Building Prestige in the Service Industry

Building Prestige in the Service Industry

Introduction

According to the Concise Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary, the word "prestige" has two ways to be interpreted: "1. respect based on good reputation, past achievements, etc; 2. power to impress others, especially as a result of wealth, distinction, glamour, etc." Prestige is different from authority and power. In the working place, the prestige can help to improve the job competence. By creating fear and respect, the leader's prestige among employees will efficiently motivate them to concentrate on their task and projects in the service industry.

Based on the definition, we can divide prestige into two different forms: "respects and powers" (Concise Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary, 2004). Building prestige means creating the respect from other people because of their personal charms and achievements. When people respect you, they will tend to listen to your order and follow your decisions. At the same time, the respect is based on the leader's reputation and past achievement. The leader needs to create positive influence efficiently to motivate employees.

Furthermore, power is another way to approach prestige. The most common prestige is the result of someone's higher position or authority. It is very important to use the power appropriately to influence people. The stability of positional prestige is a key variable in determining the leader's social class structure and power (Dickson &Lind, 2001). As a leader, your position gives you certain power to manage employees. If the leader uses his power wisely, he will begin to build prestige deeply into employees' hearts. For example, by establishing the reward system, a leader could use some physical reward to motivate employees. When the reward is distributed according to their performance, employees will be more satisfied and passionate toward their job.

Importance of Building Prestige

Building prestige can improve the job efficiency and handle the precipitating events. The leader with prestige has personal or characteristic influences among employees. People believe that the decision made from the leader with prestige will be effective and successful. Therefore, it gives people confidence to follow the orders and assignments and improve the job efficiency. This personal, respectful prestige is determined by the leader's personal characteristics, intelligent, experiences and ethics. In order to build the prestige in front of people, the leader needs to be outstanding and successful in motivating employees. Everything starts from the leader's internal and external behaviors and achievement. This is an intangible power that could gain respect from other people and influence them. Similar to the concept of "soft power" which mentioned by Joseph Nye, it is a kind of appeal, and charisma. It is through assimilatory instead of powerful desired outcomes ability (Nye, 2004).

Knowing in advance how others would behave in the absence of our commands is often difficult. What is more, as we shall see, sometimes, we can get the outcomes we want by affecting behavior without commanding it. If you believe that my objectives are legitimate, I may be able to persuade you to do something for me without using threats or inducements (Nye, 2004).

Furthermore, during the process of building the prestige, the leader needs to use power appropriately to create a cohesive and rigorous working environment. Coercive power and reward power will be the most common authority applied into management. Coercive power is based on control over punishment, and reward power is based on the ability to control valued companies' assets (Braynion, 2004). These two types of power are two of the most common leadership skills to build up prestige and create enthusiasm and tense working place. Establishing a passionate and tense working place in the service industry, the leader will be able to improve the company's profits and enhance employees' capacities.

Have you experience the situation that everyone keeps their own opinions about the project and no one listen to your decisions? In this situation, the leader of the meeting definitely did not have the prestige over his employees. They did not respect his decisions, and insist on their own perspectives. They might still accomplish their goals, but they cannot bring out the best effort that he designed for each department. If the leader had built prestige at the beginning of his leadership, people will not ignore his decision. People will take the prestige leader's decision into consideration and communicate with him to find out the best solutions.

Building Prestige in the Service Industry

How to Build Prestige

Before getting into the concept of prestige, we need to talk about authority. Authority from the leader's position and power usually plays an important role in prestige. Different positions give the leader different authority and power to achievement certain outcomes. For example, the food service manager has the authority and power to make schedules and allocate different working areas with certain employees. And they are the ones who are responsible for choosing their employees. Knowing your positioning power and authority is very significant, and it is one of the fundamental elements in the process of building prestige.

The word prestige translated into Chinese will be two characters: "Wei" and "Xin". The first one "Wei" means authority, power, respect, and fear. The second character "Xin" can be interpreted into trust or faith in the Chinese language. Therefore, we need learn how to build both "Wei" and "Xin" in order to gain prestige in the workplace. The prestige is the combination of both "Wei" and "Xin".

The best way to gain respects and build authority in the workplace of the service industry is the reward and punishment method. The reward will motivate employees to put more focus on their projects or tasks. "Reward and coercion are defined as the ability to control monetary and non-monetary compensation and punishment" (Bell & Jones, 2008). Showing the leader's capacities, the leader could build the authority image and establish their prestige in employees' eyes.

What's more, building prestige requires the leader to earn trust from employees. A successful leader should suit the action