Southwest Airlines Case Study Essay

Challenges are inevitable when one is a leader and in many instances, great leaders are identified based on how best they handle difficulties. When an organization is facing a challenge, all the employees as well as the customers turn to the leader for direction and at this point a wrong decision may create a negative impression of the leader. While handling a difficult task, it is important that the leader considers tips like; facing the reality that every person is expecting him/her to a potential direction which leads to success, stepping up and making greatest sacrifices for the sake of lifting the organization up again and finally involve relevant personnel towards developing the best solution as well strategies to implement them.

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In this case, he can be described as a relationship oriented leader fitting into the contingency model leadership style. Closing down the airlines could be a major setback not only to the country’s reputation but also to the companies involved. While choosing to take action towards rescuing the situation, James Parkers made the greatest sacrifice which was also a risk to continue with business despite the government order following terrorist attacks. First of all, due to the tension, customers turn out decreased which might trigger laying off employees in order to make profits. The decision to retain employees meant that Southwest would be less profitable affecting the economic threshold of the company. However, considering the reputation of the company towards its customer service, choosing the employees and the customers over economic value was a noble

It is clear that we rate James Parker as a great leader based on how he behave towards the crisis in the company. This forms the basis of Behavioral Theory which (Piccolo, 2013) describes as the behaviors that a leader demonstrates while handling different situations. How the leader behaves affects their performance which translates employee’s performance. Piccolo (2013), explains that different leadership behaviors are applicable to different situations and what makes a leader effective is how well he/she adopts the various styles and use the correct style under a different situation. While analyzing on the various behaviors leaders exhibit, two broad categories apply; task oriented leader behaviors and relationship-oriented leader behavior. Aspect relating to the contingency