Leadership Interview

In this project, I will disclose more details about the two leaders’ background / career and their roles / responsibilities of an exemplary manager.

My first leader that I had a chance to interview and made an observation on was Remi Faubel,who has been assigned as General Manager of Novotel Nha Trang hotel that situated in Vietnam. Mr. Faubel is accountable for daily operation and the financial performance of the hotel.From the interview, I expected to understand better the diverse demonstration of business management as a whole and hotel management more specifically. As the interview continued, Mr. Faubel further introduced me to his jobalong with the challenges he has encountered while working as a General Manager.

Mr. Faubel graduated from Collège privé Saint Bénigne – Dijon, France as a sales professional. Before officially holding the hotel manager position, Mr. Faubel stated that he has previously started his career in kitchen as chef then develop himself in management. Hebegan his hospitality career in 1999 and has been with Accor Hotels group since 2008. He was part of the AH group for more than ten years and he has developed his skills in different professions such as hotel management, food, and beverage.

As a general manager for a hotel, Mr. Faubel’s main responsibilities are periodically coordinate with relevant departments to make annual business plans, quarterly for the hotel and directly responsible for business strategy, marketing, budget management, revenue – profit of the hotel. He mentioned that one of many important tasks he regularly performs is supervising the operation of hotel departments, ensuring efficiency, maintaining the best quality services to maximise profits. Moreover, he has to be incisive when handling complaints of guests, and problems arising in the hotel that lower level staff could not resolve. He regularly carries out weekly meetings, and sometimes unexpected conferences in the hotel. At the end of the year, he is responsible for directly present all the final statistics data and make periodic financial reports to the hotel owner.

Based on my observation, he regularly checking the quality of the living room, VIP living room, toilet hall, and walkways and examplifying quality control of products and services to serve guests better.Monitoring and adjusting overall attitudes of employees and quality of service, and controlling the maintenance and upgrading of equipment and property of the hotel are all the work that need to be completed by Mr. Faubel. The leader then discussed several encounters he has to deal during his workday involvingproblems arising in the hotel such as guest complain about the quality service and fire incident.

Mr. Faubel emphasised his most preferred leadership style is coaching and hands-on management because he is more aware of coaching and training needs by working closely with employees. He has more regular contact with customers and can help build good customer relationships. At work, he manages staff from all departments as well as communicate effectively with guests. He needs to indicate to employees that they are working properly and encourage them if needed, or always with a bright smile with guests so they realise that the decision to choose your hotel is right and a sense of warm welcoming. Communicating with employees or guests is not just about helping him to build closer relationships and interaction with them, but it also helps him understand what they are thinking, and what they want to share with him in order to improve the quality services and the image of our hotel.

My second leader is Nghi Nguyen, a manager of a local restaurant named China Chen.

Nghi Nguyen has five years experiences in the field and she presented me what are the necessary skills and the difficulties she faces as a restaurant manager. Ms Nguyen has a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in human resource management, but she also pursued a certificate in Food Safety Management. She had worked as a manager in “Koi” restaurant in Milpitas for two years before working at “China Chen”.