A study on the effect of the servant leadership style of hotel managers on employees’ trust

The purpose of this study is to examine how a hotel manager’s servant leadership influences trust among hotel employees and suggest implications related to it.

For the research, five-star hotels located in Seoul were chosen. As a selection method, this author considered the total number of chain hotels and local hotels and also the number of first-class and second-class hotels and then chose total 10 hotels. To each first-class hotel, 30 sheets were distributed, and the total was 300, and to second-class hotels, 20 were distributed, and the total was 500. Among the total 500 questionnaire sheets, 462 were collected. Except for 31 sheets unreliably answered, 431 went through positive analysis. To verify study questions, SPSS 21.0 was employed.

Through factor analysis on servant leadership, this author has drawn seven factors, vision provision, growth support, community formation, empathy, communication, teamwork, and vocation. Through factor analysis on trust, two factors, organizational trust and superior trust, have been found. To verify the effects of a hotel manager’s servant leadership on hotel employees’ trust, multiple regression analysis was performed. According to the results of analyzing correlation between servant leadership and trust, the factors of servant leadership influencing superior trust are found to be growth support, vocation, empathy, communication, community formation, and vision provision, and those influencing organizational trust are community formation, teamwork, and vision provision.

In building up trust with organizational members, hotel managers should guarantee their autonomy at work, provide opportunity for self-development, and encourage them constantly. Also, they should take the initiative and set an example.