Voice of the Customer, part 2: At Southwest Airlines, a Different Kind of Leadership

In my first installment of this two-parter (Voice of the Customer: Newsweek Blog Scopes Out Readers on Best, Worst Airlines) I peeled back the onion of a Newsweek Budget Travel blog-survey to reveal customer perceptions of two American airlines that are polar opposites of each other.

What drives such extreme differences in customer perceptions of Southwest and United?

I’m tempted to write a thousand words here on the overwhelming importance of both employee relations and service culture in the airline business, but I’ve already done it. Please read Southwest Airlines: “Put Your Employees First.” Here’s the important gist:

Southwest Airlines is … renowned for the efficiency of its route network (point-to-point flying using secondary airports), the leanness of its aircraft inventory (one aircraft type — the Boeing 737 — in just three configurations), and its ability to hedge fuel prices (purchasing options on fuel at lower prices years in advance) in order to control costs. Southwest pioneered the low-fare segment of the airline industry, has the most fanatically loyal customers of any airline, and has been profitable every year since 1973.

Not bad for a smaller, non-union, domestic airline, eh? Well, it wouldn’t be, except that Southwest is now the second-largest airline in the world, by number of passengers carried; has the world’s fourth-largest fleet of aircraft; is heavily unionized; and will soon undertake international carriage.

So just what is the secret of Southwest’s success?

The answer to that question, which is so simple that it might easily escape you, is a four-parter: 1) Southwest, from day one, is not trying to be like any other airline; 2) the DNA of Southwest’s corporate culture is in the building of relationships; 3) the airline very deliberately puts its employees first; and 4) Southwest practices servant leadership.

Quite simply, Southwest innovates, Southwest serves; Southwest is different. From the top down, every interaction between leaders, employees, and customers is an opportunity to relate, to respect, to serve, to solve problems. (For an in-depth treatment, read The Southwest Airlines Way, by Jody Hoffer Gittell.)

There is no one better than Colleen Barrett to explain the inner workings of the “Southwest Way” and servant leadership. A long-time associate of SWA founder Herb Kelleher, Barrett worked at the airline for over 30 years and retired from roles as president and chief operating officer in 2008. Here is Herb Kelleher, on Colleen Barrett:

“Colleen is primarily responsible for the humanistic culture that we have at Southwest today, where people really look out for one another. One of the really significant things she did was give our people on the front line a lot of flexibility. Basically, she ascertained that we could not anticipate every situation that would evolve in a given station at a passenger terminal. Therefore, she told our employees — and meant it — that as long as you are leaning toward the customer, you are OK. Our employees quickly learned that Colleen is sincere in everything that she does and that they really could go out of their way for the customer.”

The list of awards and accomplishments that can be attributed to Colleen Barrett are many. Here is just a sampling:

•  One of only a small handful of women to have served in top leadership at a major American airline (2001-2008)
•  Only female recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for leadership in commercial aviation (2007)
•  Horatio Alger Award (2005)
•  World’s 100 Most Powerful Women: Forbes Magazine (2005, 2004)
•  Top 50 Leaders: Fast Company Magazine (2003)
•  Best Managers: BusinessWeek (2002)
•  America’s Most Powerful Business Women: Fortune Magazine (2001)

Colleen Barrett is clearly a most unusual, and perhaps unlikely, airline executive. She is not likely to be one of the usual suspects you’ll find running operations or “customer experience” at the likes of United, US Airways, or Continental. Perhaps that is a big part of the problem with regard to the current customer crisis at the legacy carriers — that someone like Barrett is not in charge.

Here she is, in her own words, talking about a very different kind of airline leadership at the 12th annual Wharton Leadership Conference in 2008: