EHL’s new Hotel General Management Program aims to help professionals progress in their careers by enhancing their management, leadership and personal skills. Stéphane Haddad, director of the program, explains the impetus behind it in the following interview, sharing insights into the program’s vision and objectives.

As Associate Dean in charge of Executive Education at EHL, Stéphane Haddad’s focus is on lifelong learning for professionals. The department’s aim is to serve the professional world by giving employees the skills they require to step up into management and leadership roles, whether in hospitality or in the wider service industry, where such competencies are increasingly seen as key to success.

With hospitality suffering from a talent shortage since the pandemic, it’s evermore essential to nurture and develop the careers of existing employees who have the potential to go further. EHL Graduate School’s new Hotel General Management program aims to meet that need. Over nine weeks – eight online and one onsite at EHL – this unique program helps talented managers cultivate the hard and soft skills they require in order to master management excellence, take on further responsibility, and progress in their careers.

The skills that we bring in this program really enable participants to tackle the strategic dimension of managing a hospitality business, as well as the leadership skills needed to manage people, either at the property level or at the corporate level where they may be led to continue their career progression.

In today’s hospitality landscape, what does “management excellence” mean to you?

Management excellence really means mastering a combination of competencies – hard skills as well as soft skills. It is about navigating through complexity, making evidence - and data-based decisions, and that relates to a number of hard skills with regards to management.

It’s also about taking a new approach to leadership – leading people, leading teams – with a human-centric focus.

How is the Hotel General Management Program structured to teach this?

The program is built around a combination of online and onsite learning. Participants will first go through three core online modules,

  • The first tackles the development of a clear understanding of the hospitality world, the different stakeholders, and industry dynamics.
  • The second module addresses financial and operational effectiveness,
  • and the third covers aspects of people management.

In addition, participants will be able to choose an elective, which will either cover stakeholder management or develop their skills with regards to revenue management. During the onsite week, we will focus more on leadership, sustainability and technology.

The program will also comprise individual coaching sessions which will identify and develop participants’ leadership styles for more efficient management.

To talk first about stakeholders, what elements do you think are critical nowadays to keeping them happy?

  • The first is to have effective communication in place between the general manager and the different stakeholders that surround the hospitality business.
  • The second is to be able, through that effective communication, to build a trust-based relationship over a long-term period.

The program will provide a number of tools and practical examples as to how to develop a trust-based relationship. This revolves around mastering hard management skills and revenue management so that performance is delivered and communication is not just based on words but on hard facts.

Related to good communication, why is it important for today’s hotel managers to master the art of influencing?

The hospitality industry is very complex, with multiple participants at different levels. In the role of an executive a general manager of a property, it is important first to understand who those stakeholders are, whether we are talking about hotel owners, hotel operators, the brands that may be involved, as well as customers and, not least, employees.

Developing skills to influence, and communicate through influence, is very important to address each of those stakeholders, and this is a focus of the program.

What key financial and operation management skills are required in this industry?

It is all about capturing the information that hospitality businesses have and actually synthesizing it all to make decisions.

We cover multiple aspects in this program: analyzing financial statements and the effectiveness of KPIs; understanding the multi-dimensionality of hospitality businesses, such as the real estate side of the businesses; and integrating all of this. Another important aspect is maximizing revenues and performance, and therefore in this complex world of selling hospitality activities with different channels, to actually understand the environment and play within each of these channels of distribution with a view to optimizing revenues.

How does the program train leaders to foster collaboration and drive high performance?

We have assembled a series of workshops and activities as regards to personal and professional leadership development. The whole underlying rationale for these workshops is about developing self-awareness, developing an understanding of how to manage individuals and teams. We do this through a combination of individual coaching sessions and leadership workshops, which will enable participants to develop their emotional intelligence and their awareness of those key issues for leadership.

Through exchanges with other participants, the workshops will help individuals build their own leadership style and have a better understanding of their strengths and their areas for improvement in the leadership journey.

Given these leaders will be dealing with a changing landscape, can you tell us what emerging trends you see shaping the future of hospitality management?

The hospitality industry is faced with a number of trends that are impacting it quite substantially.

  • The first one is the increasing focus on human-based interactions, and the program tries to address this through a specific online module on driving employee performance, as well as bringing soft skills in terms of managing people and teams.
  • The second trend relates to the impact of the sustainability agenda, in how to evolve the business model and operations, and during the onsite week of the program we cover sustainability at length.
  • Finally, there is clearly a trend of digitalization with the advent of AI. This is a topic that we address during the onsite week session through a focus on technology and its impact on the industry.

What makes EHL’s approach to leadership training stand out?

We believe in applied learning. This is the DNA of EHL; this is the DNA of the program.

So we offer a combination of learning and practicing activities through the online modules, through the onsite sessions, through the individual coaching sessions, which provide real life examples and case studies, and through opportunities for the participants to share their respective experiences with others and to learn from them as well as from faculty experts. We believe this is key to becoming a leader in this fast-evolving world.

For professionals looking to advance their careers, why would this program be a pivotal investment in their future?

It offers three key pillars towards their upskilling and personal development.

  • The first is to enable them to gain a full understanding of the complex world of hospitality – the web of interactions that exist within the different stakeholders that are an integral part of this industry.
  • The second pillar is about enhancing their management skills towards efficiency of the business, through improving skills on revenue management, addressing financial performance and asset performance on the real estate side as well as the business side.
  • The third pillar aims to identify and upskill their leadership competencies and to have an introspective journey to bring self-awareness in terms of their ability to motivate and lead people in teams.

What impact might graduates of this program have on the hospitality industry?

We expect that they will be able to drive not only performance in their future roles in the industry, but also address the substantial changes that are upcoming. Whether that be in terms of managing and leading teams and taking into account the new dynamics that have emerged in recent years, or addressing sustainability, technology and the impact of those two considerations on the industry.

And to enable the industry to promote itself towards the greater audience and to reinvent itself altogether.

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