LEADERSHIP AND HOTEL PERFORMANCE IN MOZAMBIQUE
Leadership; Hotel performance; Mozambican hospitality.
The present study, of an exploratory-descriptive nature and quantitative approach, aimed to identify the relationship between leadership and hotel performance in Mozambican hospitality. Two instruments were used for the research: one on leadership containing 28 indicators, answered by employees without managerial or supervisory positions, adapted from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) 6S Form developed by Bass and Avolio (2004); and one on hotel performance adapted from the instrument developed by Medeiros (2003), containing 36 indicators, including occupancy rate, average daily rate, average length of stay, overall performance, and the quality of services provided, which was answered by managers. The data were analyzed using statistical techniques of factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. A total of 124 employees from various operational areas and 23 hotel managers from the three main Mozambican cities, Maputo, Beira, and Nampula, were interviewed. As the main results, seven latent dimensions of leadership were identified, with a total explained variance of 79.7%. A causal relationship was also found showing that two latent dimensions of leadership explain (R2) 28.7% of the business performance of the hotels surveyed, with the individualized consideration dimension negatively influencing hotel performance (β = -0.38), and the idealized influence (charisma) dimension positively influencing hotel performance (β = 0.36). It is concluded that the predominant leadership style in Mozambican hospitality is charismatic leadership (idealized influence), explained in 41.6%, and that leadership styles influence the business performance of hotels in Mozambique.