing and growing more complex, which makes it difficult to ensure consistency in customer service.” (GM 23)

Respondent GM5 highlighted seasonality of the hospitality industry whereby peak seasons tend to bring a lot of or undue stress to the management and its staff as a challenge to the leaders. This is because, during these seasons, managers are charged with the responsibility of keeping up with the ongoing changes in booking and pricing, which can be a daunting task. Respondent GM 23, however, indicated that an effective hotel manager must create and maintain team unity, establish open communication policies and make an effective information management system that can help in smooth functioning of the hotel. This will help in addressing leadership challenges encountered. There are other issues related to the leadership style and management practice, where the hospitality industry is suffering through having good organisational workplace and working culture for which the employees cannot work properly.

Communication challenges

Poor communication and lack of collaborative working practice are there which deteriorates the performance of the hospitality firms in the market. In addition to this, the organisations in the hospitality industry are also facing the challenges of lack of transparency and accountability as well as poor information flow and lack of proper support and direction as well as lack of empowerment and poor decision making behaviour. Hence, these are the challenges for which effective leadership style cannot be developed in the hospitality industry.

Cultural challenges

Cultural challenges were noted to arise due to the diverse backgrounds of the guests booking hotels in Dubai. Respondents GM4 and GM41 mentioned that they face many challenges in the tourism sector and especially in hotels such as dealing with multinational guests and staff. In particular, respondentGM11 highlighted that they face many cultural challenges in the industry since there are more than two hundred Nationalities visiting Dubai every other day. Serving such guests from different cultures to get them satisfied is difficult because there might be poor communication as well as limited knowledge on the values and beliefs of those cultures. This was highlighted by interviewee GM2:

“1n our work we are facing many challenges especially with our guests how to improve your service , how to make your guest happy I told you that we have so many cultures and so many nationalities here we have some persons who are very sensitive you have to make sure how to deal with this person … to make sure that our guests 100 present satisfied, if some guests face any problem or trouble he will share and mention that on our online feedback that is why we have to make sure that everything is fine with him...” (GM2)

Two of the respondents, GM20 and GM21 further emphasized that the different cultures of guests in the region make it difficult for the leaders develop the roles and responsibilities of the employees in the workplace and empower them efficiently to make decisions. Most important issues that they face are related to the multinational cultures, nationalities and diversity in taste and preferences of the guests. There is a belief that there is a need for the leaders or the team to be able to deal with these types of cultures, to understand the mentality of each culture maybe by promoting appropriate training. This is aimed at giving employees more opportunities to learn how they can able to address cultural issue linked to their clients. Respondent GM20 said:

“When you are in the tourism sector especially in country such like Dubai where there are different people and different cultures so must of the challenges is related to the culture for example one is from Europe and one from other we can say two different culture, different mind, different mentality two different persons like different things, things I can offer to someone from Europe is I can’t offer to someone from Asia so these things will come from experience so of course I know who is he and the culture and what the traditions and I know what I have to say for someone, for example, is coming from Saudi so in this challenge you should have experience” (GM20)

Hiring and Retention Challenges

The management of the tourism firms as highlighted in the analysis of the interview transcripts was noted to face challenges associated with hiring and retaining of employees to ensure firms remain competitive. Some of the respondents (6) indicated that, hiring and retention of an employee is very difficult these days due to different factors such as diversity in culture and nationalities, behavioral differences, language gap, diversity in understanding the working activities, knowledge and skill due to different educational and professional background. For instance, respondent GM3 said: “Hiring for one’s team or bringing onboard someone new onto the team is a big decision and also challenging for the leader without understanding their culture and personal skill and knowledge” (GM3) In this regard, the respondent further advised that leaders should avoid being shy when asking other managers or people from the HR team in their company for help and advice regarding the best and most appropriate talent for hire. Interviewee GM16 highlighted that hiring of staff that are qualified after staff turnover in the industry is double the average across the industry. This implies more employees are leaving one organization to the other and this has been challenging to the managers supporting distributed leadership in the tourism sector. GM25 also noted that hiring and retaining staff is a key challenge in the tourism sector since every hotel requires quality staff at all the fronts, whether the administration, maintenance, kitchen, housekeeping, and at front desk. GTM38 explicitly reported: “…we face many challenges such as…hiring and retaining the staff...” (GTM38)

Management and Hierarchical Structure challenges

The section explores challenges associated with the making of decisions on daily operations of the firms in the tourism industry. The major challenges highlighted after analysis of the interview transcripts include changing customer and executive expectations, employee challenges, and safety and security challenges as well as lack of management of the hierarchical structure in the tourism sector. Due to poor organisational practice, the leaders are also not capable to developing suitable hierarchical structure to manage the staff and lead them towards achieving future success. In this regard, authoritarian leader gives clear expectations to the employees and the staff members are bound to follow the instruction and this creates issues for the distributed leaders to manage the workplace with cooperation and collaboration.

Marketing Challenges

Leaders engaged in distributed leadership in the tourism industry face decision making challenges in marketing that make them develop stronger strategies. To begin with, respondent GM10 and GTM38 argued that changes in the marketing trends and dynamics often create a problem for the hoteliers. The traditional marketing methods are not that effective now as they used to be in the past few decades. In this regard, respondent GM10 pointed out that online marketing is an effective method as online deals are booked by genuine guests and major transactions are paid in advance. Interviewee GM10 argued: “…The most challenging aspect of marketing is how to engage guests on social media, messaging apps and other online sources to work wonders leading to desirable results in a few days.” (GM10) In addition, respondent GM32 also noted that marketing itself is a challenge to the leaders delegating duties to staff in the tourism industry. Online review websites, such as Expedia, are very important since they can both help hotels secure new guests if they have quality ratings and reviews or drive every potential guest away if the reviews are poor. Interviewee GM32 insisted that a hotel’s reputation depends a lot on these factors so it is important that hotel managers do everything in their power to get good reviews from guests. Similarly, a big challenge for most hotel brands is understanding that although online reviews are based on guests’ stays at individual locations, they affect the overall brand image. Creating a consistent experience across all locations is a difficult task, but one that’s critical to the company’s long-term success. Respondent GM32 believed: “This is definitely a challenge that gets harder as the years go by, and 2019 is no exception. Utilising online marketing that has relevant, targeted content is extremely important to drive potential guests to your website and, ultimately, to your hotel.” (GM32)

Booking and Pricing

Today’s business environment for tourism firms is faced with decision making challenges associated with the process of booking as indicated by 3 interviewees. For instance, GM6 said that booking challenges are faced due to lack of management strategy and the poor practice of advertising and marketing. The respondent further reported that managers are charged with the responsibility of keeping up with the ongoing changes in booking and pricing, which can be daunting for anyone. Respondent GM 37 similarly highlighted booking and pricing as a challenge in the tourism industry experienced by leaders supporting distributed leadership. Respondent GM 37 particularly said: “Well, I faced many challenges in the hotel … booking and pricing…” (GM37) Due to the increase in online business in the tourism industry, respondent GM37 pointed out that they are mostly using technology and online booking focusing more on online booking and checking prices and daily visits with the competitors. This is aimed at identifying opportunities for fixing the prices to bring more customers following the provision of improved service to the customer.

Changing Customer and stakeholders Expectations

Four of the interviewees highlighted, changing customer and the expectations of the stakeholders is considered as one of the decision-making challenges affecting the firms in the tourism sector and it also hampers the management practice in the organisations, where the issue of internal conflicts of interest arise. Respondent GM14 reported that they face many challenges in the hotel like changing customer expectations that have left the firm working continuously where the executives and other staff members in the hospitality industry fail to acknowledge the actual needs and preferences of the customers and peach the efficient hospitality services as per their choices. For instance, maintenance and renovations section has been modified to meet customer needs due to continuous customer and executive expectations. As such, respondent GM14 and GM22 acknowledged that they are challenged to keep facilities such as the amenities up-to-date, and up to the standards of the guests. Also, respondent GM 19 highlighted that changing customer and executive expectations have made them upgrade software and other technologies just to keep up with the demands of the guests. Respondent GM14 argued: “…ongoing construction, renovations, maintenance, and technology costs can add up fast. This makes balancing the books even harder.” (GM14)

Decision-making challenges

The section highlights decision-making challenges linked to employees that may make it difficult to achieve organizational goals if not handled properly. These include staff-customer relations and employee productivity. Managing the relationship between the staff and the guests is challenging as highlighted by one of the respondents. Interviewee GM8 alleged to be facing many challenges in the hotel linked to customer-staff Relations and recommended superior interpersonal skills for success since managers fail to handle all types of people and situations due to lack of inter personal skill and emotional intelligence. Hence, lack of empowerment and poor performance management are the major issues which further deteriorate the practice of appropriate decision making behaviour of the organisation. As per the literature findings, it is one of the major challenges for the distributed leader where they fail to make proper decision with effective involvement with the employees in the tourism sector.

Workload challenge

There is no such effective training and development program for which the managers even also cannot develop strong corporate bonding with the customers for serving them with high quality hospitality services and they also fail to manage their working responsibilities in the organisation. The interviewee also said that hotel managers must cooperate with the leader for developing distributed leadership which must show grace under pressure in dealing with angry guests or emergency situations. Interviewee GM8 said: “Such managers need similar qualities in leading and training employees especially in smaller hotels, to accomplish multiple tasks. A keen organizational sense is also required among employees to deal with special events like conventions, large parties and celebrity guest arrivals to promote effective customer-relations.” (GM8) Encouragement of employee productivity in the tourism industry emerged from the analysis of the interview data as one of the other employee challenges faced by leaders under distributed leadership approach in managing hospitality business firms. Respondent GM3 emphasized that encouraging productivity can be a challenge because all team members may have different needs and may work in different ways. Some people like working later, some earlier, some in given specific instructions, while others in places there is autonomy. Respondent GM3 specifically stated” “…This makes it difficult for the leaders as one is expected to create an environment that is good for everyone by trying to find out what works best and adjust accordingly.” (GM3) These indicates that, the leader is not capable to developing effective working culture and environment which further deteriorate the performance of the workers and the employees fail to meet their workload. Nurturing the team members, arranging training program and exploring new opportunities for the truism sector are the role of the leaders and it is mandatory for them to manage workload to run the tourism business in a systematic way by mitigating the challenges related to poor management, lack of time management and poor performance.

Safety and Security Challenges in managing the stakeholders

Important to note, it has been challenging in terms of making decisions to the leaders using distributed leadership style in the tourism industry in ensuring staff and guests are safe and secure as indicated by three respondents. Respondent GM27 indicated that there are many cases found related to theft and foul play in the hospitality industry and as such it is a challenge to the leadership to ensure protection from such issues. Today, there is a lot of rating and personnel experience expressed on social media about each hotel on the internet regarding safety and security. Theft and foul play will often create a negative impression that reduces hotel rating and this requires the management to provide adequate safety and security to staff and guest to ensure it receives a good rating from the customers. Respondent GM 18 said: “Security challenges it is important as I have to make sure for maintaining optimal safety and security at the hotel.” (GM18) Similarly, Interviewee GM24 said that they face challenges in maintaining optimal safety and security at the hotel. Having a proper surveillance system throughout the hotel property as well as automatic door-locking system in the hotel rooms that can immediately change codes when a customer or guest loses a door key are some of the measures the hotel manager must take to ensure proper security for guests. GM4 held the view that security challenges are one of the major problems in hotel industry. Different types of security challenges as identified the interviewee (GM4) include general theft and other crime, public violence, terrorism, armed robbery, credit card fraud, cybercrime issues, identity theft, sexual abuse on women, racial discrimination, and risk of food poisoning. In addition, interviewee GM12 emphasized that crime is rife all over the globe, which is why security challenges have become more common. It becomes difficult to handle such issues and in this regard, respondent GM6 said: “…to deal with security challenges, hotel managers have to rely on high tech gadgets and software, which can be expensive to acquire and maintain.” (GM6) Most important, respondent and GTM38 highlighted data security challenges that are not new in the current era. Respondent GM10 reported: “…Threats of digital data theft, virus attack and confidential data leaks are a big matter of concern for hoteliers globally. Understanding the scenario, you must go for a software that has enabled high-security features preventing hotel data leaks. This way you create credibility for your hotel to bring in more guests to your hotel.” (GM10)

Coordination and communication challenges

Coordination and communication challenges are another major issue in the hospitality firms to manage the overall performance and ensure high quality services for the benefits of the customers. Following the analysis of the interview data, lack of adequate skill and time management challenges were identified. Poor communication in the workplace is another major challenge in the truism sector where lack of internal interaction further deteriorates the performance and productivity of the staff. The tourism sector also suffer from poor cooperation challenge where the staff cannot share their feedback and perception as well as they also fail to share their knowledge with others for maximising other’s efficiency in the industry to work successfully.

Lack of Adequate Skill in developing collaborative working practice

It is important for the staff members to have adequate knowledge and skill to maintain good working practice and collaborative working activities are fruitful for the firms to improve overall performance, due to lack of efficiency in working with others, poor inter personal skill and lack of knowledge, the employees fail to cooperate as well as communicate with others for better productivity. Respondent GM25 reported that lack of skill in the educated youths graduating from education centres is a major challenge in the hotel industry and the employees fail to develop partnership working practice which may raise the efficiency of the staff by sharing their knowledge and expertise. This indicates poor coordination between education centres and the hotel industry during the learning period. In addition, interviewee GM33 said that lack of reliable and productive staff who can cope with the pace and the pressure that comes with working at a hotel may be one of the toughest challenges there is. For this is the reason, the respondent argued:

“…Because of this, high staff turnover is often expected and can create huge problems for the hotel.” (GM33).

Inefficiency in time management

Interviewee GM8 acknowledged facing time management challenges triggered by the swapping of employee shifts. The respondent particularly said:

“Finding a schedule that works for everyone, with so many people to manage, one of the most time-consuming parts of the job is managing everyone’s schedule. When employees begin to ask for vacation days or want to switch shifts, it can become even more difficult and time-consuming to find a schedule that works for everyone” (GM8).

As per the above analysis, the major challenges faced by the hospitality industry are such as lack of management, hiring and retention challenge, non collaboration and lack of communication, poor marketing tactic and inefficient management of customers in booking and pricing the hospitality services, lack of efficiency in decision making behaviour and poor empowerment of the staff as well as cultural diversity and inadequate knowledge and skill of the staff. These are the major challenges for which the quality of the hospitality services are deteriorated over the period of time, where the leaders and also the management team cannot manage the employees and improve their organisational strategy for achieving future success.

Attributes of distributed leadership

The section presents results linked to the attributes or features that leaders in the tourism industry who support distributed leaders possess. The attributes are grouped in three broad categories including honesty and integrity, result-oriented, and influencer as indicated in table (1).

Honesty and Integrity to develop distributed leadership

This section presents evidence concerning the nature of distributed leaders that is linked to truth saying and 30 interviewees mentioned about this leadership aspect. Respondent GM14, GM22, GM24 and GM37 all highlighted that distributed leaders are honest and express integrity in the leadership. Interviewee GM14, in particular, pointed out leaders can never expect their followers to be honest when they lack those qualities themselves. However, the respondent said that leaders using distributed leadership succeed when they stick to their values and core beliefs and without ethics, this will not be possible. According to interviewee GM28 in distributed leaders does not add a sugar coating on things, but they use their communication skills to ensure people are aware of the issues. Honesty also means openness about the processes and the implementation of the vision. Interviewee GM35 claimed that honesty is always the best policy, but distributed leadership often requires you to be tactful. In addition, respondent GM18 acknowledged that transparency integrated into collaboration is a key characteristic of leaders promoting distributed leadership. Specifically, respondent GM28 described:

“The leader should always be as informative and open about the tasks ahead as possible with the subordinates.” (GM28)

Honest and integrity also captures the aspect of being accountable for responsibilities. GM36 acknowledge accountability to be an attribute of distributed leadership. Also, interviewee GM34 recounted that a good leader is not simply empowered to make decisions due to their position. However, they are willing to take on the risk of decision making and taking risks knowing that if things do not work out, they will need to hold themselves accountable first and foremost. Respondent GM39 and GM13 narrated:

“When it comes to accountability, you need to follow the approach “A good leader takes little more than his share of the blame and little less than his share of the credit.” Make sure that every one of your subordinates is accountable for what they are doing.” (GM39)

“…By being flexible to new ideas and open-minded enough to consider them, you increase the likelihood that you will find the best possible answer.” (GM39)

Result-oriented for successful distributed leaders

Result-oriented individuals can be observed through extended characteristics such as being visionary, passionate, positive thinkers, and hardworking as highlighted by the interviewees. Visionary and passionate are important characteristics, where the employees and management team as well as the leader would be optimistic and find further creative solution to run the business innovatively. Positive thinking and hardworking are also related to high performance activities where the leader tries to achieve higher and thus these characteristics are result oriented where the positive mind set, creative decisions making behavior and hardworking are helpful to achieve good result in future for the distributed leaders. Interviewee GM24 highlighted that one’s team will always look up to them in doing given tasks and if members should put more efforts, then the leader must exhibit passion in handling the task. When teammates see leaders getting their hands dirty, they will also be committed to doing the tasks. Similarly, interviewee GM3 argued that leaders must be passionate about every task they do. Without passion, they would not achieve success. In this regard, Respondent GM6 emphasized:

“The distributed leaders should be committed and passionate about their vision, and are able to share that passion with their teams.” (GM6)

Moreover, distributed leaders entail being positive thinks. The quality most needed for motivating and inspiring others is having an optimistic and unbeatable attitude. Taking an optimistic approach to business life does not mean blindly assuming that everything will work out, or ignoring signs of trouble. Rather, it means focusing on the positive and adopting a hopeful attitude to the future. Being optimistic makes individuals work hard. Respondent GM20 said:

“The most important is the hard work it works everywhere in any department in any company and any sector it doesn’t matter what it is your knowledge or position and feeling of responsibilities this is the thing you need to have from the beginning so you can’t be successful without hard work and responsibility this is the most important things.” (GM20).

Influencer

As indicated by 20 of the interviewees, distributed leaders must be flexible, and show tolerance and make persuasive decisions which further influence the staff members and managers or better performance and improving creativity to serve the service users. Regarding being flexible, interviewee GM13 indicated that the leader should be flexible since not every problem demands the same solution. By being flexible to new ideas and open-minded enough to consider them, one increases the likelihood of finding the best possible answer. As such on they will set a good example for the team.

Confidence

Confidence also influences the other members and 25 respondents identified it as an attribute of distributed leaders supporting distributed leadership style in the workplace. According to interviewee GM4, A truly confident distributed leader is simply aware of their abilities, knows they are good at what they do, and is unafraid of responsibility and pressure. In this regard, respondent GM10 highlighted that it is with this confidence that the leaders empower and delegate duties to members which is the most influential leadership aspect that promotes accomplishment of duties. The interviewee said:

“…Delegating and empowering your team to succeed relies heavily on your confidence level in their work and expertise. Once you build up trust in your team's abilities, you won’t need to spend much time making sure they're meeting goals.” (GM10).

Inter personal skill

A concern with others including showing respect, empathy, being tolerant, promoting inclusivity, and being humble also influence the decisions members of a group one is leading as identified by 30 of the interviewees. Respondent GM3 indicated that a strong distributed leader ought to treat people with respect and care while staying honest. Also, GM23 said that leaders need to always present themselves in a respectful, empathetic and professional manner. If you cannot communicate their expectations, needs and opinions to the staff, then it is unlikely that their distributed leadership goals will be reached as anticipated. Regarding the promotion of inclusivity and influence on leadership outcomes, interviewee GM2 reported:

“You have to give a chance for sure to everyone” (GM2).

Coordinated Distribution

The distributed leaders try to distribute the working responsibly making the subordinates with proper cooperation an enhancing internal collaboration. The jobs are distributed equally where the team work is encouraged by the leader. The subordinates are also motivated to perform as team and improve cooperation for working efficiently in the tourism sector.

A context of trust

Trust is another attributes of the distributed leader where the leader us successful to develop internal bonding and loyalty among the individuals and the subordinates as well. This further helps to boosts trust and internal cooperation to participate in the tourism sector successfully to fulfil its aims and objectives.

Acceptance of change

Change acceptance is also another attribute, where the distributed leader is successful to manage the changes required in the tourism sector with proper communication and cooperation. Internal binding, cooperative working practice as well as support from the leaders further boosts the interest of the subordinates to accept the change and lead it successfully.

Benefits of the distributed leadership in the tourism sector

Distributed leadership style is good or the organisations where the leaders can distributive the responsibility and allocates the job roles among the employees strategically. It has crucial impacts on the tourism sector, where the leaders are able to lead the team towards achieving future success. According to the literature review findings, the benefits of distribute leadership are such as motivation, creativity and innovation, mutual learning environment, faster completion of task, equal chances to serve, empowering organisational structure, reducing leadership responsibility, improving leader’s capacity and combine expertise in the organisations.

Motivation:

Motivation is one of the major benefits of distributed leaders where the leaders try to encourage the staff members through giving them monetary and non-monetary rewards, the performance related pay, incentives and compensation structure under the distributed leader are fair and transparency which further motivates the subordinates to work efficiently and fulfil the objective of the tourism company.

Creativity and innovation:

As per the findings, the distributed leaders are able to encourage the creativity and innovation of the staff members and this further boosts the interest of the subordinates to improve their performance and work efficiently. Proper empowerment of the management team, good collaboration and enhancing internal communication further help to identify creative solutions to work successfully in the tourism industry.

Mutual learning environment:

One of the benefits of developing distributed leadership in the tourism sector is to develop mutual learning activities where the leader is successful to arrange training and development program as well as encourage having group collaboration and communication, through enhancing communication, the staff members can share their knowledge and skill to work better in future. Hence, communication and cooperation are also other benefits of distributed leadership style and along with that it further helps to develop mutual learning environment where the members are able to work as a partnership practice and share their capabilities to improve individual’s efficiency.

Faster completion of task:

Faster completion of task is another major benefit of developing distributed leadership where the leaders try to develop collaborative working practice and it further helps the staff members to work faster and finish the work cooperatively. This further helps to distribute the working pressure and fulfil the job objective successfully.

Equal chances to serve:

Distributed leaders are efficient to maintain transparency and accountability in the organisation and it further boosts the performance of the staff in long run were the employees become experienced to work in the tourism industry and perform efficiently. The distributed leaders are able to provide equal opportunity to each staff in the tourism company so that they would feel valued and get proper scope to share their feedback and perspectives.

Empowering organisational structure:

The empowerments of the organisational structure are there in the tourism industry where the distributed leaders try to develop vertical structure as per the functions and working activities of the companies. The departmental heads are also efficient to handle the staff members and their subordinates with proper planning and empower them in the organisation for successful cooperative decision making practice. Resources and responsibilities both are distributed among the subordinates.

Reducing leadership responsibility:

Distributed leadership style is related to distributing the rules and responsibilities among the subordinates and thus it hereby helps to reduce the leader’s burden and improve cooperation for working as a partnership practice so that every member in the tourism sector can participate and they can work collaboratively.

Improving leader’s capacity:

The leaders in the tourism sector become capable of handing the team members efficiently where the leaders try to lead the subordinates with proper support and direction. Distributed leaders are also able to encourage the subordinates and help them to work efficiently in the workplace to meet the organisational objectives.

Combine expertise in the organisations:

As per the literature review, the leader under distributed leadership style prefer to engage with the subordinates in managerial tasks, ensuring accountability, instructional monitoring, budget oversights, and addressing issues associated with the subordinates. The distributed leaders in tourism sector is hereby playing crucial role in developing combined workplace and it further maximises productivity and performance of the staff in the organisations.

Emerging Themes

The major challenges in this study include those that affect the entire industry and they include environmental challenges, increase in competition, and lack of revenue generation.

Environmental Challenges

Environmental problems that largely affect firms in the tourism industry have been a challenge for the distributed leaders as seen in the analysis of the interview transcripts. In the current tourism market, one of the major environmental challenges highlighted from the analysis is the high temperature in Dubai that affects the firm across different aspects. Respondent GM7 revealed:

“…in UAE very hot so I have to follow up with the cooling system and the parking should be covered as we don’t want our guests to be suffered…” (GM7)

Another environmental challenge is hygiene and sanitation issue that makes the hotel environment unconducive for humans. In this regard, none of the guests will be motivated to book hotels they have knowledge about their bad experience in hygiene and sanitation. Respondent GM 12, for instance, highlighted hygiene issues, keeping rooms clean and spotless as a challenge. This is because many managers are left with no option other than hiring a facility management company to provide this outsourced service. Equally, it was found to be important to delegate to the departmental heads and staff duties for better services in terms of hygiene and sanitation. For example, Respondent GM12 underlined:

“…the housekeeping department should have a full authority to clean and do their best to keep the hygiene of the room in a good matter. That leads our guests to love our services.” (GM12)

Increased Competition

Among the tourism challenges affecting the leaders supporting distributed leadership in the tourism industry are the growth in the industry and increased competition. Respondent GM1, GM9, GM25 and GM38 indicated that increased competition could be a contributing factor to the hospitality business’ inability to attract and retain customers. On the other hand, interviewee GM5 argued that increasing competition is the root cause of employee high turnover rates leading to the lack of skilled labour in some hotels unable to meet customer expectations. Also, GM30 pointed out that the high competition in Dubai is a big challenge as travellers always look for the perfect accommodation. Due to very high demand for accommodation, the competition is also high in this business, especially in Dubai. In the crowded travel spots, you can see hotels at every locality. According to GM26:

“Today’s competition keeps on growing day by day, and thus help of technologies is taken to remain in the competition and if you are not matching the speed of market then you are nowhere in this industry.” (GM26)

There are many issues surrounding increased competition and these were explained by GM37 who said:

“In this time the challenge is for the sales department how to bring the revenue because the competition is very tuff so how to bring the revenue is a big challenge, how to bring the customer from another hotel because hotels have become too much in Dubai and Sharjah and how to bring them is the big challenge this is my opinion.” (GM37)

Conclusion

In this chapter, the findings following an analysis of the interview data with 40 managers in the UAE tourism industry have been presented. The findings have answered the current research questions. Particularly four issues were being examined including:

The current conceptualizations of distributed leadership within the tourism industry.

The challenges of distributed leadership within the tourism industry

Distributed leadership themes in the tourism industry which contributes to existing theory and facilitates a greater understanding of the phenomenon.

The distributed leadership attributes in the tourism sector

The distributed leadership benefits in the tourism sector.

During the interviews, distributed leadership was defined as a leadership practice of empowering and delegating leadership duties to other workers or members. Moreover, the challenges linked to distributed leadership style in the tourism industry were explored. These included coordination and communication challenges, cultural and coordination challenges, and decision-making challenges. Other emerging themes associated with challenges include environmental challenges and increased competition. Also, the study explored attributes of leaders supporting distributed leadership and these were categorized into three groups including honesty and integrity, result-oriented and influencer. It would be beneficial for the leaders to follow the distributed leadership approach for maximising their performance and in this regard, the hospitality industry can be growing efficiently by serving the clients as per their needs and preferences. The leader can improve the strategy of leading the staff members and mangers in the hospitality business firms where the leaders must support and direct the team members as well as enhance communication, improve cooperation, empower the whole team for making fruitful and creative decision to improve the quality of hospitality services and this further helps the leader to mitigate the challenges and run the hospitality companies efficiently.