Leaders in hospitality management education face diverse challenges in today's competitive and changing environment. Evolving demands from superiors, financial challenges, and faculty and students increasing demands, create a turbulent environment in which administrators must thrive. One of the keys in being effective leaders is the application of the necessary leadership skills. Often, administrators are faculty members that do not have leadership experience and mostly their preparation and skill development are almost non-existent, mainly on-the job training. Since, skills are abilities that can be developed formal training must be in place before the entrusting of administrative duties. The purpose of this study is threefold: to examine the required skills that make administrators in hospitality management education effective, study challenges faced by hospitality management administrators, and explore the advantages and disadvantages of hiring professional managers or deans and department chairs in academic leadership positions. This study applied qualitative methods, an e-mail survey and a focus group. Fifty faculty members and administrators participated in the study. The data were analyzed in three levels; the first level of analysis included the examination of the aggregate data of all fifty cases, the second level the analysis of opinions within each group of faculty and administrators, and the last level compared and contrasted the opinions of the two groups for similarities and differences. Faculty and administrators ranked business skills as the most important leadership skills followed by cognitive, interpersonal, personal values, and strategic skills. Specifically, they unanimously ranked communication skills as the most important leadership skills and indicated that the method of communicating depends on the audience and the content of the message. Ethics and fairness were the prevalent personal values as well as recognition that leadership should be able to understand faculty's interpretation of fairness. Leadership challenges included fiscal challenges, administrative, curriculum and program development, dealing with faculty, increased diversity of faculty and students, and technological challenges. Finally, the majority of participants preferred deans and department chairs instead of professional managers in academic leadership positions because of the uniqueness of the academic culture, and the lack of the available resources to recruit competent professional managers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]