While I was responsible for smaller teams before my first real management position was as Assistant Housekeeping Manager in New York. I didn’t know much about management, let alone leadership at this point. I was very good at what I was doing and knew exactly how things had to get done the right way, but I didn’t know yet how to lead people or how to create a successful culture.

The unionized environment in New York is an environment of entitlement, and many discussions evolve around who is right, who is wrong, whose job it is, whose fault it is, and of course most importantly who is to blame. As a manager you’ll find yourself involved into these discussions of whose job it is and whose fault it is a lot, if you like it or not you’ll get sucked right into it.

Back then I couldn’t appreciate the importance of this matter as much as I do today, and I always tried my best to get to the bottom of each conflict, understand who is responsible, and focused my energy on supporting who is right and  hold accountable who is wrong, and this is your job and this is mine – not realizing yet that I was only supporting an environment and a never ending cycle that was counterproductive to what makes hospitality successful.

Yes, successful teams do have a structure and guidelines of responsibilities as well – it absolutely doesn’t work without that – but they focus their energy not on fighting for who is right or who is to blame, they take ownership if no one else does, no matter who should be doing it, and they always look at themselves first when things go wrong and try to improve. Successful teams set the highest standards for themselves and others, and hold themselves and others accountable to these high standards as well, but they do support each other achieving their goals and not hope for the other person to fail. I always say that things don’t go wrong because one person or team makes a mistake, things go wrong because one person drops the ball, and everyone else standing around doesn’t bother to pick it up because it is their responsibility or because they are too busy arguing that it isn’t their fault that the ball got dropped in the first place.

As a leader it is of course your job to set a clear structure of responsibilities and hold everyone accountable to their responsibilities, otherwise things will probably not get done at all, but beyond that it is critical to build a culture of taking ownership and supporting each other to succeed. A culture where we focus on what else we could have done better to avoid mistakes from happening, rather than trying to blame others.

Yes, I know this makes sense, but it’s not that easy to accomplish, and believe me, this culture needs to come from the top. Your talent will mirror your behavior, thoughts and actions, so try your best to always set the best example.

Any team and hotel that succeeds with enabling this positive culture of ownership will achieve high employee satisfaction, guest satisfaction and ultimately be successful.

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