The Attitude of Leaders As Hosts

Leadership is an attitude. Management is a title. You don’t need to be in management to be a leader.

So what does leadership look like in your own life?

Let’s say you are having a social gathering at your house. That would make you the host and those who attended your party would be guests. When in someone else’s house, the guests all defer to the host as being the leader. In other words, you are not managing the party, you are hosting it. The guests will join the host (the leader of the party) even sometimes begrudgingly if the host wants to play a game of charades. It’s the host’s party. We, as guests, will follow along. When there are followers, there must be a leader.

I read an interesting article recently about the concept of “hostmanship” as opposed to the concept of customer service.

There are six fundamentals to hostmanship:

1. Serving others
2. Perceiving the whole
3. Taking responsibility
4. Being caring
5. Searching knowledge
6. Practicing dialogue

The hostmanship web site describes hostmanship as the following:

Hostmanship without pride is empty and cold. In contrast to service, Hostmanship is focused on practice, on people as hosts, on the cultures of businesses, and on the capacity of organizations to tie it all together. Being a host is much about having the courage to let loose your talents and express your personality – to be brave enough to serve every person as she is and to listen to the needs she expresses. Hostmanship also differs from service in that it’s not about treating others as you yourself want to be treated. Hostmanship is to treat a person as she wants to be treated.

Seth Godin, in his Blog, wrote this past week:

If I pay $1000 extra for a first-class seat, odds are the flight attendant will be nice to me. If I pay $2000 extra for the presidential suite at the hotel, odds are the front desk clerk will be nice to me. If I give the valet $50 to park my car, odds are he'll be nice to me as well.

So, here's the question: if all I want, the only extra, is for someone to be nice to me when I visit your business, how much extra does that cost?

I think there's a huge gap between what people are willing to pay for nice (a lot) and what it would cost businesses to deliver it (almost nothing). Smells like an opportunity.

Attitude Adjustment: Is it your right to host your guests or to serve your customers? Or is it a privilege? Shifting your attitude away from customers simply being dollar signs to a nicer approach, that they are your guests, will go a long way to providing you with customer loyalty, better employee engagement, a more courteous and considerate way of dealing with those who choose to support you and, finally, a solid foundation upon which you can build your business and business relationships. Change your mind. Change your attitude. And serve your “guests” as you would wish to be “hosted” at their places of business or even their homes.