Abstract
AbstractThis qualitative study focuses on gaining insights into the barriers and sources of support African American senior hotel leaders report to be beneficial in their career advancement. The study’s participants are current hotel senior leaders holding roles of vice president, corporate director, hotel general manager, and hotel director. Literature covering African Americans in senior leadership roles, system challenges, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), leadership and career advancement, employee engagement, and leadership philosophies form the foundation to compare to the study’s findings. A phenomenological research design was used, and interviews were conducted with current African American senior hotel leaders. From the interviews, four major themes emerged from the study’s findings: Barriers faced by African Americans for career advancement can be caused by societal and workplace issues and create individual mental barriers. Personal attitudes toward racial issues are related to career advancement. Mentors play a vital role in career promotion. Finally, leadership traits crucial for career advancement can come from lessons learned from experienced barriers, personal mental models, and the role of mentors. Proposed solutions from this research entail engaging with a large hotel management company to create a best practices framework derived from the lessons of this study. This framework will be created for hotel leaders to improve their mentoring skills to advance aspiring African American hotel leaders and other people of color (POC). Similarly, a hotel industry association will be consulted to allow this framework to become a leadership development resource for their members. Upon successful implementation, a determination will be made for broader use of the framework with academic institutions and other organizations interested in DEI programming and leadership development.
Keywords: African American, hotels, leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion