British Airways Management Report

On 27th March 2008, Heathrow Terminal 5 which costs British Airways 43 billion pounds and 6 years was formally put into use. But it fell into troubles that the baggage-handling system had some problems. According to statistics, from 27th March to 30th March BA cancelled 208 flights and about 15000 baggages were missing. On 31st March Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, announced he would take all the responsibilities of this incident. This essay will analyze this issue by some management theories like Maslow's hierarchy of needs so that it will be very clear to know the features of Willie Walsh's leadership. Finally some problems of BA will be talked about and some recommendations will be also proposed. In an organization there must be a lot of management models. It is very hard to tell which one the organization is using. As a result, this essay will just talk about some theories what this issue reflects and make some recommendations.

In this disaster Willie Walsh performed quite good quality what a leader should have. In the media he apologized to the public and shouldered all the responsibilities, even though he ever proudly announced to the nation and the world on the global media that T5 had been ready to open. It is very important to admit the mistakes directly and openly as a leader. In an organization a leader's personal characteristics always influence the employees to behave in a particular way. We call this kind of personality 'trait'. Trait is 'a relatively stable aspect of an individual's personality that influences behavior in a particular direction' (David Boddy, 2007). And Walsh practice interprets 'the big five' among many traits, which are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Walsh's conscientiousness can make the employees rethink profoundly, then find the defects and improve themselves. Furthermore, this sense of responsibility will form the culture that people have courage to take responsibilities, and make the organization have more cohesive force and competitive power.

Seemingly, Walsh took all the responsibilities and made himself become the target of blame, but in fact he was acting a good leader with conscientiousness, he made the employees feel safe. According to Maslow's theory about a hierarchy of needs (1943), people will have a range of needs in their life. When the lower-order needs are satisfied they will turn their attention to satisfying needs at next higher level, so he suggested these needs formed a hierarchy: self-actualization, esteem, belongingness, safety and physiological. Safety needs are the second lower hierarchy of needs -- the search for 'security; stability; dependency; protection; freedom from fear, anxiety and chaos; need for structure, order, law, limits ... and so on'(Maslow, 1970). If safety is dominant for a person who needs a stable, regular job with secure working environments and insurance for both ill-health and retirement, they will be loyal to this organization. And that makes the employee turnover rate very stable, the organization will not always lose the talent staff.

One organization can have many different organizational structures. However the same purpose of these structures is to help the organization signify people's tasks and responsibilities towards the current goals. BA's most staffs are cabin crews who service