CEO Paper

CEO Paper

Introduction

Any business or organization has a leader who initiates the proceedings for any organization. A leader is someone who with his behavior and actions influences a group of people towards the achievement of a particular goal (Stogdil, 1974). In this research paper, we are going to shed some light on the success story of one of the most successful and well-renowned leader of modern era, Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines. The existence of Southwest Airlines would never have been possible without Herb Kelleher; he put his heart and soul out to make Southwest Airlines stand on its feet and today, it is one of the successful airlines of United States of America. He developed and executed many strategies which contributed towards the success of the company. One of the main reasons of his success is that he used to treat his employees in a good manner and was very much concerned about them as he believes that employees are the most important asset of an organization and they are the ones who build up the organization which made Kelleher one of those CEO's who are not only admired by other organizations, but by all the employees as well who worked under his leadership.

Discussion

Corporate Culture at Southwest Airlines

Corporate culture is the blend of beliefs and values which all companies develop over time. It describes the ways in which a company's leader, its management and employees think and act (Davis, 1984). One of the major factors behind Southwest Airline's success is its outstanding corporate culture. It is the corporate culture of Southwest Airline that holds the organization together. Since early days of Southwest Airline, Herb Kelleher and his management team have viewed their employees as “people” and identified them as valuable assets of the company. They have emphasized on providing their people with a relaxed corporate style which enables them to work with full independence. By regarding employees as “the first customers and passengers as the second”, Kelleher and his team have highlighted the importance of employees in the company. They used unique ideas to build the company and its corporate culture. Kelleher concern for work and his people reflects not only in the statements which he has made but he has proved himself as a leader by example (Smith, 2004). Let us review a couple of examples of the examples.

Once in early 70's, the passengers had to transfer Houston's airport from Houston intercontinental. Herb Kelleher suggested “why should the customers drive 45 minutes in order to take a 40 minutes flight?” They created a “Ten minutes turn” strategy then and there and solved the inconvenient transfer problem which helped in increasing the productivity of employees and delighting the customers at the same time (Southwest Airlines, 2009).

There is another example which shows Herb Kelleher dedication towards work. When Herb Kelleher was diagnosed with cancer, he did not stop working. He used to fly from Dallas to Houston everyday for his treatment and then return to his ...