7 Traits of a Top Hotel Manager

The secret of any successful hotel lies in its manager, pulling all the threads together behind the scenes.

Basil Fawlty wouldn’t cut it in the contemporary hotel world, where leaky pipes and horrendous customer service are a thing of the past.

So what essential qualities should you look for in a hotel manager to make your establishment shine?

1. Being a great motivator

Top hotel managers command respect at all times through their ability to motivate, encourage and inspire. They can smile through the worst calamity and still manage to bring it all together when needed.

Cheer-leading and building their team, they direct with a light but firm hand and always save the day.

2. Ability to share and educate

The best managers recognise talent when they see it and know how to develop it. They are adept at sharing valuable knowledge, speaking in terms that everyone can understand and teaching the core skills and values of the hospitality industry.

3. Communicating at every level

Hotel managers must be comfortable communicating on many different levels and with a wide variety of people. Every interaction is important and should be seen as an opportunity for growth and enhanced customer service.

4. Being a great listener

A good manager will understand the value of listening to their staff, in order to understand their concerns and help them develop and learn.

A great manager, on the other hand, will listen in order to develop their own expertise too – knowing that however skilled they are, there is always something to be learned from others.

5. Being a great collaborator

Hotel managers need to collaborate widely and regularly with their team in order to trouble-shoot existing problems and pre-empt future ones.

This is also an excellent way to promote team building and show staff they understand and respect their challenges.

6. Being decisive

No hotel manager can survive without being decisive. They can never let over-thinking or dithering get in the way of a clear, cool-headed decision.

Sometimes it’s a question of taking a risk. But the manager has ultimate responsibility for averting or mopping up a disaster – and they must own the consequences if they don’t hit the mark.

7. Always striving to improve

Those in the hotel management elite have vision, always seeking a better way to do something or a more appealing approach. They have enthusiasm for change, curiosity about what’s going in the hospitality world, and the ability to keep abreast of breaking industry news.

The list of valuable attributes could go on and on – presenting a human face, being consistently positive, and admitting when they are wrong, for starters.

If this is an imposing list, consider using a hospitality recruitment agency to find a hotel manager with the x factor.

A specialist hospitality agency, such as Frontline has the experience and recruitment strategy to hone in on those vital characteristics in candidates, giving you a far greater chance of striking management gold.