Hyatt CEO Talks Purposeful Leadership

In a speech at Wharton, Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of Hyatt Hotels said that future leaders need to listen, have clarity of purpose, and be authentic. In the speech, he discusses how a janitor at NASA described his job as “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.” Hoplamazian describes how everyone in the organization needs to have that same clarity of purpose:

“If people do get it, and it’s simple and powerful, then they’ll know how to apply themselves in order to deliver that“

My take: This short speech by Hoplamazian does a great job of describing the essence of purposeful leadership, one of Temkin Group’s four customer experience core competencies. While only 15% of large companies have mastered purposeful leadership, it’s still the highest scoring competency. Unfortunately for Hoplamazian, Hyatt hasn’t fully mastered all of the competencies, as it earned 9th place out of 12 hotel chains in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings.

If you want to gauge the commitment of Hoplamazian or any other leader, take this simple evaluation:

The bottom line: Purposeful leadership requires true commitment