Leadership in the Hotel Industry : Evidence from Canada

This research explored the relationships between demographic factors of gender, age, education and tenure on leadership competencies of Canadian hotel general managers and the impact of leadership competencies on hotel performance. This timely study captures general managers during times of extreme environmental challenges and used the New Zealand Institute of Management Capability Index to capture leadership competencies. A regression was used to analyze the relationship between demographics and leadership competencies and also between leadership competencies and hotel performance as measured by revenue per available room (RevPAR). Findings indicated that there was a weak relationship between tenure and People Leadership, one of the three leadership competencies. Visionary and Strategic Leadership had a statistically significant positive impact on RevPAR. This confirms leadership research in the field demonstrating that aspects of transformational leadership lead to improved organizational performance