Developing Effective Leadership Styles in the Hotel Industry: Identifying key Contextual Factors

The integration of situational leadership Theory (SLT) principles is acknowledged to result in a more orderly and conducive learning environment. However, SLT has placed more significance on employee readiness levels when deciding on a leadership style to influence staff development. It is however essential to examine other factors that could be considered in addition, in these decisions. This research explored the contextual factors that need to be considered, alongside staff readiness level when deciding on a SLT leadership style among SME hotel staff. This qualitative and exploratory study adopted a multiple-case study strategy using a purposive-homogenous sample of thirty staff, from ten 2-star SME hotels and analysed data from semi-structured interviews through latent thematic analysis and presented the results descriptively with the aid of the Gioia technique. The findings provide practical implications for hotel managers to consider contextual factors when deciding on SLT leadership styles to influence staff development, and for HRD practitioners to also incorporate context considerations into leadership training manuals that are targeted at building the capacities of SME hotel managers and leaders as contextual factors have received little attention in the leadership literature, particularly among SMEs.