Leadership - Hooters: More Than Just Wings

Hooters: More than Just Wings

(“Aint No Thing Like a Hooters Chicken Wing”)

Introduction:

Ever since the first Hooters Restaurant opened in Clearwater, Florida in 1983, Hooters had been a hot fanamina. With locations in over 42 states, Hooters is in attempts to push itself in a global market and becoming one of the top food leaders in the industry. Its tremendous success has allowed it to have franchises all over as well. The concept of Hooters is basically featuring good looking women to market and sell their food and drink items. The great leaders down in corporate who started this business have had great success and have a very strategic organizational structure of managers and employees.

Roles of Leaders:

In 1983, a group of 6 business men had a vision. They wanted a neighborhood place where they could meet, drink, eat and have fun. Plans were hatched and the Hooters restaurant was born. The theme was casual beach featuring a juke box, sports on T.V. and a menu that included burgers, seafood, salads, and of course the almost famous chicken wings. All this served to you by the beautiful world famous Hooters girls in their orange shorts and white tank-tops.

As leaders, it is important to create and maintain a healthy organizational culture. Hooters try to have the most motivated people in its organization; people who are hard workers and have good personalities. “Our people are the center of everything we strive to achieve as an organization. It is vital to our strategy that we attract and engage, only the best, motivated people who could create the Hooters spirit and have the potential and drive to grow with the business. Our vision is to lead the casual dining market by delivering the highest quality food and hospitality in a fun engaging environment giving our customers the unique and entertaining experience that Hooters is world famous for. We are a value driven organization, recognizing that how we achieve this is as important as the achievement itself. We are committed to live by a higher set of beliefs and standards as an organization, as a team, and as individuals.” (www.hooterstory.com, 2006). Hooters is always looking for new opportunities of building momentum for employees under their guidance. Directors with exceptional expertise are appointed to help this vision and to roll out the Hooters brand. This seems to work very well and shows in the success of how the hooters restaurant is run. Managers organize everything in a way and plan ahead which creates and maintains a healthy organizational culture and makes everyone work together at achieving a common goal.

Management and Leadership:

When it comes to achieving a common goal in an organization such as Hooters, there must be a distinct difference between recognizing the role of management versus leadership. One of the biggest differences between leaders and managers is the way they the motivate people to do their work or follow them. A leader sets forth a vision or route for everyone to follow where as a manager actually controls and directs the team. The managers are paid to make sure things get done and they have authority to do something about it if it doesn’t. Hooters would not be very as successful as it is if it wasn’t for a combination of both management and leadership working together. If Hooters just had managers without leadership that would mean things would get done, but no new ideas would ever be developed. Things from new marketing strategies to just making it a more fun exciting place and finding new ways to bring in new customers. This would hurt the business’s success because people would just get bored or sick of the same things over and over. Having a leader helps with initiating new ideas so this does not happen. Now on the other hand if Hooters had just leaders, but no management this would mean that there is a chance things might not get done or left behind. It also might means that other people might have to work harder to pick up the missing pieces and make it work. It just makes more sense to have both leaders and managers working together in order to run a more effective business. This helps in creating a more harmonized work environment for all employees and avoids any confusion.

Four Functions of Management:

In an establishment such as Hooters, all four functions of management must be implemented in order to assure success. Planning, organizing, controlling, and leading all go into account when it comes great management and creating and maintaining a healthy work environment.

Planning is the first step in the process of proper management. Hooters has a CEO which has a vision and created the idea of Hooters. Then it goes down to the managing director who actually organizes the plan and route of how to accomplish that goal or vision that the CEO has and making Hooters a hit. Hooters also comes up with a mission in which case is,” Our mission is to provide a family of hospitality and services that achieves excellence and enhances lifestyles of all who come in contact with the Hooters brand.” (www.hooterstory.com, 2006). From there controlling comes into play. This is where the General Manager of each store takes over and helps direct the team in the same direction as the original vision. From there it is up to the assistant managers to make sure this job gets done efficiently. The ending results all depends on the hooter girls which are the main attraction. Always service with a smile keeps customers coming back. All four functions of management work together at all levels of management like a puzzle. If one part is missing the whole thing could fall apart. This is why it’s important to acknowledge all four functions of management in order