Southwest Airlines Case Study

1. What leadership theories and concepts have contributed to Herb Kelleher's success at Southwest?

Herb Kelleher is a courageous CEO, who built a unique organization and also did stand out successfully in this very competitive market. Kelleher didn't follow the traditional approach that his competitive CEO's followed. He executed everything in his own style, which was unorthodox.

Kelleher implemented a simple approach; he believed that leadership is the job of every employee, not only the higher management should follow that. Kelleher's leadership style was quite different when compared with the other autocratic leaders who thrived in the business for centuries. He insists that every employee has the power to take decisions according to the situation. Also employees should guide other employees to make decisions.

He followed a complete bottom-up approach. At the bottom were the higher management employees and at the top were the front line employees. He always believed that these front line employees are the ones that make things happen. He considers his front line employees are the experts in the organization and the top management personnel's are the ones that supports them. Kelleher's ability to lead was well supported by all the leaders who were employees in the organization.

Kelleher's leadership style can be related to the Path-Goal Theory. May be he didn't follow the exact theory of Path-Goal, but few styles he implemented were similar to Path-Goal Theory. There were four major leadership behaviors that were followed by Kelleher. Two of them were supportive and two were participative.

A Supportive leader supports his employees in his/her personal and professional life. A participative leader is one who discusses with his/her subordinates and makes use of the suggestions given by them before making the final call. Kelleher implements these approaches in his daily life.

He spends his valuable time to develop a personal relationship with his employees. He was aware of all the employees' name. He moved in a friendly manner with all his employees. He gave more importance to his frontline employees and more priority to their suggestions than the upper management as he felt that the employees are the ones who are going to deal with the problems and not their higher management.

Kelleher was an extraordinary leader. He inspires people to place the needs of their company as the highest priority and did his best to develop this kind of attitude among the employees. He was a self-confident person and he took the chances whenever it was required to make the changes. Lastly, his energetic and playful behavior has drawn people to love him.

2. Do you consider Kelleher to be a manager, a leader, or both? Why?

Kelleher was an excellent leader. He developed the leadership skills of all