Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

Southwest Airlines: Servant Leadership Creates Organizational Success

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There are many horror stories pertaining to the airline industry, but one success story is Southwest Airlines.  The airline, originally named Air Southwest, was founded in 1967 by Herb Kelleher, later changing its name to Southwest Airlines in 1971 (Southwest 2010).  They are headquartered in Dallas, TX and operate mostly in the US.   Today they operate 752 aircraft, serve 101 destinations, and employ more than 60,000 people (Southwest 2010).  Southwest’s major claim to fame in the airline industry is that, as of 2019, they had 46 consecutive years of profitability (O’Donnell 2019).  One may ask, how is this possible?  How have they gone that long?  Is it luck or is there something else going on?  Well, it should be known that it is the latter.  There is something else at play other than luck at Southwest Airlines.

It all starts at the top with Founder Herb Kelleher.  Mr. Kelleher would be described as a servant leader by definition.  Northouse defines servant leaders as those “who place the good of followers over their own self-interests and emphasize follower development.  They demonstrate strong moral behavior toward followers, the organization, and other stakeholders” (2016, p.226).  He is a lawyer by trade, so he always has had a passion for helping others (Modern SL Website 2017).  Furthermore, he truly believes that taking care of employees is a company’s top priority (Modern 2017).  Think about that for a minute.  He is not thinking of the bottom line or his customers, but the people who work for and with him are his first priority.  Mr. Kelleher has a reputation for not seeing employees as a “rung on a ladder”, rather views everyone in the organization as equals (Modern 2017).  One of his many traits as a leader is the ability to conceptualize and think creatively, but he also never embarrasses someone who may not be correct or have an idea like his (2017).  One of the key aspects of being a servant leader is developing your followers (Northouse 2016).  An example pertaining to Herb Kelleher of this concept can be found in former President of Southwest Airlines, Colleen Barrett.

Colleen Barrett has worked for Herb Kelleher since the inception of Southwest Airlines (Modern 2017).  So, how does a former legal secretary, with no formal management education, become the president of one of the world’s most successful business models?  The answer is simple, she was developed into a leader by Herb Kelleher.   It also helped that her passion was to lead and serve people.  Colleen maintained her position for over 30 years with the company by “co-leading” with Mr. Kelleher (Modern 2017).  The pairing of these two worked well for so many years because they both shared common values and morals.  As a team, these two displayed all of the seven listed behaviors in the Model of Servant Leadership described by Northouse (2016).  Mr. Kelleher was the idea man, or the conceptualizer.  They both helped people grow and succeed within the company.  The business model created by Kelleher was to put the employees first.  In fact, Ms. Barrett describes the company in a pyramid (image below), where employees are at the top.  Because these employees are treated well, and have job satisfaction, they in turn take care of the customers.  The happy customers affect the bottom-line, which influences the shareholders (Modern 2017).  Ms. Barrett estimates that 85% of her time is spent on employees and delivering proactive customer service to her followers or employees (Modern 2017).

Major corporations being led by servant leaders is not a new concept, but the long-term success of Southwest Airlines can directly be linked to the servant leadership of Herb Kelleher and long-time company president, Colleen Barrett.  Their ability to lead while allowing others to grow and succeed is the reason why this company can continually turn a profit in an industry where most do not.  By putting their employees first, they have empowered them to take that same mentality to the customer.  Southwest Airlines fits into the “Model of Servant Leadership” (Northouse 2016).  There is a culture of helping people while being the best in business.  The many attributes of the leaders were discussed earlier.  The employees certainly are receptive to this type of culture as well.  Also discussed earlier was the behaviors displayed by the company’s leadership, which in turn, has a positive outcome of follower performance (Colleen), organizational performance (profit), and societal impact.  Many countries today have an airline modeled after Southwest.  There are also numerous companies in other industries that carry Southwest’s business model (Modern 2017).  This makes society better in the long run.

References:

Modern Servant Leader Website. (2017, May 14). What is Servant Leadership? Retrieved from http://www.modernservantleader.com/servant-leadership/.

Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

O’Donnell, P. (2019, August 23). Southwest Airlines’ annual tradition: It’s sharing $544 million in profits with employees. Retrieved from https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2019/02/13/southwest-airlines-annual-tradition-it-s-sharing-544-million-in-profits-with-employees/.

Southwest Airlines Website. (2010, August 18). We Weren’t Just Airborne Yesterday. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20100818010355/http://www.southwest.com/swamedia/swa_history.html.

Keeping up with Team excellence

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I have always wondered why a team is so hard to hold together and when a company grows it feels like you take five steps back before you take one forward. Sometimes I doubt that my choices have been the correct ones in my business. I usually doubt myself when I take a decision and that decision brings me out of my comfort zone. In the same way I have always asked myself why it is so easy to lead in one situation rather than in others. Why do I have a difficult time when it comes to leading outside my workspace like in our team projects? Why do I feel like maybe I am doing something wrong when I decide to grow by hiring new colleagues? These questions in part have been answered by Northouse.

I would like to start by describing the stages a team goes through, identifying my teams process through Tuckman’s stages. The fact that I can recognize and identify with these stages gives me an explanation for my doubt when I decide to grow as a company. I have discovered that when everything is well oiled, this means the team is in a place and we are preforming. Tuckman’s model in our course reading describes performing as number 4 in a groups stage. During performing members play functional interdependent roles focused on the performance of group tasks. (PSU WC, 2020, L.9) I can clearly see this happening in our work-space as everyone understands the common goal and are all willing to do their best to be part of the completion of various tasks to make their contribution as a whole. I feel like all my colleagues know what their tasks are and come forward with their own responsibilities.

The fact that everyone is performing, and we are getting more requests means that we are working together and reaching membership goals. This makes me as a leader take under consideration the Team Leadership Model where I can decide what option is most appropriate for the team. (Northouse, 2016, pg.381) In this case I must take external-level action in order to change internal level conflict due to high workloads that have been generated from great performance everyone is a little tense and some tension has raised. As Northouse describes an effective coach never rests on past success but works to improve the team’s functioning for the future. (Northouse, 2016, pg.382) This is what makes me as a team leader consider giving space to a new college.

Hiring a new colleague though, puts what we have worked so hard to achieve and what we recognize as collaboration under stress. Hiring a new person in the group somehow disbands what was so well adjusted. (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977) also include a stage known as adjourning, where the process picks up in another stage do to attrition. (PSU, WC,2020, L.9) Attrition is known like people retiring and new people coming into the group, or in this case a new trainer coming into our team. This as I said before puts me as a leader in doubt but puts the team back to the Storming phase where the group goes into conflict do to roles and the need to clarify to our new team member the groups mission and most of all values. IN this phase Tuckman’s second stage, I as a leader monitor the team’s internal relational actions. For example, managing conflict and power issues like everyone trying to agree with each-other in order to move quickly through the phase and not raise questions. (Northouse, 2016, pg.379) Obviously that would not be a great help to a company that is very high in Interpersonal skills and relationship. We need to go through the storming phase in order to be complete to get to know each other and what everyone can do better. For example, in or company some of us have more patience to train children and some have more for the elderly. To be able and communicate our mission positively and recognize each and everyone’s abilities needs work in order to be on the same page before transiting to the Norming phase.

Norming is Stage 3 in Tuckman’s group stage study; this is the part where I as a leader am starting to move back into my comfort zone and out of doubt. Here I see my team sharing the same interest and working together toward the same goals. (PSU, WC, 2020 L.9) I am positively surprised how my perception changes through the stages and how I start seeing the finish line to this new “investment” in this stage.

The beginning where I work through finding someone who I think is appropriate for the role, stage 1 the Forming phase is now distant. In this stage I gather information and new team members introduce themselves. (PSU, WC,2020, L9) I usually feel like I may be taking a bigger step than what is needed, I start to doubt my observation and my action plan of hiring a new member. I think that intervening externally due to my observation on an internal issue at beginning heightens the discomfort. If everyone can work through this discomfort with my help and support things may come back to where they started and start feeling as I am taking some steps forward and not back.

The right support is given by utilizing Internal and external Task Leadership actions. Goal focusing where I clarify the team’s goal (Northouse, 2016, pg.377) or coaching new and old team members in interpersonal skills so everyone listens to each-other, (Northouse, 2016, pg.378) will help everyone feel valued. In turn I usually am valued for taking the decision for the team. My feelings of doubt and taking steps backward have a response thanks to Tuckman’s stages of development and the Team Leadership model has helped me understand the importance of what I am doing and how to better support the process and the stages with the correct actions.

 

References

 

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: theory and practice (7th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc

 

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2020). PSYCH 485 Lesson 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2040131/modules/items/28001669

Focus Pocus: What Type of Leader are You?

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This post will be directed at college graduates, who are heading into the working-world full time post-graduation.  This information is relevant whether you landed your dream job right away or need to take a job that is a steppingstone to your dream career.   Some of you will find yourselves in management or leadership roles quickly, while others can utilize this information to understand their boss or leader’s position.  Even though the following information is targeted at young professionals, there are lessons to be learned for leaders of any age or level.  Leadership topics are endless and have been studied for years.  In the interest of focusing in on a certain portion of team leadership, we will look a leader’s “mental model”, and how that is the building block for team effectiveness.

What is mental model?  Another way to define this term could be situational awareness.  Either way, The Hill Model for Team Leadership as described on page 366 of Northouse says that “effective team performance begins with how the leader sees the situation that the team is experiencing” (2016).  This is the first step in the process of determining team effectiveness or the desired outcomes of teamwork.  Going one step further with mental model, looking at a recent study funded by China National Science Fund, researchers Fan, Wang, Lui, and Cai determined teams effectiveness can be correlated to how a leader focuses their mental model with prevention focus or promotion focus (Fan 2020).  Leaders with prevention focus are described as having “high security and conversation needs and pursue the fulfillment of their duties by avoiding errors and mistakes” (Fan 2020).  Think back to times when you were in a team setting.  Did you have a leader like this?  One who always seemed to be scared or worried.  How did you team perform under this type of leadership?  It is my guess that the team adopted that mentality as well.  The researchers in China went on to define leaders with promotion focus as ones having “high growth and development needs and pursue the advancement and accomplishment by approaching ideals” (Fan 2020).  In other words, these types of leaders are more interested in how to improve themselves and their teams for the greater good of the group.   Which type of leader would you want to be or work for?

The intended target of that research in China was to determine why supervisors or leaders abuse subordinates.  The study found that prevention and promotion focus are together part of a term called regulatory focus (figure below), which in turn, is a function of the “Conservation of Resources Theory” (Fan 2020).  The study concludes when resources are limited, leaders tend to have a prevention focus which forces emotional exhaustion leading to abusive leadership traits.   This in turn, affects team effectiveness.  A leader who exhibits a promotion focus, will build their team up mentally, possibly even using shared leadership techniques to develop a more mentally resilient team who can handle stress and adapt to change for the betterment of the group.  Shared leadership is a newer viewpoint in the research of leadership.  This involves all members of the team contributing to parts of the leadership of the team.  Current research indicates “shared leadership contributed to team effectiveness beyond traditional leadership” (PSUWC, 2020, L9).  In today’s workforce, expect to see a lot more collaboration amongst teams in the workplace.

Type of focus influences team performance.

Again, ask yourself, what type of leader do I want to be?   Do you want to be remembered as the boss who yelled and screamed their way to emotion exhaustion, not being happy with their career?  Or do you want to be the leader who uplifted and empowered their team, creating a productive workplace to where tasks and goals are often accomplished?   Remember, it’s all about the mental model you create for yourself that will help guide you through this process.

 

References

Fan, X.‐L., Wang, Q.‐Q., Liu, J., Liu, C. and Cai, T. (2020), Why do supervisors abuse subordinates? Effects of team performance, regulatory focus, and emotional exhaustion. J Occup Organ Psychol. doi:10.1111/joop.12307.

Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2020). PSYCH 485 Lesson 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2040131/modules/items/28001787.

 

Leadership During Chaos

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The events of the past few weeks have been unsteady for all of us. The unknown of Covid-19 has impacted each of us on different levels. It does not matter if you are a child, student, parent , leader, employee or just you. While I was concerned with the events in other countries I kept one eye closed to this virus. I voiced concern to my boss about the what ifs before 90% of our staff was to travel to the yearly show. His response was we can discuss it when we get back. Hold down the fort while we are gone. I stay behind with about 55 other staff members. 

 

They all leave Wayne, Pa for a week (longer for some) and return to the office on Monday morning. They return with 6 cases of the flu and a few colds. Wonderful! Now Covid-19 is in full force in the US. My thoughts are that those that traveled should be working remotely rather than exposing the ones that were not traveling. They are the majority that have the ability to work remotely. They all just worked remotely at the Show. This suggestion fell in deaf ears. My teams are all hourly employees and have never been able to “work from home”. 

 

Now the closed door meetings have started and I am not in there. I am getting updates from my boss but I am not liking what I am hearing. First and foremost is the office will remain open. I am ok with that but what if? More meetings that I must wait to hear the cliff notes. This time the meeting is about the work of my teams. My head explodes in his office!!! What ? You have this wrong, you have that wrong and are you serious???  I explain that if we do what those behind the doors are suggesting there will be no sales registered, no service fee collected and no AR invoice sent out. Now his head explodes!

 

It took almost 3 days testing between myself and some of the IT team to see if we could pull this off. I am 99% sure we can do this with lots of extra equipment. Now I am invited to a meeting. Again they begin to say that things can be done, it is easy , just process the invoices. OK this all sounds good but then I started asking questions. My questions were how they felt about information and sales not being available to them. What do you mean we won’t see things?? I begin to explain all the steps required by my team to accomplish what they are asking/assuming we can do. More head explosions. 

 

The communications between Senior Management and the rest of the company is horrible. I am a manager and I was not included in these discussions. I would consider myself a front-line manager. A front-line manager makes short term operating decisions, directing the daily tasks of non managerial personnel (Kinicki and Williams 2012). What does that say ? I am open with my teams all the time. They started to worry that something bad was happening from all the closed door meetings. I tried to settle them explaining what I could without getting them excited that they MAY be working remotely in a few days. The next thing I know we order all this equipment, laptops for everyone and a crash course in training everyone on what and how we are going to do. 

 

Now my head is spinning and I am doing my best to keep my head in the chaos. I need to keep my own emotional intelligence in check if I am going to keep them in check. I started to test as much as could. Think of what bumps may occur at home. Who can handle this intense new working environment. Who will need the most guidance? I really needed to dissect my team one by one on who would be strong enough to start on their own.  The team leader in me breaks out. Team leader is a manager who is responsible for facilitating team activities towards achieving key results (Kinicki and Williams 2012). The key result this week was to get everyone confidently working remotely. This would require team effectiveness. Team effectiveness had two critical functions: performance and the development (Northouse, 2016). The performance is the accomplishment of the task at hand and the development is the team maintenance (Northouse, 2016).

 

I know my team the best. I know who the strong performers are and the ones that will need extra help. I also know that they will do their best to show that our teams are capable of working through the chaos and to be able to work remotely. Team leaders need to be strong to rally the troops. The task is to keep the company functioning as best we can.  We had some bumps and bruises for the first three days but Monday is a new day. Monday both of my teams will be 100 functional remotely and business will run as usual. 

 

The Senior Management team had the same team leader goals to get the rest of the teams on board; they just missed some really important pieces. In the end they were able to approve, order and receive all the required equipment that would be needed to work remotely. The goal is to keep the business running and that we are. Team leaders are on different levels and with different styles. While I may not agree with how they handled it they did achieve the goal. They were able to tell me what was needed of my teams and they depended on me to get that task completed. 

 

I hope that everyone is safe and stays healthy during these uncertain times in the world. 

 

Kinicki, Angelo, and Brian Williams. 2012. Management: A Practical Introduction. McGraw-Hill Education.

Northouse, Peter G. 2016. Leadership: Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications.

The use of power in crisis

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This period in the world has been characterized by great stress and hardship for many companies and people involved in the Covid-19 emergency. Personally, I thought I would be untouched but to my disappointment I have been proven wrong. Not only do I live in Italy where the emergency has been considerably brought to a high level. I also have a husband who was caught in the Abu Dhabi emergency. The professional cycling race taking place in the United Arab Emirates was stopped. A false positive was the result of 800 people being confined in their hotel rooms for 5 days. My husband who is part of the directing committee had to wait for his test to come back negative before even trying to get athletes and workers back to their respective countries. This emergency was incredibly tough and brought out different leadership patterns. His usual leadership style and power to influence his followers changed due to crises. (Hughes, Richard, etal,1993)

My husband who is an ex professional athlete finished his career and was hired by a company that organizes high level sport events, he works for the Olympic committee as well. Obviously having been an athlete for 38 years of his life he was not high in Expert power as far as office requirements like computer tasks. At the beginning he had little to no expertise in the overall role he covered as it required knowledge in areas he has never studied. Although he had low preparation and gaps in his preparation made him uncomfortable at the beginning, he covered with his great knowledge as far as the actual sport dynamics. He was a role model due to his athletic accomplishments this made him appreciated.

Expert power is the power of knowledge. (Hughes, Richard, et al, 1993) Lack of expertise made him vulnerable in certain situations making it tough for him to take charge. When the situations needed expertise such as programming online or other business orientated tasks even if my husband was good at them, he felt less strong as a leader. When it came to certain tasks like excel sheets his power to influence diminished as this was not his expertise. His low level of preparation in certain areas though were and are covered by interpersonal ties he has created among his followers.

His role required his sports knowledge as well. Situations that were tied to the actual sport required his skill and judgment. So, when he was involved in what his expertise covered such as deciding what roads the races should run on, he felt comfortable and was influential. Referent power has always been what my husband relies on when he lacks in expertise. (Hughes, Richard, et al, 1993, ch.5, pg.114) He is admired as leader because he always asks when he does not know something, and he always treats everyone equally. Paolo my husband is seen as a role model therefore is an example of someone who has Referent Power. (Hughes, & Richard. 1993).

Although he could have easily walked into the job arrogantly and exercised legitimate power, he did not. Legitimate power depends on a person’s organizational role. (Hughes, & Richard. 1993, ch5, pg.116). He could have influenced his followers requesting and demanding as his role in the company states. Paolo instead have always influenced others without exercising his positions authority. He is influential by asking collaboration this makes his position and the fact he is a leader synonymous. This is confirmed in ch.5 of enhancing the lessons of experience; Effective leaders intuitively realize they need more than legitimate power to be successful. (Hughes, Richard, et al, 1993, ch.5, pg. 116).

As Paolo is someone that would never draw on his position for anything, he has always been someone who has gone up and forward thanks to all the people that like helping him and value him. He is the type of leaders that has never used his voice or strength to make decisions go through. I sometime listen to him and ask myself how he can be so nice and patient even to people who do not deserve it. This week though in Abu Dhabi the situation was critical. Everyone had to get tested for covi-19 and as the test came in he had to make sure they all got cleared to go home. This was an enormous job, people were getting mad and not collaborating as they would usually. Paolo got to the point that he had to raise his voice and direct like he never has before. Hughes, Richard, et al, describe this as a time of crises, when a leader must exert more power than during periods of relative calm. (Hughes, Richard, et al, 1993).

His interpersonal relationships with his followers and his usual leadership style that sees him using Referent Power to influence is colleagues was not influential in this emergency. When he was finally left out of confinement, he had to draw on his legitimate power in order to influence his followers quickly and get them to focus. He was very stern and had to be stronger vocally in order to get all the people he needed to help him without panicking. The fact he has never abused of his legitimate power and used it in this special situation made a significant mark. This emergency affected Paolo’s capacity to influence his followers. (Hughes, Richard, et al. 1993, ch.5, pg.107). House describes power as the capacity to produce effects on others, or as Bass writes the potential to influence others. (Hughes, Richard, et al. 1993, ch5, pg.107). In this instance power was used in the correct way, he was heard and greatly impacted all the people around him. The result of Power being exercised to influence was that everyone who was not positive stayed safe and came home two days after all the negative test results arrived.

 

Reference

Hughes, Richard, et al. (1993). Leadership: enhancing the lessons of experience. Homewood: Irwin.

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