Who can be a successful leader of a highly effective tourism association in 2023?

Lead­er­ship has nev­er been more chal­len­ging, accord­ing to K Michael Haywood. 

Who can respond to mul­tiple (real and ima­gined) crises, bal­ance com­pet­ing stake­hold­er demands with­in a coher­ent vis­ion, and main­tain one’s own men­tal health while attend­ing to the feel­ings of others? 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.)

In the “Good Tour­ism” Insight Bites ques­tion, ‘Who’s the new boss? Asia Pacific tour­ism industry asso­ci­ation seeks lead­er’ (June 13), the responses provided typ­ic­al, but far from com­plete, answers. 

Being cap­able and pos­sess­ing the so-called attrib­utes of lead­er­ship is all well and good, but cap­ab­il­ity must be put to appro­pri­ate and pur­pose­ful use. 

Because the most effect­ive lead­ers out­per­form and strive for excel­lence, poten­tial can­did­ates have to be judged on how their essen­tial attrib­utes have been applied in regard to set­ting dir­ec­tion, mobil­ising indi­vidu­al com­mit­ment, and engen­der­ing organ­isa­tion­al and des­tin­a­tion capability. 

Their abil­ity (or how they intend) to achieve and deliv­er res­ults rel­ev­ant for asso­ci­ations has to be clearly evid­ent. After all, such res­ults can be obtuse and multi-faceted giv­en that mem­bers (who only join and par­ti­cip­ate in asso­ci­ations when they add value to their organ­isa­tions) have var­ied, yet pre­cise, expect­a­tions and requirements.

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged ‘Travel & tour­ism industry policy and gov­ernance’

Though no men­tion was made of the need for suc­ces­sion plan­ning, I found it unusu­al why respond­ents seem­ingly ignored how can­did­ates would have to meet the evolving needs, shift­ing require­ments, and expans­ive roles of associations. 

Asso­ci­ations, regard­less of the industry, are hav­ing to learn how to: 

• Adapt to a tumul­tu­ous world of poly-crises;
• Embrace their inter-dependencies; 
• Cooper­ate, co-cre­ate, and innov­ate in forth­right and trans­par­ent ways; 
• Cre­ate value; and 
• Improve the qual­ity-of-life in the regions they represent.

In this new land­scape, the defin­i­tions of ‘good’ lead­er­ship are con­tinu­ally being re-writ­ten. The role of industry asso­ci­ations and civil part­ner­ships is rap­idly expand­ing, as explored in the High Mead­ows Insti­tute report. 

‘It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves’

Today, all lead­ers of asso­ci­ations are expec­ted to be flu­ent in address­ing an ever-expand­ing set of con­cerns, although, as one exec­ut­ive implored: “The extern­al pull is becom­ing so great — to man­age issues and pres­sures and act­iv­ism — that to be the CEO in a tra­di­tion­al sense is becom­ing impossible.” 

Clearly the ascent to becom­ing a lead­er has become steep­er and more challenging. 

For pro­spect­ive lead­ers, it’s no longer about skills and com­pet­en­cies in under­tak­ing the job. Rather it’s about the men­tal capa­city and shifts required in mak­ing trans­itions; man­aging the scru­tiny and intens­ity of the job; and deal­ing with the per­ils and uncer­tain­ties char­ac­ter­ist­ic of the lead role. 

As Edmund Hil­lary, the first man to climb Mt Everest, once said: “It’s not the moun­tain we con­quer, but ourselves.” 

Ensur­ing an organisation’s long-term suc­cess over the course of unknow­able and unpre­dict­able futures rep­res­ents a for­mid­able undertaking. 

Hav­ing served on boards of dir­ect­ors, and in inter­ac­tions with a num­ber of CEOs over the years, I’ve learned that few, ini­tially, ever felt that they had suf­fi­cient exper­i­ence and skills to make decisions on their own. 

Once on the job, they seemed to be seek­ing per­mis­sion. Only with time, by gain­ing con­fid­ence and build­ing self-aware­ness, were they able to mas­ter the intens­ity (and loneli­ness) inher­ent in the role.

As part of seni­or recruit­ing teams for a num­ber of organ­isa­tions, I‘ve always been inter­ested in how lead­ers gain self-con­fid­ence and what it entails. 

I like to ask pro­spect­ive candidates: 

• Who are you as a leader? 
• What do you most care about? 
• What are your unwaver­ing values? 
• What do you do to get the best out of people? 
• How do you define value for your mem­ber states and communities?
• How do you intend to cre­ate that value?

Obvi­ously, I want to see a thor­ough career port­fo­lio and determ­ine how they have demon­strated their per­son­al char­ac­ter. Hav­ing lead­er­ship train­ing would be an asset.

In listen­ing to their answers and stor­ies, I try to determ­ine the degree to which they: 

• Con­sider the per­spect­ives of others; 
• How well they work in teams; 
• Act­ively listen; and, 
• Hon­estly dis­cuss the dif­fi­culties they have faced. 

I won­der and worry about signs of uncon­scious incom­pet­ence and their abil­ity to adapt; “to get off the dance floor and go to the bal­cony” (as men­tioned in this use­ful sur­viv­al guide for leaders).

Nothing is more important than emotional well-being

Now, I’ll admit, when I first read the head­line, ‘Who’s the new boss?’, I cringed. The implic­a­tion of lead­ers being com­mand and con­trol types was an ana­thema to me. 

Suc­ceed­ing as a lead­er isn’t about the title, it’s about fig­ur­ing out how to con­nect with mem­bers of the asso­ci­ation and the gen­er­al pub­lic. It’s about fine-tun­ing expect­a­tions so that people are motiv­ated, not demotivated. 

Today, noth­ing is more import­ant than peoples’ emo­tion­al well-being. 

Lead­ing, in this regard, is a bal­an­cing act. No one can con­trol the pres­sures on organ­isa­tions; the demands com­ing from the extern­al environment. 

In terms of get­ting a handle on the chan­ging travel envir­on­ment, and its impact on the lead­er­’s role and respons­ib­il­it­ies, I would want to know if can­did­ates are famil­i­ar with: 

• The European Travel Commission’s report;
• Des­tin­a­tions International’s Com­munity Shared Value; 
• PATA’s pur­pose and eth­ics; and 
• OECD’s tour­ism policies (par­tic­u­larly related to governance). 

Sim­il­arly, it would be wise if more asso­ci­ation lead­ers paid atten­tion to The Future of Asso­ci­ations, and the nature of their polit­ic­al role as ‘the voice of the industry’.

This is import­ant because most industry asso­ci­ations remain sin­gu­lar in tak­ing their lead only from what mem­bers deem import­ant, rather than pay­ing atten­tion to what the pub­lic, research­ers, act­iv­ists, and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions believe is essential. 

Tour­ism asso­ci­ations these days would be remiss if they ignored the voices of com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions and the import­ance of des­tin­a­tions as liv­ing communities.

Clearly, the most effect­ive lead­ers have to stay focused on what mat­ters most and determ­ine what’s best for the asso­ci­ation and the com­munit­ies they represent. 

It’s about net­work­ing, mas­ter­ing stra­tegic think­ing, build­ing rela­tion­ships, tak­ing risks, and being decisive. 

It’s about empower­ing and enhan­cing the cap­ab­il­it­ies of people who do the work to which they are uniquely suited to. 

It’s about pri­or­it­ising trust over bureaucracy. 

The outputs and outcomes of a successful leader

While lead­ers set the stage for driv­ing per­form­ance, it’s travel & tourism’s over­all out­puts and out­comes that have to be taken into consideration.

Sure travel & tourism’s eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tions need to be pri­or­it­ised, but these days atten­tion has to be focused on address­ing and resolv­ing a wide range of oth­er con­cerns, including: 

• Diversity, equity, and inclu­sion (DEI); 
• Cli­mate change; 
• Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI); and
• Envir­on­ment­al, social, and cor­por­ate gov­ernance (ESG). 

It’s also import­ant to be: 

• Work­ing with (not against) organ­ised labour; 
• Bal­an­cing stake­hold­ers’ interests; 
• Focus­ing on improv­ing the effect­ive­ness and resi­li­ence of operations;
• Encour­aging the ‘right’ types of tour­ism devel­op­ment; and 
• Eas­ing the form­a­tion of, and remov­ing the bur­eau­cracy for small to medi­um-size enter­prises (SMEs). 

Of course there is a need to:

• Gen­er­ate nov­el solu­tions through creativity; 
• Care­fully alloc­ate scarce resources; 
• Win the war on tal­ent by work­ing more closely with edu­ca­tion­al institutions; 
• Man­aging across bor­ders and with dif­fer­ing cul­tures; and
• Form­ing des­tin­a­tion-in-action net­works and innov­a­tion hubs …

… just to name the obvious.

Asso­ci­ation lead­ers must look to re-pur­pose tour­ism; ensure innov­a­tion becomes an endur­ing cap­ab­il­ity; explore new busi­ness con­cepts; and devel­op a bal­anced score­card for com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions to ensure that the asso­ci­ation and the industry is appro­pri­ately community‑, citizen‑, customer‑, and corporately-centric.

All told, the most effect­ive travel & tour­ism industry asso­ci­ation lead­ers will be those who have an out­sized impact on the per­form­ance of the industry, achiev­ing the abil­ity to thrive loc­ally with­in a glob­al con­text, while ensur­ing that tour­ism activ­it­ies are fun, mem­or­able, and enjoy­able for all. 

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

“GT” is where free thought travels.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Who can be a suc­cess­ful lead­er of a highly effect­ive tour­ism asso­ci­ation in 2023? Smi­ley and frownies by Magic Cre­at­ive (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.