The Southwest Airlines Way

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Lead with Credibility and Caring

[Herb Kelleher and Colleen Barrett] have both got credibility. It’s taken them a while to get to that point. They’ve created this level of honesty with us. If it’s bad, they tell you it’s bad.

—Ramp Manager, Southwest Airlines

[Herb] is one of the inspirations for this company. He’s the guiding light. He listens to everybody. He’s unbelievable when it comes to personal etiquette. If you’ve got a problem, he cares.

—Pilot, Southwest Airlines

I am not all that special. It is not like we have some formula here like “E equals MC squared.” It is a tremendous mosaic made up of thousands of people.

—Herb Kelleher, Chairman of the Board, Southwest Airlines1

SO U T H W E S T I S S O often congratulated on its outstanding lead- ership that this chapter hardly seemed necessary. Though the impor- tance of leadership should not be overestimated relative to other organizational practices, neither should it be underestimated. But what is leadership? Leadership expert Ralph Stogdill once quipped that “there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.”2 These definitions range from the mundane—“the behavior of an individual directing the activi- ties of an organized group toward goal achievement”3—to the eso-

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Gittell, Jody Hoffer. Southwest Airlines Way, McGraw-Hill Trade, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/erau/detail.action?docID=4654913. Created from erau on 2022-09-17 04:17:37.

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teric—“articulating visions, embodying values and creating the environ- ment within which things can be accomplished.”4 In this chapter we will attempt to understand better the effectiveness of Southwest’s leadership by contrasting it to the leadership of American, United, and Continen- tal Airlines. We will see that credibility and caring are two critical ingre- dients of leadership effectiveness at Southwest, and will conclude by describing the leadership transition at Southwest when Herb Kelleher stepped down, and the ongoing role that is played by Southwest’s top management team.

Leadership at Southwest Airlines

CEO Herb Kelleher and his top management team have excelled at gaining the trust of managers in the field and frontline employees. They have built trust over time by being up front and consistent in their mes- sage. A ramp manager at Southwest explained how trust between front- line employees and top management facilitates the work of managers throughout the company:

It helps you as a manager when Herb gives it to the employees without sugar coating. Something about Herb, if he says it, it’s law. Colleen is a very, very big part of this puzzle too. The programs we try to get across have her name on it. And we know it. Herb’s the showman but she’s a very, very, very big force. Colleen in many ways is just as big as Herb to us. When she speaks we all lis- ten. They’ve both got credibility. It’s taken them a while to get to that point. They’ve created this level of honesty with us. If it’s bad, they tell you it’s bad.

An operations agent in the Phoenix station explained the importance to her of being able to trust top management:

If I didn’t work at Southwest, I would not work in this industry. At the other carriers, they don’t trust the managers. I have friends who work for other carriers and the whole attitude is just completely different. The CEO says something, and they don’t believe what he says. Herb is so obtainable.

Southwest’s top managers have also made themselves available to frontline employees, demonstrating a level of caring that is beyond the norm in large companies. This accessibility was mentioned time and

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again as a building block of the relationship between frontline employees and top management at Southwest. A pilot explained:

I can call Herb today. You don’t just call and say there’s a problem. He’ll say, “think about it and tell me the solution that you think will work.” He has an open door policy. I can call him almost 24 hours a day. If it’s an emergency, he will call back in 15 minutes. He is one of the inspirations for this com- pany. He’s the guiding light. He listens to everybody. He’s unbelievable when it comes to personal etiquette. If you’ve got a problem, he cares.

Another pilot concurred:

Herb is a true charismatic leader. He’s not your average CEO. He really cares to let people know he cares. When he talks to you, he is really focused on what you are saying. No one can pry him loose. I’ve seen this. He sets the example of respect for everyone. All are important. Treat each other with the same respect as our customers. So people are happy.

Colleen Barrett, president and chief operating officer of Southwest, is also mentioned time and again as an important leadership figure at Southwest. A station manager explained the role that Colleen Barrett plays at Southwest:

Colleen remembers everyone and everything—if you have a birthday you’ll get a card from her. She’s up there with Jesus Christ, in our eyes.

A flight attendant base manager had similar praise for Barrett:

I had the opportunity to be on the culture committee last year, and I got to know her firsthand. She and Herb are genuinely interested in creating jobs for people.

A customer service agent in Los Angeles gave Colleen similar praise, after experiencing firsthand the impact that Colleen had on turning around Southwest’s troubled Los Angeles station in the early 1990s:

Colleen is the greatest. She spreads the Southwest spirit. She’s adamant about it.

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One of Southwest’s chief pilots offered his perspective on Colleen:

Colleen Barrett has an amazing ability to work simply with a lot of issues. She and Herb must write letters all day and all night. They communicate with customers and employees on every little issue. Their philosophy is to take care of the small problems. When someone has a problem here, even if it might seem small, I have to take care of it. It is a necessary element in the development of trust.

In effect, Herb and Colleen set an example through their own actions to the rest of the company regarding the importance of relationships. To demonstrate caring, the top leadership of Southwest Airlines has held to a no-layoff policy throughout its 31-year history (more about this in Chap. 17).

Kelleher’s belief in treating people with respect has infused relation- ships throughout Southwest Airlines. He explains how he came to have this belief:

My mother taught me that. She was an extraordinary person. When I was very young—11 or 12—she used to sit up talking to me till three, four in the morning. She talked a lot about how you should treat people with respect. She said that positions and titles signify absolutely nothing. They’re just adornments; they don’t represent the substance of anybody.

I was kind of her disciple. I learned firsthand that what she was telling me was correct, because there was a very dignified gentleman in our neighbor- hood, the president of a savings and loan, who used to stroll along in a very regal way up until he was indicted and convicted of embezzlement. She taught me that every person and every job is worth just as much as any other person and any other job.5

Leadership at Continental Airlines

Living in the shadow of Frank Lorenzo’s legacy, subsequent leaders of Continental Airlines faced an uphill battle in winning the trust of front- line employees. Gordon Bethune was selected as Continental’s new CEO in October 1994, based in part on his reputation in the industry for credibility with employees. Bethune’s reputation was illustrated by the fact that he was one of the top candidates considered by United’s unions

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in their selection of a new CEO after the employee buyout, though ulti- mately Gerald Greenwald was chosen instead. Bethune described his experience of coming to Continental:

It was the most difficult place I’ve ever come in my life. . . . It’s the value sys- tem that was in place, the over kind of focus on lowest cost is the way to win, when it certainly hadn’t won in ten years. Obviously, it had the makings of a good company, but it was what you’d have to characterize as dysfunctional.6

Bethune brought with him a team of like-minded executives, includ- ing Greg Brenneman as chief operating officer and Mike Campbell as vice president of employee relations. Brenneman characterized the state of the airline when the new management team arrived:

People were focused on pitting the pilots against the mechanics and the gate agents against the flight attendants to see if you could beat down labor costs by getting them fighting with one another. And, of course, this is the biggest team sport in the world. You have to get everybody working together.7

Prior to Bethune’s arrival, managers felt they had to work against the dominant Continental culture to minimize these boundaries so that work could get done. From the perspective of the Cleveland station manager:

I see my job as breaking down those invisible boundaries. This is not Conti- nental culture more generally. . . . The chair of the board sets the tone. He is watching his investment. He is grounded in investment rather than operations.

Early in his leadership Bethune began to send strong signals that he would encourage openness, to win the trust of Continental’s workforce. Within two weeks of his arrival, he declared Fridays to be casual dress days and announced that all offices in the company’s Houston headquar- ters would be open to all Continental employees without requiring a spe- cial access card. He increased the employee newsletter to a monthly frequency, introduced a new publication for employees called the Conti- nental Quarterly, and generated a daily “Message from Senior Manage- ment” available through voicemail to the entire Continental workforce. He took the approach of being open and frank with frontline employees regarding the strategy shift Continental was engaged in at the time he

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took on leadership of the company. A Boston customer service agent explained to me:

Our strategy is changing constantly. No one knows what’s going on. . . . Senior managers just walk into training sessions and say things that no one has ever heard. [But] there has been some attempt at informing us. Bethune made a videotape that we just viewed here in the station. He says that senior management screwed up for the past year. . . . Now we are doing a reversal. We have to make money by hook or crook. We will do whatever we have to do. . . . That’s it, plain and simple.

Bethune’s frankness was a dramatic change from the secrecy and hedging to which Continental employees had become accustomed, and went a long way toward winning the trust of frontline employees.

Bethune also made it his job to start breaking down the boundaries between functions to get people talking to each other. The Cleveland station manager described Bethune’s approach:

When Continental Lite was developed, schedulers were never involved. Nei- ther was flight, maintenance, or the stations. Now Gordon is getting them to talk together. Putting people in a room and closing the door for five days.

In addition, Bethune became well known for his belief in using incen- tives to get employees to work together—paying each Continental employee $65 every month that Continental was ranked in the top 5 for on-time performance. According to Bethune, the money was simply a way to teach the lesson that working together pays off:

Sixty-five bucks was a nice way of saying thank you to a bunch of people who learned that the only way to get the 65 bucks is when they all work together. And it’s been working for us ever since. It’s not a lot, but it doesn’t sometimes take a lot to show that this is like an appreciative change in the way we behave.8

The challenge for Bethune’s leadership would come with September 11, 2001, when employees would find out whether the new approach to leadership at Continental was for real, and whether the airline had built up enough resources after 10 lean years under Lorenzo to make

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Bethune’s commitment to Continental employees a reality (more on this in Chap. 17).

Leadership at United Airlines

When Gerald Greenwald was first brought in as CEO in 1994 as part of United’s employee buyout, he worked hard to build relationships with both employees and their unions. United’s unions had criticized his pre- decessor, Steven Wolf, for having a view of cooperation that meant “I decide and you agree.” Gerald Greenwald enjoyed the support of the pilots and other employee groups partly on the grounds that he was per- ceived to respect them and their union representatives. Greenwald’s background suggested that he would have the skills to bring together labor, management, and shareholders in an employee-owned company.9

Greenwald had provided the financial expertise for Lee Iaccoca’s bailout of Chrysler, and in so doing had gained the respect of both Wall Street and the United Auto Workers’ union. Furthermore, Greenwald had worked as a labor organizer while a student at Princeton, and he had wanted to lead an employee-owned company since 1990, when United’s pilots were first planning a buyout of the airline and approached him to lead it. Indeed, Greenwald placed great hopes on employee ownership as a solution for United’s troubles. As he said in an interview with Air Trans- port World, “We’re banking on ownership to be our edge in a competition we’ve simply got to win.”10

Greenwald announced that he planned to spend half of his time with employees, empowering them to make decisions.11 He traveled through- out the United system early in his leadership to learn from employees about the company. In one 10-day stretch, he held 37 meetings. In inter- views with frontline employees in the mid-1990s, they expressed a belief that Greenwald cared about them and was interested in their work. They expressed hopefulness and outright enthusiasm about his leadership. One ramp agent in Los Angeles was strongly influenced by Greenwald’s leadership:

There are a lot of radicals here, but they are starting to change. I had the privilege of meeting Greenwald. He was incredibly supportive. I never knew that those kind of people cared. Everybody just wanted to be involved. Next thing you know, you had 300 people. I used to raise hell around here for

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minor little things. But I was thrilled with the ESOP. Even the serious prob- lem children were thrilled. . . . People are coming around.

The Los Angeles station manager was also impressed with Greenwald’s approach:

Steve [Wolf] had more of a controlling style than Gerry Greenwald. They want the same thing, but have different ways of getting it. It may have helped Gerry to be coming from outside the industry. . . . Greenwald’s done it per- fectly. He came in with no answers, but with an end result he wants. Others come in and say I want to control this and this. Greenwald just says, make yourself understand why you do what you do.

Given his lack of industry knowledge, one of Greenwald’s first chal- lenges was to choose a knowledgeable second-in-command who would inevitably play a major role in leading the company. According to the president of United’s flight attendant union:

It is very difficult to have a conversation with [Greenwald] on substantial issues, because he’s just not conversant with the terms of the industry.12

Greenwald chose John Edwardson, former chief financial officer and execu- tive vice president of Northwest Airlines, to serve as president of United Air- lines and to run the day-to-day operations of the company. According to Edwardson, “Gerry called me and said, ‘Get to work,’ so I drove in and did.”13 As we will see in Chap. 13, however, Greenwald and Edwardson were ultimately challenged and perhaps overwhelmed by the complexity of labor/management relations in an employee-owned company.

Leadership at American Airlines

Long-time American Airlines leader Robert Crandall had a difficult time winning the trust of American’s frontline employees, because of the approach he often took in his efforts to align American’s frontline employees with his goals. In one particularly critical incident, Crandall announced publicly in 1993 that the only unprofitable piece of Ameri- can’s parent company, AMR Corporation, was the airline itself. AMR Corporation’s management consulting services and information systems

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businesses were making money, Crandall pointed out, while the airline itself was losing money. Crandall proposed a Transition Plan, in which American would continue to fly in those markets where it could still compete, exit the markets where American could no longer compete, while American’s parent company would continue to grow its profitable nonairline businesses. American would in effect become more of a back- office operation for other airlines.

In his President’s Conference with employees in Boston that spring, Crandall presented for about 20 minutes on the challenges ahead for the airline and introduced his Transition Plan as a response to those challenges:

We have labor cost problems, but we have decided not to ask for changes. Every time we talk about pay, we get in a big fight. We can’t afford to get in a fight now. When we fight, we lose the ability to work together to deliver quality service, which, as I’ve explained, is something we absolutely must do. Still, it’s important for everyone to understand that as low-cost carriers enter more and more markets, there will be more and more places where Ameri- can cannot compete.

Crandall then took questions on the Transition Plan from employees for a 30- to 40-minute period. One employee asked, “You say that you are tired of fighting. So what are you going to do?” Crandall responded: “We will talk quietly. If they fight, we’ll sell more routes and aircraft.” Employees asked about potential solutions to the challenges he had posed, asking Crandall whether he had considered the possibility of forming international alliances, competing through subsidiaries, what would happen to American’s smaller hubs, whether NAFTA would offer any new competitive opportunities for American, whether American could contract out to UPS to do some of its night flying, and so on.

Crandall’s response to each query was masterful and informative, seemingly in command of every conceivable detail. But many of the questions were being posed in the form of suggestions and potential solutions, and Crandall did not seem to hear them that way. When the questions ended, Crandall concluded, “Well, I guess we’ve exhausted everybody’s curiosity.” To refer to this uprising of interest from employ- ees and downright concern for their futures as “curiosity” seemed highly disrespectful and dismissive. It became clear that Crandall had come to inform, not to learn from the interaction.

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A manager later explained why everyone had been so polite, asking questions rather than taking positions and engaging Crandall in debate. “Nobody likes to get their head knocked around,” he answered. “Cran- dall can be very militant and scary.” Another manager who had attended the conference shared his thoughts:

Crandall’s transition plan—to pull out where we’re not making money, and increase investment where we are—is being well received in the investor community, it seems. Rose Anne Tortora of Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette has just written a very positive report on the plan, and is recommending investors to buy American stock. But the plan won’t have the intended effect on the unions. People won’t believe it until it hits. It’s a loser. Crandall won’t get what he wants from it.

The Transition Plan was clearly intended to pressure the unions into concessions, but it also led American’s employees, from the front line to the executive level, to question Crandall’s commitment to the business that provided their livelihood and that many of them loved. The exchange in Boston also suggested that Crandall’s leadership style was characterized by little willingness to learn from others, and a tendency to inspire fear in those under his authority.

These aspects of Crandall’s leadership style were apparent in his internal dealings with headquarters staff as well. One former rising star at American Airlines explained:

Crandall’s initial philosophy when he came in was to make individuals accountable for their actions, to help turn the system around. But it’s gone too far. People are afraid to speak up because they might get zapped, or might cause other people to get zapped.

She described a meeting in which she unexpectedly took a controversial point of view. She knew she was taking a big risk and had not planned to say anything, but felt she had to. Crandall was angry and was criticizing the employees of American Airlines for being incompetent and lazy. Others present were either silent or were agreeing with Crandall. She suggested, however, that perhaps it was American’s systems and not the employees that were at fault. The reaction was dramatic:

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To suggest the system is wrong was interpreted by Crandall as suggesting that no one is accountable. Or perhaps that the people at the top are accountable, since they are responsible at least in part for keeping the system in place. My statement was not well formulated. I was immediately attacked from many sides. Everybody wanted to hear examples of what I meant. I didn’t have any. My boss was mortified. Crandall said get some examples and get back to me.

The outcome of the incident was a demotion for the young executive who had spoken up. She was taken off the fast track and given a “special assignment” that seemed like a part-time job relative to her previous responsibilities. She never fully recovered from the demoralization of that experience, and later left the company.

Clearly Crandall’s style was to lead by fear. In addition, Crandall’s trustworthiness as a leader was consistently called into question. Accord- ing to one senior pilot:

There is no trust for Crandall. He is nasty, mean. He’s irascible, he points his finger, he’s boiling inside. Crandall is not loyal to his employees. He has no respect for employees. We’re not going to be loyal to the company or each other. When there is no love for the company, it translates to how you treat each other. . . . People do what they can get away with.

A young pilot for American Airlines in the Los Angeles station showed a full-page ad taken out by Southwest employees to recognize CEO Herb Kelleher on Boss’s Day. “It really makes you sad when you read it,” he said.

Another widely held view was that Crandall was smart and extremely knowledgeable about the industry. That was generally not perceived to be sufficient, however. A long-time ramp agent explained:

Crandall knows more than any other CEO in the world. He was the right person for American Airlines because he knew so much. He would always tell you the answer or get it for you. But he’s too isolated now. He gets the wrong information.

A pilot leader concurred, and pointed out other flaws:

American’s management is top shelf, and Crandall is brilliant. But he always

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plays right into our hands. This is why we don’t have to worry about [the Transition Plan]. When it comes down to the wire, Crandall says something really inflammatory and everybody pulls together. He’s trying to be noncon- frontational, but he still says things that get people upset. He can’t help it.

A few weeks ago, he told the press that American was getting out of the airline business. Bob Baker [senior VP of operations] and Don Carty [senior VP of finance] had to cover for him and explain to the press that he really didn’t mean it. Then he went out and said the same thing again.

After the failed Transition Plan, Crandall made several subsequent efforts to rebuild trust in his leadership. Although his efforts first appeared to be geared toward placating the investor community, it became apparent that the investor community needed reassurance that he had the trust of his employees. In 1995, he invited a broad range of American’s employees to a summer retreat in Seattle called Council on American’s Future. He also established a cross-functional team for front- line employees called the Customer Satisfaction Council. According to a Crandall supporter in the Boston station:

Pilots, flight attendants, and everybody else participates. He showed the pilots the books. He asked each station to put cross-functional teams together.

Still, the damage had been done over the years, and it seemed to have culminated in the Transition Plan. American’s board recognized the dif- ficulty Crandall had in winning the trust of his employees, and ultimately even the trust of the analysts. One observer noted:

The credibility of a CEO to the analysts is a dominant consideration in CEO longevity. Bob [Crandall] has a complex relationship with the analysts. They think he’s very capable. But do they believe him? One thing for sure, the rank and file doesn’t believe him. They think he’s painting a dark picture to gain a bargaining advantage.

Partly in recognition of these difficulties, American’s board of directors handed over the leadership of the airline to Don Carty, executive vice pres- ident of finance, in 1995, while Crandall remained as CEO of the AMR Corporation. Carty was reputed to be more of a people person than Cran- dall, and also appeared to have the trust of the pilots. He had demonstrated

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during the time of the Transition Plan a stronger commitment to the air- line business and therefore was able to start his leadership without the stigma of the Transition Plan. Although the Crandall legacy, particularly the distrust, would not be quickly left behind, American Airlines appears to have become more unified under Don Carty’s leadership. One thing that still remained, and on which Carty has drawn, was the desire of many American employees to feel pride and loyalty toward their company.

Southwest’s Leadership Transition

The importance of the relationship between top management and front- line employees to Southwest’s success should not be underestimated. It is one reason why many observers wondered whether there would be a Southwest without Kelleher. Kelleher had said for years that he would step down as CEO when he reached the age of 70. Given the central role he plays at Southwest Airlines, this prospect generated a great deal of anxiety on the part of Wall Street analysts and other industry observers. Some Southwest employees themselves wondered how Southwest would fare after Herb’s departure, given his visibility in the company. One operations agent who had been with Southwest for 20 years said:

We used to say when Herb retires we’re leaving—he’s been the force behind Southwest’s success. When he leaves it will all go down the tubes. We used to say that 6 years ago. No one says that anymore. You wouldn’t know that he left—it’s not any different.

Others closer to the top leaders themselves, however, including one of Southwest’s chief pilots, expressed confidence as early as 1994 that Southwest would continue to thrive without Herb.

Herb is so important to what Southwest is. But it will continue without him. He has done a very good job of selecting people. He has a good group around him. He picks sharp individuals to fill various roles then entrusts them to make decisions. There never will be another Herb Kelleher, but the spirit will carry on.

Indeed, Herb confirms that he selected his successors with great care:

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I thought about who would be my successor very seriously for quite some time. My biggest concern was that I wanted someone who would be respect- ful of Southwest’s culture and would be the sort of person who was altruistic in nature. I think Jim [Parker] and Colleen [Barrett] fit that.14

Kelleher chose long-time colleague Jim Parker to succeed him as CEO and long-time colleague Colleen Barrett to succeed him as president and chief operating officer.

In selecting Barrett, Kelleher also left Southwest with the legacy of having the first top woman executive in the U.S. airline industry. About breaking this barrier, Barrett says with characteristic humility:

It’s not anything I ever aspired to. . . . All I ever really wanted to do all my life was enjoy what I do, and I obviously do that. But since all the coverage on this transition has come out, I have been amazed at how many women I have heard from that I don’t know. So obviously it’s a bigger thing than I would have thought.

First of all, the airline industry really isn’t known for its women. That is a fact. But the glass ceiling has never been an issue for me at Southwest Air- lines, so I’ve never particularly thought of that. But I have heard really big- dog people saying how great this is. It makes me feel great for women. It’s kind of humbling. And I wish my mother was alive, because she’d love it.15

Southwest’s Top Management Team

The other key factor for the successful transition was the existence of a very cohesive, well functioning top management team, giving Kelleher multiple strong leaders from whom to select, and giving Southwest’s new leaders a cohesive, well functioning team with which to lead. Southwest’s current top management team is shown in Exhibit 5–1.

It was evident at a March 2001 top management team meeting that Southwest’s leadership extended well beyond Kelleher.16 It appeared to be a group that would not allow itself to be torn apart by jealousies related to succession. Kelleher had not yet stepped down or announced his successors, but he was absent from the meeting, preparing his annual “Message to the Field.” There was ample opportunity to observe the team on its own, without the charismatic leader who has garnered such enthusiastic attention in the press and in the investment community.

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Exhibit 5–1 Southwest’s Current Top Management Team

Herb Kelleher Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Execu- tive Committee

James Parker Vice Chair and Chief Executive Officer

Colleen Barrett President and Chief Operating Officer

Deborah Ackerman Vice President, General Counsel

Beverly Carmichael Vice President, People

Donna Conover Executive Vice President, Customer Service

Greg Crum Vice President, Flight Operations

Alan Davis Vice President, Internal Audit and Special Projects

Ginger Hardage Vice President, Corporate Communications

Robert Jordan Vice President, Purchasing

Camille Keith Vice President, Special Marketing

Gary Kelly Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Daryl Kraus Vice President, Provisioning

Kevin Krone Vice President, Interactive Marketing

Pete McGlade Vice President, Schedule Planning

Bob Montgomery Vice President, Properties and Facilities

Ron Ricks Vice President, Governmental Affairs

David Ridley Vice President, Ground Operations

Joyce Rogge Senior Vice President, Marketing

Jim Ruppel Vice President, Customer Relations and Rapid Rewards

Keith Taylor Vice President, Revenue Management

Ellen Torbert Vice President, Reservations

Tammy Walker-Jones Vice President, Inflight

Greg Wells Vice President, Safety, Security, and Flight Dispatch

Steve Whaley Controller

Jim Wimberly Executive Vice President and Chief of Operations

Laura Wright Vice President, Finance and Treasurer

Mike Van de Ven Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis

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There was clearly a well functioning, remarkably well integrated top management team in place at Southwest Airlines. The meeting reflected Southwest’s approach to decision making. Managers from different busi- ness areas spoke knowledgeably about issues beyond the expertise sug- gested by their titles, and they repeatedly built upon one another’s thoughts. It was like stepping into an ongoing conversation in which these managers had been engaged for many years. As Colleen Barrett pointed out at the start of the meeting:

Titles mean very little here. Most people overlap in functionality. You would not get an accurate impression of Southwest from interviewing us individu- ally about our areas of functional expertise.

Not only does Southwest invest a great deal of time and energy in building relationships between top management and frontline employees and among frontline employees. In addition, members of Southwest’s top management team also invest their own valuable time in building relation- ships with one another. This ongoing conversation among senior managers at Southwest is one important way that this organization achieves shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect across functional divisions.

Scholars have explored decision-making processes among members of top management teams.17 The value of real-time communication is clear. However, long meetings can be an enormous expenditure of valu- able time. How can Southwest, with its focus on efficiency, justify such an expenditure of time? There are two reasons why Southwest’s lengthy top management team meetings may be worthwhile. First, the time invested in developing shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect among senior managers may actually save time in the long run by resolving early on the functional disputes that can slow down imple- mentation and blunt the effectiveness of policies even after they are implemented. Second, the coordination achieved at the top of the com- pany translates into coordination on the front line, where customer ser- vice is delivered. Coordination on the front line in turn helps Southwest deliver reliable service while achieving efficient utilization of both its aircraft and its people, as we saw in Chap 3.

Lead with Credib i l i ty and Car ing 71

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Summing Up

Herb Kelleher has often been described as a charismatic leader. Accord- ing to leadership expert Robert House, a charismatic leader has the abil- ity to relate the mission of the organization to deeply rooted values, ideals, and aspirations shared among followers, thus giving the work of the orga- nization more meaning than it would otherwise have.18 Kelleher has cer- tainly provided Southwest Airlines employees with a sense of mission that connects to their own values, ideals, and aspirations. That sense of mis- sion, if strong, will remain with the organization as a legacy. Not every leader of a successful organization must be charismatic. What successful organizations do need from each of their leaders, however, is credibility— the ability to inspire trust; and caring—the ability to inspire a belief by employees that their leaders care deeply about their well-being.

72 T E N S O U T H W E S T P R A C T I C E S

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