Leadership and Behavioral Response: A Case of Nigerian Hotel Employees’ Proactivity

Due to the competitiveness and complexity of the hotel business environment, it is expedient to satisfy the growing needs of the customer to have a competitive advantage over competitors. The current thesis emanated out of the need to enhance performance in light of the competitiveness and complexity of the hotel business environment. The focal purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between inclusive leadership, employee’s proactive customer service performance, trust climate and organization identification. The study designed a model that investigates the role of inclusive leadership in enhancing employee’s proactive customer service performance in hotels in Nigeria. The data for the current thesis was gathered from hotel employees in Lagos state, Nigeria. As the study employed quantitative research methodology for the investigation of the relationships of interest, an online survey design was used to solicit necessary data from the target respondents. Due to the challenges of lockdown and social distancing measures which the Nigerian Government put in place to curb the spread of the pandemic, the link to the survey was shared through social media. The researcher was only able to obtain permission from only five 5-star hotels and ten 4-stars hotels. The superficial outcome of the data analyzed confirmed the study’s hypotheses; as such, some conclusions were drawn. Finding from this research revealed that in order for the 5-star hotels and 4- star hotels in Lagos, Nigeria to improve their employees’ proactive customer service performance, they must take into cognizance the role of their organizational trust climate, the leadership style and also ensure factors to enable employees to identify with the organization must be put in place. Due to the fact that the business world is rapidly changing and very competitive, it is important to make employees proactive especially to customers’ needs. This study reveals that an inclusive leader’s collaborative attribute influences an organization’s trust climate as well as employees’ organizational identification and proactive customer service behavior.