Guiding the middle management of family-run "Hotel zum Hirschen" towards taking ownership and leading from the inside out
- Jakob Hysek
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
To become an effective leader, you first need to learn to lead yourself, then others. To develop the middle management at Hotel zum Hirschen to the next level, we ran a workshop called "Inside Out Leadership - Lead yourself first, then others".
The goal was to expand the participants' understanding of themselves, their own leadership style and create a shared set of rules of engagement for working and leading together by taking ownership.
That is why this workshop was designed to explore leadership from the inside out, with a focus on:
Self-assessment to build awareness and intention
Communication techniques that create clarity and trust
Leadership principles that guide consistent action
The Starting Point
"Hotel zum Hirschen is a family-run business that has been in operation since 1830. Katharina & Niko are the 11th generation, and together with a team of architects, builders, artists, and friends, they combined two things into something great: first, the renovation of the historic “Hotel zum Hirschen,” and second, the construction of new apartments. Right in the heart of Salzburg.
Modern. Holistic. Sustainable. And beautiful as well."
Currently, they are in their third year of operations after the renovation. As Niko, co-owner & managing director, put it:
"Year 1 was pure survival. Year 2 was for implementing processes. Now we want to take the guest experience to the next level."
They have a young but dedicated team of middle managers responsible for food & beverage, front office & housekeeping. All three bring valuable experience to their positions; however, from a differently structured company.
Hotel zum Hirschen is a family business, not a franchise hotel chain operating multiple locations. To create a seamless guest experience, employees need to take ownership of this guest experience and, hence, their own responsibilities. This can mean stepping outside functional roles from time to time and thinking across departments.
To achieve that, we needed to expand the participants' understanding of themselves, their own leadership style, and create a shared set of rules of engagement for working and leading together.
Step 1 - Self-Assessment to build awareness & intention
The first part of the workshop focused on self-assessment and external assessment of personality characteristics to build awareness and intention. We started by focusing on the high-pressure environment the hospitality industry is facing and how each participant assesses his or her own capability to deal with stress.
What is Resilience?
We started out discussing resilience, what a definition could be and what it means to them. After running through a self-assessment, we discussed areas of strength and areas for development.
This open discussion engaged everyone from the start in fruitful discussion on a topic they know well, since they regularly deal with it.
Knowing yourself, your personality, and your characteristics is an important step in career planning and personal development. So the next exercise took it a bit further:
Self-Perception vs. External Perception - Get to know your characteristics
This exercise got the participants to think about their own characteristics and personality. When do you ever take the time to focus on yourself?
The more surprising part is round two, when you get an external view that reveals how others perceive you. Afterwards, self-perception and external view are compared to find out where self-perception matches or differs from that of others.
The participants got a glimpse into how they view themselves versus how they are seen by colleagues and peers.
These exercises create curiosity for personal development and give a first direction and a slight push to create development goals.
Step 2 - Communication techniques that create clarity and trust in leadership
You cannot lead others without communicating. The rush of daily operations disrupts clear information exchange and opens teams up to misunderstandings and subsequent errors.
In this section, we focused on basic principles of communication and techniques that create clarity and trust. No theory will ever help you if you don't try it, fail at it, feel the consequences and repeat until you master it.
So, following basic, short discussions of theoretical principles such as the sender-receiver model, various communication channels, how to listen to understand and not to answer, how to give orders, and how to give and receive feedback, we spent most of the time in this section partnering up and exercising.
Step 3 - Leadership principles for consistent action & taking ownership
To figure out leadership principles that guide consistent action, we started by discussing leadership theory and how various models from authoritarian to laissez-faire to cooperative leadership style have developed over time.
The discussion ended focusing on behaviors that neither depend on specific, rigid styles nor factors such as the maturity level of subordinates.
Leadership through emotional intelligence & ownership
Exercises that helped the participants identify behaviors that improve emotional intelligence and working through specific, challenging situations from real-life brought peer-to-peer exchange, feedback and coaching culture into the workshop and created an environment that set the middle management team up for future success!
Success Factors of Inside Out Leadership
The participants rated the workshop as an absolute success with a perfect net promoter.
NPS - Net Promoter Score of 100+The mix of exercises that guided them through self-assessment, short bursts of theoretical input, lively discussions, peer-to-peer feedback, and the focus on behavior they trained on real-life examples and can bring back to their workplace made them feel set up for a successful third year of operations at Hotel zum Hirschen.
A very pleasant presentation, and the feeling of being on the same level as the intructor.
Personally, I am more than happy to receive such feedback and to have played a part in the development journey of this awesome hotel, their guest experience and internal management structure!
About Me
After more than ten years in the international software and start-up world, I know the pressure to perform in modern careers.
As a systemic coach and reserve soldier, I know how important clear communication, accountability, and trust are for teams to function effectively.
That's why I support teams in skilled trades, construction, and industry to improve their collaboration, resolve conflicts, and rekindle motivation—in a pragmatic, human way and with a passion for development.
Are you ready for the next step?
Whether it is a conflict in your team, a lack of motivation, or communication issues. The first step for change is always a conversation. So let's have one:
We will address your questions in a 15-minute conversation and determine whether and how we can work together.
I look forward to getting to know you!
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