Servant Leadership Takes flight
a young mother traveling with a toddler on a long cross-country flight
approached the flight attendant looking rather frantic. Because of
weather and an hour-and-a-half wait on the runway to take off, the
plane would arrive at its destination several hours late. The plane had
made an intermediate stop in denver to pick up passengers but not
long enough for travelers to disembark. The mother told the atten-
dant that with the delays and the long flight, her child had already
eaten all the food she brought and if she didn’t feed him soon he was
bound to have a total meltdown. “can i get off for five minutes just
to run and get something for him to eat?” she pleaded.
“i have to recommend strongly that you stay on the plane,” the atten-
dant said, sternly. But then, with a smile, she added, “But i can get off.
The plane won’t leave without me. What can i get your son to eat?”
Turns out that flight attendant not only got the little boy a meal, but
brought four other children on board meals as well. anyone who has
traveled in a plane with screaming children knows that this flight
attendant not only took care of some hungry children and frantic par-
ents, but also indirectly saw to the comfort of a planeload of other
passengers.
This story doesn’t surprise anyone familiar with Southwest airlines. The
airline’s mission statement is posted every 3 feet at all Southwest locations:
Follow the Golden rule—treat people the way you want to be treated.
it’s a philosophy that the company takes to heart and begins with how
it treats employees. colleen Barrett, the former president of Southwest
airlines, says the company’s cofounder and her mentor, herb Kelleher,
was adamant that “a happy and motivated workforce will essentially
extend that goodwill to Southwest’s customers” (Knowledge@
Wharton, 2008). if the airline took care of its employees, the employ-
ees would take care of the customers, and the shareholders would win,
too.
From the first days of Southwest airlines, herb resisted establishing tra-
ditional hierarchies within the company. he focused on finding employ-
ees with substance, willing to say what they thought and committed to
doing things differently. described as “an egalitarian spirit,” he employed
a collaborative approach to management that involved his associates at
every step.
colleen, who went from working as herb’s legal secretary to being the
president of the airline, is living proof of his philosophy. a poor girl
from rural Vermont who got the opportunity of a lifetime to work for
herb when he was still just a lawyer, she rose from his aide to become
vice president of administration, then executive vice president of cus-
tomers, and then president and chief operating officer in 2001 (which
she stepped down from in 2008). She had no formal training in avia-
tion, but that didn’t matter. herb “always treated me as a complete
equal to him,” she says.
it was colleen who instituted the Golden rule as the company motto
and developed a model that focuses on employee satisfaction and
issues first, followed by the needs of the passengers. The company
hired employees for their touchy-feely attitudes and trained them for
skill. Southwest airlines developed a culture that celebrated and
encouraged humor. The example of being themselves on the job
started at the top with herb and colleen.
This attitude has paid off. Southwest airlines posted a profit for 35
consecutive years and continues to make money while other airlines’
profits are crashing. colleen says the most important numbers on the
balance sheet, however, are those that indicate how many millions of
people have become frequent flyers of the airline, a number that
grows every year.
Question:
- how do the leaders of Southwest airlines serve others? What others
are they serving?
- Based on Figure 10.1, describe the outcomes of servant leadership at
Southwest airlines, and how follower receptivity may have influenced
those outcomes.
………………..Answer Preview…………………..
Question 1
The leaders at Southwest airlines have developed different ways of serving the employees and this has had an effect on the ways the employees serve the passengers. One of the ways that the leaders have served their employees is by giving them an enabling environment to become excellent performers in their duties. The employees in this company enjoy almost the same treatment as their leaders as it is in the motto of the company that one should treat others the way they would want others to treat them……
APA
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