In the highly turbulent airline industry, Southwest Airlines is one of the healt

Question

In the highly turbulent airline industry, Southwest Airlines is one of the healthiest companies, continuing growth and profit in a climate that is threatening the survival of other airlines. Much of its success is attributed to a special culture that emphasizes individuality, taking care of people and fun. “Learn from your mistakes; take the initiative; and listen to your heart” (The power of persistence, 2002) are simple and powerful words from Colleen Barrett, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines who was with the airlines much of her career and in the case with other members of the leadership team, including founder Herb Kelleher and current CEO Gary Kelly. David Ridly, the recently retired VP of marketing and sales, talks with pride about Southwest’s “warrior spirit”, which focuses on caring, emotions and putting employees first (Warrior Spirit, 2006). While Colleen Barrett headed the company, she also had the title of Queen of Hearts for sustaining a culture that is: “fun, spirited, zesty, hard-working and filled with love. Love is a word that isn’t used too often in corporate America, but we’ve used it at Southwest from the beginning” (Shinn, 2004: 18).

In addition to a supportive culture, for which Kelleher and Barrett can take much credit, Southwest is deliberate about developing leaders and leadership. Talking about the company’s HR practices, Barrett describes, “We are very, very disciplined about mentoring and coaching … We’re a very forgiving company in terms of good honest mistakes, but we’re not forgiving about attitude and behavior and demeanor” (Fisher, 2007: 18). Barrett suggests that developing employees and maintaining the culture starts with the hiring process by carefully selecting people and being very clear about expectations and company culture (Sekula, 2007). Programs to develop leaders range from formal leadership training for everyone, including frontline employees, to presentations by outside consultants, leadership briefings and communication about leadership in company bulletins. Managers and company leaders also make a point to include the topic of leadership in their regular interactions and strive to demonstrate the principles the company embraces (Shin, 2003). They also provide credible role models for others. For example, Kelleher works from a small windowless office and treats all employees regardless of their rank with care and respect (Warrior Spirit, 2006). The goal of training and development at Southwest is to perpetuate a culture and a leadership style that have been effective. Barrett says that they are not shy about closely monitoring their employees, getting rid of people who do not fit in, promoting those who represent the spirit of the company and holding their leaders and managers accountable (Sekula, 2007). They are also not shy about standing up for employees who do their jobs well, even when customers complain (Warrior Spirit, 2006).

The concept of fit between the person and the company is central to Southwest’s success. Through careful hiring and training, the company makes sure that those who do not fit well do not get hired or do not stay long. Caring about others, authenticity and maybe most importantly, a sense of humour, are prerequisites for being successful at Southwest. Ridley says: “Our leaders have a genuine love for people. We don’t want you in leadership if you don’t. If it’s all about you we don’t want you – there are no Big Shot leaders at Southwest” (Warrior Spirit, 2006). Barrett encouraged the culture by creating a Culture Committee, a group made up of a team of 100 employees who preach and teach the company’s unique culture (Medley, 2006). In addition, the local culture committee’s members are further entrusted with the task for maintaining and strengthening the Southwest SPIRIT (always in capital letters). The culture even has its own language, which includes “Southwest Family, ” “Servant Leadership,” and “New Hires,” all used as proper nouns to indicate their importance to the company (Medley, 2006).

Although leaders play a key role in developing others, everyone at Southwest is in charge of that culture. Through strong training programs, promotions from within, the telling and retelling of many stories, for which the company cofounder and past CEO Herb Kelleher is famous, the culture is ever present. The company offices are decorated with memorabilia that further reinforce Southwest ideals. Kelleher ensured that current and upcoming leadership are in place and guaranteed “life after Herb” (Medley, 2006). Barrett played a further role in developing leaders, mentoring anyone who had “a passion for what he or she does or who has a desire to learn” (Shin, 2003), and she empowered her followers to do the same. She stated, “When New Hires ask me all the time, ‘How are you going to keep the culture?’ I say, ‘I’m not. You are.’” (Medley, 2006). The new CEO, Gary Kelly, seems to be carrying on much of the tradition. He showed up dressed as Edna Turnball, the mom in the musical Hairspray at a recent company Halloween party (Bailey, 2008).

Analysis

Write a 2,500 word analysis of Southwest Airlines in which you apply the theoretical leadership knowledge you have acquired, demonstrate your understanding of the integrative relationships among industry environment, corporate strategy, corporate structure, corporate culture and corporate leadership, demonstrate your understanding of the role of corporate leaders in ensuring goal achievement, smooth internal processes and external adaptability, and finally, drilling down to analyze CEO leadership qualities and style. Research, analyze and discuss the following:

Industry environment: The North American airline industry?

Corporate strategy: The corporate strategy of Southwest Airlines?

Corporate structure: The corporate structure of Southwest Airlines?

Corporate culture: The corporate culture of Southwest Airlines?

Corporate leadership: The corporate leadership of Southwest Airlines?

Role of corporate leaders – in general: How the corporate leaders of Southwest Airlines integrate industry environment, corporate strategy, structure and culture to ensure goal achievement, smooth internal processes and external adaptability ?

Role of corporate leaders – in particular: Answer the following questions.

How does Southwest develop its leaders? Be specific in your answer and be sure to provide examples that reinforce your answer?

What is the role of culture and fit in success of the company ?

Explanation / Answer

Southwest Airlines is one of the healthiest Airlines the Airline sector and has been moving ahead of any other Airlines in the industry. The main reason of the Airlines success contributed from company culture they have been practising and the support from the employees.

It has all happened because of the powerful words from former CEO Colleen Barrett who spent most of her time in this airlines and developed the corporate culture in the Airlines which also brought happiness towards the passengers travelled in southwest Airlines. The company foundation is strongly dependent on special culture that emphasizes the individuality, taking care of the people, Learn from your mistakes, take initiative and listen to your heart. These are the important things colleen has brought inside the company and she was called as queen of the hearts for sustaining the culture in the organization and also there had been a great contribution from many of the other Leaders in the organization.

The company has been very keen with hiring the candidates who can be suitable to Southwest Airlines. Even during the interview itself the candidate’s fitment will be identified and hired. Even after hiring if the employees do not suit the requirements or if the attitude does not match with the company culture the employee will be fired to ensure others does not get impacted with this behaviour. Southwest has been spending a lot of time on mentoring and coaching the employees so that they develop the company culture and following fun loving and hardworking environment. The company has been much disciplined when it comes to coaching the employees since they knew that without a proper coaching a job cannot be delivered appropriately and may lead to negative impact. The Leadership style of Southwest is visionary since they always focus on building good leaders inside the company and always ensure that company culture never slips down. The Visionary Leaders inspire others to contribute in his or her Vision. A strong visionary leader moves his followers towards the shared vision and the same style even the southwest has applied in the company and has been very successful with this. To do this company has been coaching the Leaders inside the company and bring outside consultant to provide expert advice.

Leaders have been much focussed on achieving the goals of the company and ensuring the culture they have been following. Starting from hiring the candidates, coaching, mentoring and ensuring that employees pass in being and delivering what the company wants. They really do not be shy in keeping a close watch on the people to see how they are performing and also not hesitant to terminate people who are not performing. Through the strong training programs, promotions within the organization and retelling the success stories of the people in the organization has kept the culture ever present. Also one important thing to be notified is southwest really do not hire people at bigger levels which is quite impressive and they give promotion to deserving people and retain them in the company for the employees and company’s growth. This is a good quality the company has.

They also believe in caring about others in the company and helping them in need, sharing the knowledge and most important the good sense of humour the company always look for. Any company having such good corporate culture would certainly successful. All these work being done to satisfy the employees, the passengers and at last to bring contribution towards the success of the company. If the people are happy the work will be good and if the work is good it will automatically contributes to the success of the organization.

The role of culture and fitment of candidates plays a vital role in the success of the company. Company culture defines the way company operates and how the employees culture going to be and it also reflects the same culture at work. Especially southwest is a service oriented organization and culture in this sector is primary feature. Fitment of the candidates who can adjust to the culture of a company is a critical aspect. If the candidate is good and unable to match with the company culture is not a good fitment. If the attitude of a person does not match with the company culture, the person cannot serve the purpose. Hence culture and fit really contributes to the success of an organization.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse I
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.