Running Head: FINAL CASE ANALYSIS 1

Final Case Analysis

Dulce M. Perez
7/5/2018
Dr. Dora E. Vargas-Bustos
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While reading the case in the book of “The Art and Science of Leadership, Chapter

Ten”, I came across several types of leadership styles, but only one resembled the case

completely. The case is called “Developing Leaders at Southwest Airlines” and explains

the success this airline business has had due to their leadership style and hiring process.

Southwest Airline’s view towards leadership is what makes employees strive to do a great

job every day, which helps bring in more customers.

According to the case, Southwest Airlines has an almost family-like relationship

within the company. This type of behavior is what makes employees feel inspirational and

motivated to do their best at work, which creates a friendly and healthy working

environment for all. Although, to ensure a good working environment the former CEO of

Southwest Airlines Howard Putnam believes it is also important to hire people who match

one’s own culture (Nahavandi, 2015). Hiring one’s own culture does not mean one must

hire the same race nor someone with the same cultural values, but instead one must focus

on someone’s willingness to help others. Therefore, I believe Southwest Airlines leads with

a path-goal leadership style. The path-goal leadership style theory created by Robert House

states that in order to reach someone’s goal, one must lead their followers with motivation,

empowerment, and satisfaction (McKee, 2014). By what was explained in the chapter case,

it seems Southwest Airlines does indeed lead their employees daily with the path-goal

leadership style.

While transformational leadership has many similarities to path-goal leadership, and

some could even say the path-goal leadership style can fall under transformational

leadership, these two theories are not the same. A transformational leader tends to give

employees rules that must be obeyed, while a path-goal leader would not do that to
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employees. Another similarity would be that both leadership styles focus on developing the

employees culture by motivating and supporting them, which helps bring an increase in

productivity. Although, because of the way a transformational leader leads subordinates, it

does not resemble the leadership style used in Southwest Airlines completely.

Southwest Airlines believes all employees must attend trainings and presentations

in order to learn and have a leadership style, but that does not mean employees are able to

do as they please. Southwest Airlines still monitors and corrects employees when needed,

not giving them the freedom to do as they please. Therefore, the laissez-fair leadership

theory is not practiced in the Southwest Airlines business. The laissez-fair theory was

created by Adam Smith and is a theory that may not be suitable for businesses, the reason

being is because any leader who adapts this theory tend to not be all there, meaning they do

not interfere with employees and know little about what is going on in the business.

Southwest Airlines believes in developing and improving employee’s leadership

skills by creating a culture within the company and treating all employees with respect no

matter the rank. As a matter of fact, culture is so important in the Southwest Airlines family

that the business has developed its own culture committee, which is in charge of keeping

the business SPIRIT stronger than ever. According to Radley, the company strives to make

all employees leaders and believes all leaders should think of others first instead of oneself

(Nahavandi, 2015). This mindset is what helps Southwest Airlines develop great leaders,

which encourages new employees to follow their lead.

In my point of view there is nothing more important than trust and showing others

support. As a leader one must take the rest of the employees under consideration when

making important decisions; this does not mean one must follow what others say, but

instead it shows employees one trusts them enough to take them under consideration when
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those tough decisions come along, which creates a stronger bond between leader and

followers. This type of strategy is something I did not read in the case shown in chapter ten,

which I believe should be taken under consideration by Southwest Airlines. The business

has already created a strong bond with its employees by showing them compassion,

friendliness, and love. Therefore, this strategy would work much easier in this type of

environment. Not to mention this strategy would show employees to work together, by

thinking critically and discussing what would be best for the business. According to

Jacqueline Oliveira, trust is important in the workplace. Trust within the business creates a

healthy working environment, which I believe if employees would be taken under

consideration when decisions must be made it would only strengthen the bond between

leaders and followers (Oliveira, 2016).

Another strategy Southwest Airlines should take under considerations would be to

have each department make weekly or even monthly meetings to update supervisors on

employee performance and to discuss the businesses success rate. By having departments

create meeting minutes and engage in conversation at least once a month, allows the

supervisors to stay informed of the employee’s productivity and helps them see when they

should take action and correct employees as needed. Not to mention, meetings also allow

departments to engage in conversation and makes supervisors and employees engage in

critical thinking by finding better ways of improving the business. This strategy also helps

supervisors and employees create a strong bond between them because it makes them work

together and trust one another.

The last leadership strategy I believe Southwest Airlines should take under

consideration would be to have supervisors do peer evaluations, which can be done once a

year. Having the supervisors evaluate employees based on their performance and have them
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speak to the employees afterwards can have positive effects in the business. For example, if

the employee is doing a good job with the duties assigned it will show in the peer

evaluation, making them feel special because their work was noticed. By recognizing

employees hard work at least once a year make employees want to do a better job than

before. As for employees who are not doing all that great, it allows the supervisor to bring

up the employee’s mistakes and guide them to improve. Although, this strategy might not

always bring the best of employees, especially if the employee does not want to be engaged

in the workplace. In that case, it allows supervisors to see what employees need to find

other jobs that will make them want to be engaged in the workplace.

Southwest Airlines has used many tactics to create a healthy working environment

by showing employees appreciation and creating a family like environment, which makes

anyone feel comfortable and loved. I believe Southwest Airlines is very intelligent in how

they carry out their employee policies, but the most important tactic Southwest Airlines has

used is teaching and making a leader out of all their employees because putting employees

to the test and helping them gain leadership skills only strengthens a business.
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References

McKee, A. (2014). Management: a focus on leaders (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Nahavandi, A. (2015). The art and science of leadership. Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson

Education Limited.

T. (2016, June 07). The behavior of trust in the workplace | Jacqueline Oliveira |

TEDxCesena. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixNEcX9rE88