Southwest Airlines: The Spirit of Leadership, Excellence and Service
Southwest Airlines
Mission
Southwest Airlines’ mission is about their dedication to providing the highest quality of customer service. They want to provide this with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride as well as company spirit. This is their mission that was directed for their consumers and for the public.
Internally, the company is committed to provide their employees with a stable work environment that provided equal opportunities for their learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation were encouraged to improve effectiveness of the airline. Employees are treated with respect and caring attitude within the organization just like the way they treated the customers.
Organizational Structure
The management structure of Southwest Airlines is designed to cater to the activities of the employees while holding the spirit of fun to be the cornerstone for the success of the company in addressing its customer service concerns (Rivera et al., 2003). This is referred to as a “loose-tight” design. Employees are encouraged to try new things as they are given the freedom to innovate as long as they were not violating safety standards. Violations include endangering crew and passengers and keeping the plane on schedule.
The organizational structure of Southwest is a typical hierarchical structure (Rivera et al., 2003). The company is unique in the manner that Herb Kelleher, Chief Executive Officer, is able to connect with the employees on a daily basis while other CEOs could not do this. However, the organizational chart below would show that only the Execu ...