Flying Solo
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Caption: Herb Kelleher, co-founder and CEO of Southwest Air winging it alone.
My Australian friend, Kaz Kazim, has been editorially skewering Qantas - Australia's national airline - about "the fundamental flaws of the management style that failed our national carrier and sent it tumbling into the doldrums, distrusted by staff and customers alike."
Qantas' Chairman Richard Goyder asserted that "you needed a command and control [style]through COVID"
Au contraire, says Kaz. Tightening control was not what was needed to survive and thrive. What was needed were a "shared vision, a collaborative commitment and well-informed and engaged staff implementing action."
Kaz's criticism of the Qantas chairman, reminds me of an AT&T CEO I went to hear speak, years ago, at a luncheon in Houston, Texas as part of a Public Administration class.
His speech was full of bromides, platitudes and cliches with little substance. I was not expecting to be inspired - I'll take care of that - but I was expecting unique insights and opinions on telecommunications.
Instead the AT&T CEO came across not as a leader but as a caretaker, a place keeper, an empty "suit".
Surely he did not get the top job by acting and talking that way? Or did he?
Do corporate boards want someone who looks the part (let's hear it for presidential) but does little more than keep the organization on an even keel?
Is that it?
Or, once hired the CEO prefers to be "better safe than sorry" by not taking on more risk. Risk taking is what leadership is all about. The true leader is a risk taker (depicted), self-deprecating, and always has a sense of who he/she is.
Didn't someone say many CEOs suffer from imposter syndrome? In some cases the imposture is real.
But, don't let me get too smug.
Am I any different than Goyder or the AT&T CEO?
Not sure. I was always a good second to a great #1, but what would happen if I went solo, like Hank flying on the wing?
How would I do in a crisis?
When crisis hits, the caretaker CEO hides, dissembles, since new ideas are foreign and risky.
During the pandemic, the airline industry, across the board, displayed little leadership. Airlines the world over panicked and did the same things.
They cut back staff and promoted early retirement in spite of huge governmental supplemental funding intended to help them weather the storm.
Once the pandemic ended, the airlines found they did not have enough staff, or planes, for that matter!
Imagine that. You are running a company and you fail to adequately plan ahead.
Worse, why did all these leaders do the same thing?
Even Southwest, about which I have blogged numerous times, went lemming.
Gary Kelley, who once notably and irrelevantly claimed to eat a banana a day, succeeded Hank Kelleher upon his retirement.
Kelley led SWA well, but not in Hank's inimitable way. While he built on past successes, he innovated little.
Kelley was an excellent second in command: fiercely loyal, honest and able to carry out complex and innovative decisions.
But when he replaced Hank, things seemed to shift into a lower gear.
Sure, much of the esprit de corps remained (To quote Hank: "It's in the DNA*") but the absence of Hank's looming persona took its toll.
Hank, if his leadership post 9/11 is any indication - SWA was the first airline back in the air - would have done the opposite of what the other CEOs did during the pandemic. Hank died in 2019, so he was not here for that panic, but I don't think he would have gone along with the lemmings.
Instead, he would have used the drop off in travel to upgrade systems, to streamline schedules, to rethink how and what SWA was doing, and anticipate what was next , etc. In so doing he would have avoided the gargantuan meltdown SWA suffered shortly after the pandemic.
Importantly, his contrarian leadership would have brought other airlines along; they would have followed him, the person leading the way, the tip of the spear.
In my own career, I found that taking a contrarian approach when everyone else was playing it safe, often resulted in significant improvement and productivity gains for my organization.
But, I have to remind myself, I did that as a second in command.
My boss had my back, as they say, and deflected the numerous slings and arrows of envy and jealousy and admonishment from people I upset with my contrarian ways and success.
That all changed for me when a new and unsupportive boss came on board.
*My Latvian cousin who works for Norwegian (an airline) was recently in the USA and flew SWA for the first time. She told me: "Southwest Airlines was really exceptional, what a great service and hassle-free travel!"
Like Herb said, the SWA spirit lives on.
Copyright, all text, John Lubans 2024
John Lubans - portrait by WSJ