E024 Empathetic Leadership with Scott Brown (Pt 1)

Get ready to be inspired as we reflect on the critical role of empathy in leadership and its profound impact on team dynamics and performance with Scott Brown, UK Director of Sales at Melia Hotels International. 

From his humble beginnings at Marriott Hotels in Manchester to being part of a team managing large-scale events like the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth, Scott's storytelling provides a captivating look at the experiences that have shaped his professional growth and leadership style.

In this episode, Scott shares the inspirational journey of his 22-year career in hospitality, offering invaluable insights into the importance of empathy, the power of diverse skill sets within a team, and the principle of believing in what you sell.

Scott emphasizes that true leadership involves understanding and leveraging each team member's unique strengths and motivations. This approach not only creates a cohesive, high-performing team but also fosters a culture of trust and mutual respect. 

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Scott Brown is a 22-year veteran of hospitality whose career started with Marriott Hotels in operational roles before a transition to Sales early in his career and a rapid rise through the ranks of the company. 

Leaving as UK Account Manager for Marriott’s National Sales team, Scott took the challenge as Director of Sales at Manchester’s first 5* Hotel, The Lowry Hotel, before moving to Melia Hotels in 2020 to set up their UK North area. In late 2022 Scott added 3 London Hotels to the existing UK North hotels as he was handed the reigns of the UK Sales Team with circa £70m Turnover and a multi-location team of 25. 

Transcript

Scott Brown: 0:00

you become that leader because you are good or successful at what it is you do. It can be quite difficult to then be empathetic if your team or team members or people in your business are not as good if you want to call it that way or committed as you do.

Scott Brown: 0:21

And I think that's something that I kind of struggled with at first to kind of to understand that each individual plays a different part within your team. You can't have 11 superstars in a football team all wanting to kick the ball in the net at the end. You have to have a team where everybody has a different position, everybody has a different skill set. I think once I realized that and realized you know the benefit, I think I really really started to understand if I can show that empathy and understand that with them, I can give them the best possible opportunity to perform at their highest level.

Voiceover Artist: 1:01

You're listening to the Life and Leadership Podcast, where leaders from across the globe share openly about the trials, triumphs and lessons learned along the leadership journey. Whether you're a seasoned, new or aspiring leader, get ready to receive powerful insights and practical takeaways to help you grow in your leadership. And now here is your host, mary Eniolu.

Mary Eniolu: 1:29

Welcome to the Life and Leadership podcast. Today I've got with me Scott Brown, a 22-year veteran of hospitality whose career started with Marriott Hotels in operational roles before a transition to sales early in his career and a rapid rise through the ranks of the company. Living as UK account manager for Marriott's national sales team, scott took the challenge as director of sales at Manchester's first five-star hotel, the Lorry Hotel, before moving to Melia Hotels in 2020 to set up their UK North area. Melia Hotels in 2020. To set up their UK North area In late 2022,. Scott added three London hotels to the existing UK North hotels as he was handed the reins of the UK sales team with around 70 million turnover and a multi-location team of 25. Scott, it's wonderful to have you on the Life and Leadership podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

Scott Brown: 2:27

Thank you for having me.

Mary Eniolu: 2:29

It's wonderful to have you here and I'm looking forward to our conversation. What I would like you to start us off with, if you don't mind, is tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today.

Scott Brown: 2:41

So yeah, I'm Scott Brown. I'm the Director of Sales for the UK for Melia Hotels International. Melia is a Spanish brand originally, but now a global brand with over 400 or close to 400 hotels worldwide, every continent, in different countries. It began as a resort brand and it's a resort brand, a holiday brand, obviously in Spain, but it's grown to a premium luxury brand with resorts, urban hotels, lifestyle hotels and a real lovely mix of four and five-star properties. I personally started my career in hotels 21 years ago. 22 years ago, I began my career in hospitality, as a lot of people do, really kind of falling into it, really doing a job whilst I was at university, part-time, to earn a little bit of pocket money as such and I started in a hotel in Manchester, where I'm from, which was a Marriott hotel.

Scott Brown: 3:55

There I did a number of different roles operationally and really got the skin of what hotels and hospitality was. And then, post university I did a gap. Gap year I went to the US and traveled and did some work there and then I knew when I was coming back that I knew that I wanted to work in sales. That's what I, what I knew because my dad, my father, had worked in sales. So I kind of believed in or knew I had a pensionchant in me to work in sales. And my dad gave us some really great advice which I've always took with me and I've always shared with my teams. I told him I wanted to work in sales and he said you know, you can absolutely do that, scott.

Scott Brown: 4:39

You've got it in you and he said but my advice to you is, sell something that you believe in Because you can sell something, something that you believe in because you can sell something you don't believe. You've got the skills, but you've got to kind of look at yourself in the mirror every night. You've got to be happy with what you're doing and and to do that it's great if you're doing that with a product um company that you believe in. And because I've worked with marriott in that part-time capacity and I've really bought into the marriott way and marriott was very good at developing its people, their associates, as they called them, and really kind of believed in that mantra of look after your, look after your people, your people will look after the guest and get absolutely yeah. So I'd really bought into that and so I thought, yeah, I can sell that. I can. Whatever that is, however, you sell that, I can do that.

Scott Brown: 5:29

And I kept in contact with the team at Marriott. Thankfully, they had an entry-level sales role for me, started off just selling gym memberships in their leisure club, which was a great grounding for me as a salesperson learning the skills of sales, needs analysis and listening more than you speak and providing solutions for the customer and then asking for the business making the sale. I learned all of that very well there and then progressed my career throughout Marriott in multiple different roles sales manager, director of sales, national sales. I ended up as an account manager in their national team selling all their properties across the uk. Um, before then making some decisions to leave marriott, continue my career elsewhere, just kind of fast forward through that next bit brought, brought me up to to the kind of present day looking after the uk familiar that is an interesting career, you know I I smiled when you said you know you're talking about the learning you had to do.

Mary Eniolu: 6:34

You know listening more than you speak, and I'm thinking not all sales people do that actually, but yeah it's difficult.

Scott Brown: 6:40

It's difficult. I say that to people sometimes. We used to say don't be sick, don't be sales sick over somebody. Don't just sell over them and talk over them because, yeah, understanding what they want and then selling them what they actually want, not what you think they want exactly is is a big one yeah, I mean listening.

Mary Eniolu: 6:59

Having developing listening skills is is really beneficial anyway, but I would imagine more so in sales. But that's a really interesting journey and now you're UK director of sales, so you must have been through lots of experiences, you know, learned a lot to get to where you are today. So if I was to ask you to cast your mind back over your career, what would be? What would you say has been the most impactful experience? You've had, a life-defining moment, perhaps you could say that continues to impact on you today yeah, yeah, really good question.

Scott Brown: 7:39

I really look back, I think the particular hotel that I worked out, the brand that I worked at, um, they well, I was still very junior, I was working part-time, uh, and they held a huge event at one of their hotels it's actually down in bournemouth and they asked they it was such a big event that they asked that team members to come from all over the country to come down and support work on this event. It was actually the Labour Party Conference, the annual Labour Party Conference, which took place that year in Bournemouth, and the Bournemouth Marriott was the host venue, slash hotel and I vividly remember again I was very junior we went down on a little bus from Manchester, 10 different team members from the three hotels in Manchester at the time and we had kind of four days, five days there and the scale of the operation, the organisation involved, because you can imagine the security on site the whole venue is locked down, you know snipers on the roof, grids sealed up and checked. So you know all of this level of security and the level of detail then in the service that we were delivering. We were each in different rooms serving sort of heads of state and different visitors that were coming over to the, to the Labour Party conference, etc.

Scott Brown: 9:08

So I think seeing that level of detail and that level of excitement that was around the event for the preparation for weeks and months that have gone into that event and then delivering it, I think that was probably a real defining moment for me in terms of seeing the importance of what we can deliver in hospitality to a such a big event, such because it was so important, um, obviously to the, to the people involved and to the wider community.

Scott Brown: 9:41

I guess it felt important to be there and I think that's something where I remember one of my old sort of mentor hoteliers, hotel general managers uh, telling me about how you know in history hotels are kind of a, the center of a community or the center of. You know, things happen in hotels, deals are done, people meet. You know, if you look throughout history and I think, yeah, that was quite defining for me to see that and fall in love with, I suppose, hotels as being an integral part of either a culture or a city or a country or whatever it might be, in that sense of how big that event was, and you just kind of fell in love with the part that the hotels and hospitality played within that wonderful.

Mary Eniolu: 10:33

Wonderful now I mean obviously you've had a very successful career. You're uk director of sales. That is a big job. What would you say has's been if? If you had to nail down maybe three things, you could say is being responsible as opposed to your success? What will those three be?

Scott Brown: 10:52

I would definitely say, I mentioned my father at the top and he's definitely a big inspiration for me. He. He was a sales director himself, not in, not in hospitality, not in hotels but I think the strong inspiration and strong kind of mentorship if that's the right thing to say, it's not mentorship but it's more just the example really of what a good sales slash leader, slash professional is um, I think that is one thing that's really important. Um, I do think again secondarily, that that that upbringing within marriott. You know I was there such a long time and I think that their kind of commitment to developing people and setting standards and the particular hotel that I was at was also somewhat of a new hotel and a very strong-forming hotel. So the team, the leadership team that it had at that time was very strong, very strong. All went on to do great things from that hotel to it and it developed a culture within that team of performance. So I think that is really important.

Scott Brown: 12:04

And then I think also, I think when I moved from, you know, into that director of sales role, leaving, leaving marriott, I moved to the lowry hotel in manchester, which was an independent hotel, and I think, moving into leadership and understanding, making that jump from. We say a lot around around new and emerging leaders right, you generally become a manager or a director because you're good at whatever it is do. Nobody then teaches you to be a good leader or a good manager. Right, you're a good I was a good salesperson, you know, and that's true in all different, different industries. So I think making that move that was really impactful for me to then to then grow into and understand the leadership piece and really be open to learning more about leadership and taking in as much of that information as I could, to then impart that to try and become a good and purposeful leader.

Mary Eniolu: 13:07

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you're absolutely right. That's very common where people are promoted because they're fantastic at the job they do and obviously if there's an opening for leadership in that department, they're the ones that get it. But, like you say, it's a completely different ballgame when you actually step into leadership, and so the importance of that support, the development, is so key, isn't it? Basically, in a nutshell, what I got from what you were saying was people do what people see. I suppose People do what people see, and your father may not have even considered that he was mentoring you or deliberately leading you, but clearly he was. So that takes me to my next question what? What's leadership to you? What would you? How would you define leadership?

Scott Brown: 13:51

for me, it's removing the barriers for my team to excel, to do their job well and to enjoy what they're doing, um and to feel you know, to develop and to feel successful and valued.

Voiceover Artist: 14:08

And good at what they do.

Scott Brown: 14:09

That's my job is to remove those barriers. So, whatever those barriers are whether they are skills barriers, and we need training and development, whether they're confidence barriers, and we need personal development within that, whether they are practical barriers of systems or the resources to do whatever it is they need to do it's my job to remove those barriers so that, once we do the good, people can rise to the top and and be successful, and that pays us back in the business because it delivers and drives results absolutely yeah.

Mary Eniolu: 14:52

So empowering empowering people to deliver, empowering people to perform at their highest potential, basically, empowering people to be the best they can be and do the best they can do. And I love that you mentioned enjoy what they do, because when we enjoy what we do, we tend to excel at it. So, as a leader, then, you consider your role to be empowering people and creating the right environment, because when we talk about enjoyment, it's the environment, is the people we work with, it's you know how we relate with each other. It's all of that that causes us to thrive in what we do. It's not just the skill set, is it? Let's talk a little bit about empathetic leadership. So what? How would you define empathetic leadership?

Scott Brown: 15:38

uh to know. This is something that I think I struggled with and I think it's good to talk about when you struggle right, we can all talk about how good everyone is, the theory of everything, but I think it's good to talk about when you struggle with something. And I'll tell you why Empathetic leadership for me. Empathy for me is obviously understanding somebody else's viewpoint, where somebody else is coming from, understanding that, and then obviously the leadership part is imparting your leadership then to meet the goals and the targets that you have, and what I think is sometimes a struggle for a leader again perhaps a new leader you become that leader because you are good or successful at what it is you do. It can be quite difficult to then be empathetic if your team or team members or people in your business are not as good if you want to call it that way, um or uh, committed as you do.

Scott Brown: 16:44

And I think that's something that I kind of struggled with at first to understand that getting the most out of each individual and also the fact that each individual plays a different part within your team.

Scott Brown: 16:57

You can't have 11 superstars in a football team all wanting to kick the ball in the net at the end.

Scott Brown: 17:04

You have to have a team where everybody has a different position, everybody has a different skill set and everybody commits that to the cause to get you to the result. And I think that's what I kind of learned is that everybody has their different role to play. Everyone has their different skills, everyone has their different motivating factors, um, carrot and stick if you want to, you want to be really basic with it, but but everybody has that different motivator for them, for performance. And I think once I realized that and realized you know the benefit of that um, and that the people bring different things to the table um, I think I really really started to understand. Well, if I can show that empathy and understand that with them, I can get the most out of them and I can give them the best possible opportunity to to perform at their highest level you know, I really love the way you're approaching empathetic leadership, because often when people hear that word empathy, they tend to think, oh, that's a.

Mary Eniolu: 18:13

It's a fuzzy word, it's too soft. You know, the job needs to be done. As a leader, just go on ahead and get the job done. But what I'm hearing you actually say is to be done as a leader, just go on ahead and get the job done. But what I'm hearing you actually say is to be an empathetic leader. It's not really actually a weak thing. It's actually listening and looking at your team and seeing where they're good and what they're great at, rather than coming from a narrow-minded point of view and putting somebody down or thinking they're not good enough because they're not, they're not meeting up to the standard that you set for them and they're not doing things the way you expect them to do it. It's actually looking beyond that and thinking, well, everybody's valuable. Everybody brings something valuable to this team. So why don't we just look at what this person can bring, what what this person is good at, and help them, like you say, remove the barriers so they can be good at what they do, and look at the team dynamics and look at what everybody brings and understand we don't all bring the same thing. I love also that you mentioned motivation. We don't all get motivated the same way. It's so easy as leaders.

Mary Eniolu: 19:17

I did a video the other day I haven't put it out on linkedin yet um, about the the I in team. You know, we said there's no I in team, and that is true. When we said there's no I in team, we mean the team is. You know, the collective is more important than the individual, so no one single individual is more important than the collective. But the team is made up of eyes and as a leader, it's important that you understand the individual eyes so you can get the best out of them, so that as a team we're stronger. If you're enjoying this conversation, don't forget to hit the subscribe button. That will help us bring more inspiring conversations to you and reach more people. And if you know of a leader that should be featured on the Life and Leadership podcast, please reach out to us with their details. We would love to hear from you.

Scott Brown: 20:03

To add on to that as well.

Scott Brown: 20:06

You showing empathy is one way, but I think that empathy there can be a two-way street also, and I think it's also important and I've learned more to do this and again, I wasn't great at it in the beginning is about showing vulnerability as well as a leader, which is something that I struggled with because, again, as a performer a high performer you don't show that you're vulnerable or you can't do something, or you're struggling because you're a hustler.

Scott Brown: 20:37

You're a performer, but showing that vulnerability to your team you know when you're not at 100% or when you do fail or you get something wrong or you don't know something or I think that allows your team to see that you're a human being also and, whilst you might be setting the standard and setting targets to show that you are human also, I think allows them to then believe your empathy. Because there's nothing worse than and again I think we talked about it at the leadership conference the other, the other week uh, when we talk about radical candor, building trust with your, with your, uh, with your team, there's nothing worse than ruinous empathy. That that empathy that is false, that is there to kind of try to make someone feel like they're being empathised with, when actually you're kind of that's done with an ulterior motive, or you're doing it because you don't have a trustworthy relationship with them, because they haven't seen any vulnerability, or they just don't trust you.

Mary Eniolu: 21:39

I think that's a really, really interesting concept or you're just doing it because you want them to be able to do something else, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, no, but what, what? What are some of the benefits you have seen? You know, approaching leadership with with empathy. What are some of the benefits you have seen in doing that?

Scott Brown: 21:59

I think it's easier to have your team you mentioned before, we mentioned it when talking about being happy and then therefore performing because they're happy, it's it's easier to get your team to work hard and put in what's necessary when you have that trust or that empathy or that kind of loyalty from them. And I think by showing that empathy, by showing them that you understand or that you'll do everything you can to understand their position, their differences, their you know, their needs, I think you get that back from them. And I can give you an example Right now we have a team one of our teams in one of our hotels, or a cluster team that looks after our groups and events in London, and they've had a challenging time new team people leaving high pressure. New team people leaving high pressure, um, and you know the team have bonded together after a difficult period and have have have, I think, felt the empathy and the and the support and the leadership from myself and my manager, etc.

Scott Brown: 23:16

Um, and I, I don't ask them to stay later in the office when that extra hour gets needed to be done. I don't ask them to go out of their way and above and beyond, to do certain things and I'm seeing it. Their line manager is away this week and last week and I'm seeing it. I'm seeing them doing it without the need for any. They're not doing it for any other reason other than they care to get the job done because of the empathy and the journey and the leadership and the support that we've gone through with that team over the past few months. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot harder to mandate them to. You must stay later and you must do this extra and you must.

Mary Eniolu: 23:59

You know that's oh, absolutely, yeah, I mean I talk about discretionary goodwill, you know. So we have got the contractual obligation of those that work for us, but then there is just so much you can put in that contract. You can't put persistence in the contract, for instance. You can't put creativity, you have to be creative in solving problems. All those are things that we give discretionarily because we will want to.

Mary Eniolu: 24:25

And there are three words you use, you use care, they care. You use the word trust it builds trust and you use the word loyal. They become loyal to you and as a leader, really, those three words are powerful. That's what you want from your team. You want them to care, you want them to be loyal, you want them to trust. But then showing empathy and trying to understand them Well, stephen Covey's in it I said seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Mary Eniolu: 24:52

So seeking first to understand, listening first before you speak, all those things build trust. Because he shows that you care for me. I'm a big fan of John Maxwell, I may have mentioned him to you when we spoke first, um, and he says there are three questions people are often asking of their leaders do you care for me, can you help me, can I trust you? And so when you are empathetic, when you listen before you speak, and all of that, you're telling them I care for you. You're telling them you can trust me, you're telling them I can help you because I want to help you and that.

Mary Eniolu: 25:24

And you were saying that you know removing the barriers, helping people win. And when you help, empower people to win, and then the win comes and they see the part they played in that win, it makes them feel valuable. It makes them feel I am somewhere where I'm valued, where I mean something. I'm not just a number. I'm actually contributing something here, and I think for most of us, I think really that's what we want. We don't just want to go to work, do a job and go home. We want to feel like we're a part of something. So that's really really powerful, right. So I'm going to ask you then, if you had to pick one person to say thank you to, looking back on your what 20 years you said in this industry and you're probably the third person I've interviewed on the Life and Leadership podcast I've spent their whole career in the hospitality industry, so there must be something good happening there. But if you could look back and you had to pick one person to say thank you to. Who will that person be and why?

Scott Brown: 26:24

I would probably name my first director of sales leader lady called Nicholas daily Nikki. She's not in hospitality right now but she was my first sort of manager mentor and I think what I learned the most from Nikki was probably that human touch, that empathy that we're talking about. I think that was the thing that I learned most from her. I probably had other leaders who were more analytical and just more aggressive with their sales focus etc. But Nikki's personal touch, she made her team and her clients feel like she really cared about each and every one of them.

Scott Brown: 27:18

There was no transactionary sale with Nikki. Nobody could walk away from being sold to by Nikki and have buyer's remorse. Nobody felt like I bought that then I shouldn't have done or whatever. Um, she, she really kind of showed me that that side uh I think of uh, of working and and she took a chance on me, which I think think is another thing. That's a balancing act too, because I know that I take some of that with me when I recruit people. There are times where I've taken a chance on people and it doesn't always work, but at the time I certainly felt like she took a chance on me because I was very junior, I was coming from a different department, um, and I had all of the bravado of youth, um, which needed shaping, and shall we say um, and she, uh, she definitely did that and put me on a path to. I still say some of the things that she said. I still talk about some of the things that she, she did and said.

Mary Eniolu: 28:24

So that was 20 years ago, so I was just gonna say and how many years ago was this?

Scott Brown: 28:29

yeah, that's 20 years ago yeah, that's amazing.

Mary Eniolu: 28:31

I mean, leaders, um are so powerful. I, I think you know again, john maxwell says everything rises and falls on leadership. You know, everything rises and falls on leadership, and that is so true. If something is happening, it's because the leader is either making it happen or they're allowing it to happen. And if you're a good leader, you can make someone great at their job. But if you're a great leader, you can actually change someone's life.

Mary Eniolu: 28:57

And that sounds to me what you're describing about Nikki that she's left such a huge impact on you that, 20 years on, that is still influencing and impacting not just you but those that you lead now. And so that, just for me, is the impact and the influence of leadership. You know, leaders influence things, we influence people, we influence solutions, we influence environments. We make such a huge difference to people's lives.

Mary Eniolu: 29:23

Um, you, you, you never know, but you could be the difference between whether they're going to have a good evening when they get back home with their spouse, with their children. So you impact on the children, you impact on whether dad is going to come home all smiles and happy or whether he's going to be grumpy, and you know. So it impacts on so many, so many many things. So it's so important to, as a leader, to understand the role that you play is beyond what you're trying to achieve in your work environment. The life and leadership podcast is brought to you by can do academy, where we help organizations develop high performing teams and extraordinary leaders. To find out more about our work, visit can do academynet and do join us for part two of this episode.

Voiceover Artist: 30:10

Thank you for listening to the life and leadership podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation, hit the subscribe button. That will help us reach more people and inspire more leaders. See you on the next episode.