What Does a Hospitality Leadership Coach Actually Do?
A hospitality leadership coach helps C-suite executives, VPs, GMs, directors and owners in hotels, restaurants and other service businesses lead people better. Not run the place better. You've got that covered. Your coach asks the hard questions, talks to your team, and keeps you honest on the stuff you said you'd change.
Okay, that's the brochure. The real thing has a lot more questions, some feedback that stings a little, and (in my experience, every single time) one moment where the leader stares at the ceiling and says, "Huh. I do that, don't I?"
Key takeaways
Your coach works on you. The menu, the rate strategy and the labor model stay yours.
No advice on day one. First your coach talks to your boss, a few peers, your direct reports. Maybe runs a 360.
Plan on about six months, with goals your boss or owner signs off on and can actually watch happen.
You're paying for self-awareness, mostly. Catching yourself mid-habit when the heat's on, and picking a different move.
A coach who's worked a double never needs pre-shift explained. Saves you three sessions, easy.
What does a hospitality leadership coach do in a typical engagement?
Six months, give or take, and the path is simple. Listen. Pick a few goals. Practice on the job. See if anybody noticed. We named it D²E³ at Hospitality Leadership Coach (HLC). A little nerdy, I know. It works.
Discover. We talk with you, then with your boss, a few peers and your direct reports. Usually there's a 360 or a DiSC in there too. No advice yet.
Design. We land on two or three things to work on (three, tops) and agree with your sponsor on what better looks like.
Execute. The sessions. We work on what actually happened that week: the owner call, the GM meeting, the department head who missed the Friday deadline. Again.
Evaluate. Halfway through, we sit down with your sponsor. Can other people see the change? That's the whole point.
Evolve. We measure again and make a plan so the new habits stick around after we're gone.
Notice what's missing? Nobody touches your SOPs. Nobody tells you to switch purveyors. The coach's job is the leader, and the operation gets better because the leader does. (You already know how to run the place. That's how you got the keys.)
How is a leadership coach different from a consultant, trainer or mentor?
Coaches pull answers out of you. A consultant, a trainer or a mentor mostly hands you theirs. The International Coaching Federation calls coaching a partnership, built on questions that make you think, aimed at getting you closer to your full potential, personal and professional. Which, in plain GM speak, sounds like this: I ask. You think. You decide. You go do the thing. Then I ask how it went. (Annoying? A little. Effective? Very.)
Coach: asks. Listens. Says what they see. Then checks whether you did what you said. Call one when you know the job cold, but you've hit a ceiling, or the job just doubled.
Consultant: pops the hood on the business and hands you a fix list. Call one when the P&L, systems or concept need an outside expert.
Trainer: teaches the whole room one skill. Call one when everybody on the management team needs the same base.
Mentor: tells you how they did it. Call one when you want advice from somebody who's already been where you're headed.
Honestly? Most hotel and restaurant groups end up using all four eventually. Consultants fix the business; coaches work on the person running it. (Coaching vs. training is a whole other argument. Article coming.)
What does a coach see that a busy leader can't?
A coach sees the patterns a leader is too close, too busy or too proud to notice, and asks the questions nobody on the team will ask. I know this one from the wrong side of the table.
Twenty-some years ago, in my restaurant years in Las Vegas, I was young, eager and very sure my job was to protect the business. We hosted a VIP birthday party for the mother of a famous music mogul, and she was given a small charm: a solid gold pig. Somewhere between the wrapping paper, the desserts and the plates, the pig went missing.
So I went to work. I asked question after question, the kind that could easily come across as rude, all to keep the restaurant from paying for a golden pig last seen on the side of a tiramisu plate. Brilliant. The pig turned up as I was acting like a jerk to the birthday girl. Making it right cost us $500 in gift certificates to get them to come back.
Nobody sat me down afterward and asked, "What were you really protecting that night?" That question, asked at the right moment, is most of what a good coach does. Not to shame anyone. To help you see it, so next time you choose differently. Experience didn't make me wiser that night. Reflection, years later, did.
Who is hospitality leadership coaching for, and who is it not for?
Hospitality leadership coaching is for leaders whose results now depend on other leaders: GMs, directors, regional and area leaders, owners and executives in hotels, restaurants, healthcare and senior living. That matters because, according to Gallup research (2015), managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement across business units. The person at the top of the org chart sets the weather.
Coaching tends to pay off fastest when:
You just got a bigger job: your first GM seat, a second property, a regional role
You're the bottleneck, and the team waits for you on every decision
The owner calls every Sunday night and you've started to dread the phone
Your leadership team doesn't trust each other
You're being groomed for the next seat
It's not a fit if the leader was "sent" to coaching and doesn't want it, if the business really needs a new concept or new systems (call a consultant), or if what's going on calls for a therapist. If someone doesn't want to be coached, the best coach in the world can't help them. At HLC, Senior Leader & High-Potential Coaching for GMs, regional leaders and department heads is $15,000, and hospitality executive coaching for C-suite executives and owners starts at $20,000, always with an ICF Master Certified Coach. Developing a whole bench of leaders across properties? That's an enterprise partnership, priced by custom quote. Every engagement carries our service guarantee.
In short
Bottom of the glass: your coach listens first, picks a couple of goals with you and your sponsor, works on whatever blew up this week, and checks whether your people notice. You don't have to be a superhero. Superhero execs are a myth anyway. You need better questions, and somebody stubborn enough to keep asking them.
Frequently asked questions
Will a leadership coach tell me how to run my hotel or restaurant?
Nope. Your coach gets the operation. The work, though, is on you: the calls you make, what you let go of, how you talk to people and how you hold them to it. Something broken in the operation itself? Call a consultant.
Is what I tell my coach confidential?
Yes. At HLC, your sponsor helps set the goals and hears about progress. What you actually say in the room stays in the room.
How often do you meet with a leadership coach?
Depends on you. HLC sessions get scheduled around your life, mostly virtual, in person if you want it, so they fit between shifts, owner meetings and the airport.
Does a hospitality leadership coach need to have run a hotel or restaurant?
It isn't required, but it saves a lot of time, because no session gets spent explaining what a bad Saturday night or a budget review feels like. All three HLC coaches ran hospitality operations before they coached them. For more on picking the right person, see how to choose an executive coach.
The bottom line
A hospitality leadership coach helps a capable operator become the leader the job now needs, by asking the questions you're too busy to ask yourself. If you're wondering whether that's you, or one of your GMs, I'm always happy to talk about it. Take a look at hospitality executive coaching, or book a discovery call.
Clifton Carmody, PCC, ACTC, is the founder of Hospitality Leadership Coach. He started as a dishwasher at 16, spent 20+ years running hotels and restaurants, and has 2,500+ hours as an ICF Professional Certified Coach.
Work with Hospitality Leadership Coach (HLC)
ICF-credentialed executive coaching for hospitality and service leaders. Explore hospitality executive coaching, senior leader and high-potential coaching, hotel leadership coaching, restaurant leadership coaching and team coaching, or book a discovery call.
