Case Study Report: Leaders and Followers

Introduction

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of leadership in the modern society. But it is also difficult to decide on which leadership style to use within an organisation, as it will wholly determine its future and potential to thrive. The only thing that is obvious and can hardly be argued is that there is no leader without a follower. And our society today is very different from that in the previous century, because people are beginning to understand the importance of being more emphatic and serving not only to themselves, but also to the others. Furthermore, I believe I am a servant by the nature and this is why I have chosen the case study about relationship between leaders and followers in Southwest Airlines. Therefore, my aim is to analyse a concept of servant leadership demonstrated by SWA and to determine whether it can provide an exceptional value for customers and make company successful. While addressing the questions given in the case study, I am going to look at different theories and their implementation into practice in SWA, such as affiliative, democratic and servant leadership, participative followership, and emotional intelligence. I will also try to critically analyse existing and possible advantages and disadvantages of using these approaches. As a result, I am seeking to prove that building relationships and trustful environment is a vital task for every organisation.

1.

SWA’s corporate culture and relationships between employees can best be described by a quotation of the former CEO Herbert Kelleher, who said, “If the employees come first, then they’re happy…. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It’s not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time, it is just the way it works” (Marsh, 2012).

By saying this, Kelleher refers to a concept of servant leadership, a style that is altruistic by its nature and emphasizes that leaders should be servants first of all, they should nurture their followers, being attentive and caring (Northouse 2007, p.348).

A concept of being a leading servant was introduced in 1970 in an essay “The Servant as Leader” by Robert Greenleaf. Though the idea itself appeared much longer ago: "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." (Mark 9:35). Servant leaders are opposite to control freaks, their intention is to persuade and motivate others, giving them opportunities to get what they want. They inspire rather than order and provide incentives instead of punishments. Their aim is to be helpful, to do good, and not to lead to have power, influence and material possessions. As a result, organization acts like an integrated organism, achieving goals collectively and sharing victories together (Nayab, 2011).

This is exactly what we see inside SWA. Kelleher and his team created an atmosphere of total fun in his company, which built a strong sense of community (Sunoo, 1995). They hire only those, willing to be part of such team, giving them an opportunity for self-development. Candidates for a job place don’t have to possess any special skills besides inborn ones. “We look for attitudes, we’ll train you on whatever you need to do, but the only thing we can’t do is change inherent attitudes in people”, says Herbert Kelleher. (Sunoo, 1995) Moreover, he allowed employees to express themselves not only at home, but also at work (Helimon, 2009), thereby creating a trustful and caring environment within the company.

Some may argue that Kelleher’s leadership style may be described as authentic. Mainly, the argument here could take place because the concept of authentic leadership has very much in common with servant leadership. In his book “Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value” Bill George defines authentic leadership as action-centered concept, and states that such leaders strive to find out what is real and develop a right course of action by establishing long-term relationships (George et al., 2007). Further research in this area was developed by a number of scientists, including B. George, B. Shamir, G. Eiliam, W. J. Gardner and A. Eagly. They defined core characteristics of authentic leader, such as self-awareness, transparency in relationships, originality. Leading from conviction, authentic leader remains true to himself and committed to an organisation (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Both authentic and servant leaders tend to serve society and their followers, they understand the importance of establishing relationships and lead from integrity, passion, value and heart. However, there are some differences in these two styles. N.Nayab (2010) in his article explains that servant leaders give primal priority to the needs of others, while authentic leaders are not too responsive to the others’ needs, and strive to achieve organisational goals by sticking to a defined course of actions. Authentic leaders may easily be tough and offensive if the situation requires it, whereas servant leaders always remain emphatic and caring. He also states that approach of authentic leaders consists in being “real”, and approach of servant leaders is to be “right”.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 816