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Leadership Style: What People Do When They Are Leading

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Submitted By iceamari
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Pages 9
1. Provide a brief background of the CEO.
Founded March 15, 1967 by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines is currently the biggest domestic carrier by number of passengers serviced (Southwest Airlines, 2014). As of May 2013, the company has a market cap of approximately $9 billion (Forbes Magazine, 2013). Gary Kelly, who joined Southwest as controller in 1986, is the company’s current chairman, president, and CEO. Gary was born and raised in Texas and received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Texas as Austin. Gary originally wanted to study oceanography but changed his mind and decided to study accounting simply because his father was an accountant. Before joining Southwest’s team, Gary worked as a CPA for Arthur Young and Company. He and Carol, his wife of 38 years, have two adult daughters. 2. Analyze the CEO’s leadership style and philosophy, and how the CEO’s leadership style aligns with the culture.
Gary Kelly’s leadership style fits most closely with the servant and ethical styles of leadership. Schermerhorn (2012) defines a servant leader as one who “helps others discover their inner spirit, earns and keeps the trust of their followers, exhibits effective listening skills, and places the importance of assisting others over self-interest” (p. 322). Ethical leadership has a very high focus on interactional transparency, fairness, and awareness of others (p. 323). Gary is a relaxed and playful leader and believes that "good leaders take care of employees first," (Mueller, 2009). An organizational example of his people first attitude is that Southwest employees, 80% of whom are unionized, earn the highest salaries in the airline industry according to Wired.com (Brancatelli, 2008).
Gary says, "Southwest Airlines is family-like, which implies love," (Mueller, 2009). The Southwest culture is all about LUV, which is

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