Preparing for a Successful Career in Hospitality: Career Goals

In order to achieve success in the hospitality industry, it is essential to have a clear understanding of your career goals. Writing a hospitality career goals essay can be an effective way to identify your goals and develop a plan to achieve them. Tourism has become a major growth sector in the world and many countries rely on it as their main source of income. As a result, hotel management has become a highly sought-after profession. However, due to the lack of skilled and experienced applicants, it can be challenging to succeed as a hotel manager. Developing the necessary skills and qualities is crucial to navigate and lead your establishment to success in this industry.

To thrive in hospitality field, I recognize that one must develop a strong set of unique human capital mix skills, which will help to meet the demand of this industry, especially interpersonal skills which are the skills used by a person to interact with others properly. The term refers to an employee’s ability to get along with others including guests and other coworkers while getting the job done. In fact, I must become my own career coach. Besides getting experience after graduation from the program, developing the skills mix will be an essential part to climb the ladder of the future career and it plays an important role that determine success of a strong leader. In my opinion, having a successful career means that being a leader in the future and I realize that being a leader is different from what it was 10 or even 5 years ago. Today’s workplace change constantly with many more demands. Leading and managing have moved well beyond just telling my team to “get it done”. Therefore, if I become a leader in hospitality industry one day, I would be responsible for delivering results however they are defined. In the end, it is not just about effort, but what really counts is what is accomplished.

I must keep this thought in the forefront of my mind as a guide to my activity. I believe that great leaders spend their energy on the most effective activities to achieve the greatest outcomes. Personally, I would focus on my listening skills since to deliver the best customer experience in hospitality, I must know my guests and my team. In addition, everything I do needs to be directed at what my guest demand and future demand are. To think outside of the box and find the answer of the question: “What do guests want?” I must look beyond your area, listen actively to guests’ and employees’ needs and feedbacks Being good leader also means being good in dealing with conflict. “A cornerstone of working effectively with people is being very good at dealing with conflict”.

In the workplace, conflict is going to happen. I must not have conflict to be counterproductive. I must learn how to successfully resolve conflict and harness the best ideas among the employees and guests. To achieve what I have planned, I will find a hospitality companies and gain global working experience around the world after graduation. Since the nature of the industry is global and international, what I have learnt would help to accomplish my goal. I realize that I would need to experience in many different roles inside the industry: front desk agents, housekeeping, maintenance, event planning. In addition, working for different countries would help me to understand more about cultures and policies of the area. To put in another word, it can be said that I would look for more challenge work to learn and grow myself internally and keep myself always staying out of comfort zone. When I am well prepared, I would be a strong leader in the future. This course is about preparing the students with a mindset and skills of a future leader in hospitality industry and this is the chapter that mentions the things students need to do to accomplish that. It helps students to realize that they have to strike for their own competitive advantages and how they should see the nature of hospitality employment which are “resources exchange”. After graduation, students will have the right knowledge, skills and abilities to get through the door. It is about stepping the first foot in the industry and moving on through promotion in their career or managing their own hospitality establishments.

The article “5 Keys to Successful Hospitality Leadership” explains the key features that are essential for future leaders in hospitality field. It stated that in order to achieve the goal, companies must have a vision and the vision is not only from the leaders but also for everyone in the companies by sharing that vision. In addition, leaders must inspire the sense of meaning and purpose to employees. A research about more than 100 CEOs and over 8, 000 employees have concluded that “leaders who were clear about their values delivered as much as five times greater returns for their organizations as did leaders of weak character”. Also, the article has pointed out that confidence is an important skill to possess as a leader, and so is vulnerability: However, having vulnerability as a leader is just as essential to recognize and appreciate. Every leader has vulnerability, but great leaders have the self-awareness to recognize this fact and feel comfortable expressing their weaknesses. Showing vulnerability is a relatable trait and Geoff Ballotti finds that, “The greatest leaders I know out there are very comfortable talking about their weaknesses, about what it is that they need to work on, to improve upon, and to do better”. Effective leaders invest the thinking, the time, the energy and are prepared for the vulnerability of connecting with others. Great leaders inspire their coworkers and guests by genuinely connecting to them through a consistent presence and visibility. Visibility as a leader not only includes having a physical presence, but also aligning everyone to the purpose behind their shared vision through natural conversations and casual exchanges on a daily basis.

In conclusion, the author stated that great leaders are those who surround themselves with great people who are brighter, and smarter, and more diverse in thought than they are. The have the capability of building a team that knows how to support and trust each other. All good leaders were once followers themselves and have learned to establish and foster trust over time and without followers, great leaders cannot lead.

Works Cited

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