Leela Leadership Development Programme: how it works and what two Indian hoteliers in my books say about their own trainee years

The Leela Leadership Development Programme is The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts’ management trainee scheme, run with the Indian School of Hospitality in alliance with Les Roches and offered in eight tracks from general management to engineering. It differs from most of the programmes on this site in one respect that matters: it asks for a year of luxury hotel experience before you apply, so it is a second step rather than a first one. This page describes the programme as Leela presents it on its own site and then turns to what the page cannot tell you. No one in my books came up through Leela, so I have drawn on two hoteliers who trained in Indian luxury hotels, one as a Taj management trainee and one on the floor at an Oberoi hotel, and who describe the years this programme is built on top of.

The programme, as Leela describes it

Leela publishes one page for the Leela Leadership Development Programme, and it is brief. The programme is run “in partnership with Indian School of Hospitality (ISH) in alliance with Les Roches,” and Leela describes it as “This 15-month programme,” “built around a world-class curriculum” and coupled with “real world training at our iconic properties.” The pitch is direct: “If you have a passion for hospitality, the Leela Leadership Development Programme is your gateway to success.” The page does not separate the time spent with ISH from the time spent in Leela hotels, does not describe projects or formal mentoring, and does not say what role a trainee takes at the end, so I have not claimed any of that. Trade press reported the programme’s launch in 2022; Leela’s own page gives no date.

The tracks are listed as management trainee roles: General Management, Housekeeping Management, Sales Management, Kitchen Management, Revenue Management, Human Resources Management, Finance Management and Engineering Management. For the first six, the requirement is a graduate with one year of work experience in a luxury hotel. For Finance and Engineering the page says only “Contact for eligibility criteria.”

Applying is by email. Leela asks for a current CV, two pictures, “One close up and one full length,” and a 30 second video about what makes you special, sent as a link or an attachment. The page names the class year it is recruiting for and nothing else about timing; when I read it, it still carried a notice for the Class of 2025, so check the page for the current cycle before you record the video. Any stipend, the intake size and the dates change from year to year and I have left them out.

What two Indian hoteliers in my books say about the first years

The year of luxury hotel work that Leela asks for is the year the hoteliers in my books remember most sharply, and the two who did it in India are worth reading side by side.

Taljinder Singh, when I interviewed him, was general manager of The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai; he is now senior vice president and brand custodian at IHCL. He joined the industry through the other great Indian trainee programme.

“I first ventured into hospitality as a management trainee for The Taj Group. It was a two-year program, and I had absolutely no background in the industry before I enrolled. My original idea was to gain experience and then move abroad for a postgraduate business management degree, but that never happened. Given my ambitions, and while I continued working for the company after my training, Taj sponsored a series of courses at some of the best-known institutions of learning in India and around the world. Their commitment to my personal and professional growth taught me the importance of investing in your team.” Taljinder Singh, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

His first posting was as assistant lobby manager at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi, under a manager who did not let a trainee hide behind the title.

“My first manager was a tough individual with a very demanding work ethic. When I made the mistake of not knowing where a particular VIP guest was after having crossed the lobby, the manager said I needed to “develop eyes in the back of my head” if I wanted to be a successful front office agent and ultimately a hotelier. In those days, there was no technology to easily track customers. I was expected to know the history of the top 250 guests of the hotel.” Taljinder Singh, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Amit Majumder, when I spoke with him, was general manager of Jumeirah Vittaveli in the Maldives; he has since founded Atoll Estates in Dubai with a partner and is its managing partner. He started with no title at all.

“My first job in the hospitality industry was with Oberoi Hotels and Resorts at Rajvilas as a food and beverage associate, which is a fancier name for a waiter, barman, and butler combined. The company put an emphasis on becoming multi-skilled. Early on, I developed a passion for guest service. I also learned the importance of each and every role, no matter how small, and the value of teamwork in achieving success.” Amit Majumder, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

That is the year Leela wants you to have had before you apply. A general management trainee who has already carried plates at a palace hotel will read the ISH curriculum differently from one who has not, and the floor will treat them differently too.

Leela as a training ground

I cannot tell you from the inside what Leela does with its trainees once they are in, and I will not pretend to. What I can tell you is what the people in my books say a luxury hotel does to a person in those years, which is the thing the Leela programme is buying with its fifteen months. George Cozonis, later general manager of The Plaza in New York, arrived at his trainee program with the expectation most graduates carry.

“After studying hotel management, I truly believed I would be hired as a general manager upon graduating. It was a wakeup call when, in my first job as a management trainee, I could barely keep up answering telephones at the reception desk.” George Cozonis, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

He finished the program and took the laundry manager’s job at the same hotel, and what the laundry taught him is the lesson every one of Leela’s eight tracks depends on: “Working on the laundry team also made me realize that it isn’t the relatively few glamorous jobs that make a hotel what it is. Every person’s work is not only useful, but essential.”

Singh, who now hires trainees himself, describes what the far end of a programme should produce. “Once hired, on-boarding new employees is not simply about going through the motions of an orientation process. It is about getting them to connect emotionally with the brand and being immersed in the fabric and culture of the organization.” A 15 month programme split between a school and a palace hotel is, at its best, exactly that immersion. And Majumder names the quality the whole exercise is meant to build: “Beyond having guidelines for how best to observe and document preferences, it takes a lot of training, a keen eye, and the right attitude to intuit a need and take action.”

What to take from it

Get the year first. Leela’s requirement is a graduate with a year in a luxury hotel, so the programme rewards people who have already done what Singh and Majumder did, and the honest route in is a floor job at a luxury property, Leela’s or anyone else’s, before you write the email. Choose your track knowing the page is thin on what follows it, and ask in the interview where last year’s trainees are now. Make the 30 second video about what the year taught you rather than what you studied. And before you apply, read the two Voices pages above, which are the fullest accounts in my books of what an Indian luxury hotel asks of a beginner. Chapter 2 of The Luxury of Attention, The Apprenticeship, is about exactly these years.