Leadership skills with classroom instruction integration in hospitality management higher education

ABSTRACT To move from the gap between industry and academia, educators must review and change instructional content to meet industry demands. By addressing the industry imperative for leadership skills, this exploratory study evaluates the most prominent leadership style among faculty who implement leadership pedagogy in the classroom. The researchers surveyed hospitality management faculty through an online survey. The majority of respondents identified as transformational leaders, indicating leadership integration as highly important. The two most frequently integrated instruction methods were student-led discussions and delegation of group tasks. No significant relationship existed between methods of leadership integration and leadership style. Findings from this research contribute how educational leaders influence leadership skills and competency integration in classroom instruction. Recommendations included conducting further studies of hospitality management educators’ leadership styles, enhanced statistical tests to build significant results to methods of transformation leadership in classroom instruction, and effective leadership training for hospitality management educators and administrators.