Final Case Study

Reuel Bautista
Hoby Follis
ORGL 3332 Organizational Behavior and Ethical Leadership
South Texas College

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Southwest Airlines is one of the largest Airlines in the United States. It is well known for
great customer service and an employee-first attitude towards its staff. In the history of the
airline industry, Southwest Airlines has stood out as one of the healthiest companies in many
aspects. It has shown to continue being a profitable company and is still growing at a stable rate
despite the condition of the economy that threatened the lives of other airlines. According to their
former CEO, Colleen Barret, its success is attributed to a culture that emphasizes the
individuality of its customers and employees. Leaders have made mention that the company
focuses on caring, emotions, and putting the employees first. The company is fun, spirited,
hardworking and filled with love.
The airline has an extremely supportive culture as it adamant about the deliberate
developing of its leaders and leadership styles. Barrett mentions that the companys HR is very
disciplined about their hiring, their mentoring, and coaching of those they hire. The company is
very forgiving when it comes to honest mistakes but is less forgiving in response to negative
attitude and toxic behavior and demeanor. The companys hiring process is extremely careful and
is very clear about the expectations of the company as well as its culture. Formal leadership
training, presentation by outside consultants, leadership briefings, and communication about
leadership in bulletins and meetings are some of the ways the company adopts programs to
develop leaders from within. The company leaders and managers make it a point to present
themselves as proper models of leadership. They make it a point to include the topic of
leadership in their normal conversations with and portray the principles embraced by the
company. Herb Kelleher, a founding member of Southwest Airlines, works from a small
windowless office and often treats her employees, regardless of their level within the company,
with utmost respect. The training and development of leaders at Southwest Airlines have the

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purpose of extending a culture and leadership style that has been the most successful for the
company. The Airlines, despite its employee-first attitude, will not hesitate to fire people who are
not properly representing the spirit and culture of the company. They also often hold their leaders
accountable for any mistake, but are strong when it comes to defending their employees who are
working hard and well despite complaints from various customers. (Nahavandi, 2012)
The company considers the concept of fitting in the organization as gospel. While they
are very careful at who they hire and train, they will not hesitate to remove those who are not fit
for the company. Characteristics such as authenticity, honest, respectful, and a big sense of
humor is very important to be able to have a sort tenure in the company. The leaders of the
company were chosen and trained well to have respect and love for the customers and the
employees. Barret created a Culture Committee to encourage the companys rather unique
culture. This is a team of 100 employees who preach the companys way of life. (Nahavandi,
2012)
The spirit of growth in Southwest Airlines is responsibility of everybody. The leaders
develop the employees but everyone is accountable for the growth of all the employees. The
culture is forever alive due to the companys strong training programs, promotions, and telling
and retelling of stories Herb Keheller is famous for. Keheller has created a proper platform for
the company so the companys spirit and culture will survive even after his era. The company
had the notion of empowering and training anyone who had the passion for the work and the
desire to learn. Southwest Airlines is a model for how to create a proper work environment for
the employees. (Nahavandi, 2012)
From case study, it seems that Southwest Airlines practices servant leadership. Servant
leadership is a type of leadership that focuses more on the followers than the leaders. The

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concept of servant leadership is coined by Robert K. Greenleaf explaining than in this theory
makes sure that other peoples highest priority needs are being served. Servant leadership is a
philosophy that works to grow the lives of individuals and build better organizations. This type
of leadership focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people within the community.
While traditional leadership involves the centralized power by a person on top of the hierarchy,
servant leadership works to share power and prioritizes the needs of others first. Servant
leadership also works to help people develop and perform as highly as possible. Robert
Greenleaf believed that a servant-leader organizations can help shape the world in the future. He
saw that organizations and individuals were able to adopt the servant-leader quality. (Chanoo,
2015)
Servant leadership is mostly associated with a participative leadership style. The highest
priority in a servant leader is to encourage and enable employees to excise their full potential.
Organizations under this style of leadership has the responsibility to delegate and engage their
staff in active participation in the decision-making process. (Chanoo, 2015)
Southwest Airlines model of leadership is a servant-leadership style because the top of
their priority is their employees and making them good leaders and workers. Servant leadership
is a team effort and Southwest has shown that time and time again that their efforts of
maintaining their culture takes the entire organizational body. (Chanoo, 2015)
Like the servant-leadership style, Southwest Airlines also seems to utilize a
transformational style of leadership. Transformational leadership assumes that people will follow
a leader who inspires them with their vision, passion, enthusiasm, and energy. In
transformational leadership, the leader starts with a development of a vision. The vision is
supposed to excite and convert the followers into the leaders way of thinking using enthusiasm

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and energy. Transformational leaders will work nonstop to continue transforming their
organization and are often charismatic. (Ghasabeth, 2015)
Southwest Airlines falls under this type of leadership due to its leaders abilities to create
a culture and make others believe it. Southwest Airlines is known for its organizational culture
and working spirit. The employees are made aware what the company requires of them and
actively pursues what the culture of the company entails. The leaders of Southwest Airlines have
created a radical company with nontraditional policies and way of thinking. Their employee-first
concept is rather unique as most companies considers customers as their number one priority.
The company practices a trickle down style in the way they deal with their employees and
customers. The company deals with the problems of their employees first and makes sure they
have been developed to the companys standard so they can treat their customers with the care
they need. The company also actively supports their employees against customer complaints
unlike a large number of organizations. The leaders of Southwest Airlines are charismatic in the
way they have injected their vision into the company. The employees work for people with a
clear goal and works differently from any other organizations. (Ghasabeth, 2015)
Southwest Airlines is truly a revolutionary company. It is one of the best airlines in the
world and that is largely evident due to its financial success in the midst of an economic trough
in our nation. This is due to their leaders who are different and actively love and care for their
employees. The company is filled with people who love each other and puts each others needs
before their own. They actively work and facilitate an environment to help each other grow as
people, as workers, and as leaders.

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Reference:
Nahavandi, A. (2012). The art and science of leadership. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

CHANHOO, S., KWANGSEO RYAN, P., & SEUNG-WAN, K. (2015). SERVANT

LEADERSHIP AND TEAM PERFORMANCE: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF KNOWLEDGESHARING CLIMATE. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 43(10), 17491760. doi:10.2224/sbp.2015.43.10.1749

Ghasabeh, M. S., Reaiche, C., & Soosay, C. (2015). THE EMERGING ROLE OF
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP. Journal Of Developing Areas, 49(6), 459-467.