Case study-southwest airlines essay

Case Study-Southwest Airlines Leadership is one of the four functions that constitute the management process.

And it is also one of the most popular management topics. Leadership is the process of inspiring others to work hard to accomplish important tasks. This essay will discuss the visionary and servant leadership and indicate which one is applied to Herb Kelleher and how The visionary leadership describes a leader who brings to the situation a clear and compelling sense of the future and an understanding of how to get there. The servant leadership is follower-centered and committed to helping others in their works.

Herb Kelleher, the cofounder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, is a leader that combined the visionary and servant leadership traits together. As a leader of the company, Kelleher made a clear vision as the company’s core value and delivered the vision to the employees and inspired them to pursue the vision in their daily work. Besides that, Southwest respects employees and their ideas. As the definition from the textbook, the servant leadership is to helping employees use their talents while accomplished their jobs.

At this point, the follower as employees is more important than the leader. Southwest set a meeting called “ culture committed” that made up of employees from different functional areas and levels. The committee meets quarterly to brainstorm ideas for maintaining the company’s spirit and image. And all managers will be present to communicate with employees to understand their jobs.

Kelleher and Barrett’s leadership approaches show consistency with Drucker’s notions of “ good old-fashioned leadership” which is represented as define and communicate a clear vision, accept leadership as a responsibility, surround with talented people, don’t blame others when things go wrong, keep integrity to earn the trust of others, and be consistent than be clever. After Kelleher set up the Southwest core value as humor, altruism, and “ luv”, this vision was accepted by all employees as their responsibilities. The leaders encouraged employees to use their sense humor to make customers more enjoyable. And the company has created employee satisfaction by focusing on its internal “ Customers” so that employees are positively motivated to show the same degree of concern for external customers. Whatever co-workers or customers, the employees treat them consistent. What the point is, Southwest Airlines uses the good old-fashion leadership to success consistently. In conclusion, this essay discussed the visionary leadership, servant leadership, democratic leadership style, and the good old-fashion leadership.

With those different types of leaderships, Southwest Airlines uses appropriate leaderships to grow into one of the most profitable and most beloved airlines in American history.