LEADERSHIP FOR SOUTHWEST AIRLINES.

Leadership for Southwest Airlines

Leadership for Southwest Airlines

Introduction

Leadership is the process of transforming organizations from what they are to what the leader would have them become. Successful leaders must recognize three interdependent activities: Determining a direction, designing the organization, nurturing a culture dedicated to excellence and ethical behavior.

Mission of Southwest Airlines

The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.

We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.

Leadership for Southwest Airlines

A company showing a bias for action favors experimentation. Management encourages “can do” and “let's try” problem solutions (Pugh and Hickson, 1997, p. 100). Open-door policies and short deadlines are also typical. In general, companies with a bias for action are open for change and new innovations.

At Southwest, open-door policies and “let's try” approaches are part of the special Southwest perspective. Kelleher has been classified as the sort of manager who will “stay out with a mechanic in some bar until four o'clock in the morning to find out what is going on. Then he will fix whatever is wrong” (Labich, 1994, p. 46). Employees are encouraged to generate ideas and then try them. “Southwest workers often go out of their way to amuse, surprise, or somehow entertain passengers” (Labich, 1994, p. 50). For example, employees may explain the usual safety regulations through rap-singing (compare Chakravarty, 1991, p. 50 and McNerney, 1996, p. 5). Employees often generate and implement solutions to problems on the spot instead of waiting for time-consuming top management decisions.

Closeness to the customer implies communicating and treating them as valued clients, not as a valued wallet. Southwest maintains very close ties to the customer. Suggestions are taken seriously. Even letters to the company are answered personally, not according to a standardized formula. Kelleher believes that taking customers' letters seriously helps Southwest in two ways. First, the letters help Kelleher as CEO to monitor employee performance. Second, input from the customers reveals areas in which Southwest can improve (Bovier, 1993).

Typically, the company receives approximately 1,000 letters weekly. Each customer who writes gets a personal response - not a form letter - within four weeks. Explaining why a plane was late can require rattling on for seven pages. While this is time-consuming, requiring more than 1,500 labor hours per week from 45 employees in two departments, Kelleher believes that the letters are the best system he has found to monitor airline performance (Teitelbaum, 1992, p. 115).

Southwest's personal interest in the customer even goes so far as to reschedule commuter flights if the flight schedules interfere with the schedules of frequent fliers.

Companies encouraging autonomy and entrepreneurship are characterized by innovators and risk takers ...