Leon Young
The General Beyond the Manager
September 5, 2008 | by brett | Permalink
“I started out as a graveyard security guard. I was playing ball in college for maybe six months when my son was born. I needed to provide for him. The only job that I could take care of him and still go to school was an overnight position. Which is when I found this security guard position.”
Leon Young is now the General Manager of the new W Hotel in Scottsdale . The hotel opens today.
I think everyone has that crossroads you come to where you decide to either be someone that’s respected, or you continue just being someone that’s a post teenager. Everyone’s a great general until wartime. Then you separate the leaders from whoever else there is.
The hotel industry really kind of saved my life. Because it helped me swallow my pride. I had to learn how to develop a thicker skin. Learn right and wrong. To stop saying, “I hate my job. I need to quit.” To saying, “Today was a bad day. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad job.”
Typically people look at an overnight position as a role where no one sees you. Or you think you don’t have any value to the property. I looked at it just the opposite.
One of my mentors, he was one of those people who said you either learn how you want to do stuff, or you learn how you don’t want to do stuff. He was one of the guys who showed me exactly how I wanted to do stuff.
Once a week I’d walk in and give him his report because he wanted it fresh off the presses. And he’d say, “Do understand what you just did tonight?” And then he’d walk me through it, so then I started understanding how important it was, and how important it was to him to make decisions based on this report.
Pretty soon, I applied for the next position that opened up, which was the night audit agent. Then the supervisor. And then, I really…just had a passion for it. I think whenever you really have a pride about your work it just shows. People recognize it. And you’re able to progress from there.
Again, for a W GM, you have to be progressive. And not be afraid to color outside of the lines. You really have to understand your role in the equation. It’s not about you. You’re an enabler. You have to be the ultimate cheerleader. You have to be an entrepreneur. You have to be someone who looks at a blank wall and says, “What else can I do with this?”
What’s one piece of advice you would tell yourself at 18 years old?
Education obviously is fantastic. Although I didn’t go that route, I respect where college can take you. But you have to temper it with work. Work experience. Beyond having hospitality 101.
I can’t tell you how many people I know have gone to some of the best hospitality schools in the world. Whether it be Cornell, UNLV, Switzerland …and they come out and they were so vested in the templated, textbook version of what a hotel is. When they actually are introduced to people, they decide that even though they’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this education, hospitality is nothing like what they want to do.
Really test the waters in the areas you want to be in. There’s tons of work programs, specifically for hospitality. It’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes, it’s worse.
Pursue the Passion interviews people who love their work. A collection of interviews can be found at www.pursuethepassion.com.
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