The effect of leadership style perceived by hotel employees on individual creativity and employee empowerment levels: The case of Antalya

In hotel businesses where service and customer satisfaction are at the forefront, strengthening the personnel and increasing the level of creativity is one of the key factors for businesses to make a difference against competitors and achieve sustainable success. In addition, the dynamic nature of the environment and technology increases the importance of being able to compete day by day. In this framework, hotel businesses' ability to provide customer satisfaction, meeting customer requests and needs in a timely manner, and achieve sustainable success can be directly proportional to the empowerment and creativity of staff. Strengthening the staff and increasing their creativity levels can vary depending on many factors. One of the most important of these factors is the behavior of leaders towards their employees. In this context, hotel business managers should adopt leadership behaviors that will strengthen the staff and increase their creativity. In this context, the main purpose of the research was to determine the effect of perceived leadership behavior of employees of a five-star hotel in Antalya on individual creativity and employee empowerment, and determine the effect of employee empowerment on employees' individual creativity levels. In line with the purpose of the research, data were collected from 391 five-star hotel employees in Turkey/Antalya using the survey method between April 2022 and June 2022 with convenience sampling method. Some of the survey was conducted online and some of it was conducted face-to-face. Frequency, factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the analyzes carried out, it has been determined that the perceived production-oriented, employee-oriented and change-oriented leadership behaviors have a significant and positive effect on individual creativity and personnel empowerment levels. At the same time, it was concluded that staff empowerment had a significant and positive effect on the individual creativity level of employees. In line with the research findings, suggestions for academia and hotel managers were presented.