Leadership and British Airways - Case Study Example

Introduction Leadership is considered as one of the most important contemporary issues to be dealt both in business as well as governmental context. Its importance is both for the business organizations as well as nations since both need strong leaders to head them into a bright as well as robust future. However, over the period of time, there has been an intense intellectual debate as to how the leadership comes from and what are the characteristics which are required to be in a good leader. There are various theories in this regard which contribute towards defining the leadership and from where it eminent from. Based on the process of leadership, there emerged various styles of leadership which includes but are not limited to being authoritative, situational, transformative structuralist, Political democrat, symbolic or trait based as well as principle centered which is a relatively new concept of the leadership. Apart from the styles, it is also believed the leadership develops with the help of certain activities like self assessment, communication which includes writing, speaking as well as coordinating with media, development of certain competencies like managing conflicts, selecting priorities, managing time as well as negotiation skills. Apart from that, the leadership can be developed through knowledge like group dynamics etc. British Airways is one of the leading airlines of the world with presence in many countries of the world. Having such a long success history, British Airways (BA) has emerged as the leading organization with many modern and innovative management practices including its leadership styles. This work will explore the leadership styles they used, the communication and culture within the organization, an analysis of the business environment of the company and finally a recommendations as to what leadership styles they may be using to improve upon. However, before discussing the issue, we will be presenting a theoretical background on the leadership and how it emerges and various leadership styles and theories. Leadership Defined In order to explore the question of where does the leadership come from, we must first need to understand what leadership actually is and how it has been defined. The present evidence in the context of leadership defines it in various different contexts. Peter Druker defined leaders as someone who has followers where as John C Maxwell defined as nothing but influence. (Thorson). However leadership may be defined as “Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes , such as beliefs, values, ethics, characters, knowledge and skills” (Thorson). The concept of leadership in organizational context is therefore largely concerned with the organizational functioning and coordinating activities. (Hollander) Thus the study of leadership provides a coherent framework under which the organizational settings can be easily explored and understood. Contemporary thoughts on leadership suggest that the leadership does not necessarily revolves around the idea that it is largely dependent on the leader’s knowledge, ability as well as styles or charisma however it has now been considered as a process which is largely related with multi-layered concept of the involvement of different agents in the form of followers thus it is now considered as collaborative endeavor rather than the singular effect of the leader’s personality. This necessitated that the leadership is not just a singular leader but a web of leader and followers relationships which actually complete the flow of leadership in any organization. Leadership thus is a relational process involving the interactions of leaders, members as well as external stakeholders in the organization also. Communication, Corporate Image and Management of British Airways With the changes in its ownership structure, BA has been able to change its corporate image and build itself a reputation of a company which is no more a beurocracy. During mid 1990s, the company has been able to change its corporate image besides unveiling massive re-branding exercises to build a new culture and image of the organization not only internally but also externally. This has also helped the company to transform itself from a mere British firm to a world class international firm. “The communications function of British Airways stretches across brand marketing, investor relations, issue management and public affairs. For this, the airline has a team that is responsible for communications with consumers, employees, policy makers and shareholders. In 1998, Simon Walker, the Director of Communications for British Airways, was recruiting several vigorous public relations professionals to join the team. An ad was placed in The Economist, calling for candidates with or without airline experience.” (Dana & Vignali, 1999) Operations of the Company British Airways fly within UK and Ireland besides serving rest of the Europe. It also operates in the region of Middle East and South Asia besides serving Far East and Australasia. It also operates into Americas including Caribbean, South America and North America besides serving in African continent also. Due to diversity of its operations, BA has to maintain a much diversified workforce to adjust it into various business environments where it operates. The diversity policy of the company includes “a range of themes including gender, race, disability, age, flexible working, sexual orientation, religion and culture”1. Thus in order to properly work into various environments and to wither the cultural shocks, BA try to bring in more diversity into workforce so that not only a balance is struck between the employees but also the cultural shocks to be minimized. Political, Economical Business Environment British Airways work in airline industry which has witnessed some significant restructuring. After 9/11, the whole dynamics of doing business into an airline industry changed. Historically, the industry has remained largely regulated however; recent trends have shown de-regulation of the industry with more and more players entering into the market. This de-regulation of the industry also witnessed formation of new and bigger strategic alliances where small and large airliners started to work jointly with strong focus on outsourcing, franchising, code sharing as well as formation of global marketing networks. (Dana & Vignali, 1999). In order to assess the political and economic environment within which BA works, we will be focusing on the period starting after 9/11 as this event is now considered as the most important event in the history of airlines which have radically changed the way business is done in the industry now. In the aftermath of 9/11, BA has stopped flights to many countries especially Middle East and Pakistan as British were considered to be the next target of terrorists. This has seriously limited its scope and ability to generate more revenues. However, with the passage of time, it has been able to wither the threats and started operations in those countries. Further, the current rising trends in the oil prices have also pushed pressures on the prices to increase. British Airways & Leadership It is believed that the transformation of British Airways during 1980s mostly took place due to the two of their most important leaders in the shape of Lord King and Colin Marshall. Historically, BA has been considered as a company which was always a loss making, slow and lethargic in its attitude besides showing little or no customer orientation. The quality of service was so horrible that the famous Beatles group outlined their agony of travelling on the airline in one of their songs. However, it has emerged out as one of the leading airliners in the world completely revamping its corporate identity under the leadership of Lord King and Colin Marshall. However, a closer look at the most recent history of airways would suggest that it has been prey of the ups and downs as its most successful leaders even fail to sustain its success over the longer period of time. It is also being argued that the era of Collin Marshal was the most successful and innovate era which brought about one of the most successful turnarounds in the airline history. The leadership platform which he created included strong devolving decision making to the lowest possible level. This has allowed the firm to reduce costs, bring in more efficiency, better decision making, lesser beurocracies, better customer services, improved financial position as well as down the level accountability of all those who made decisions in largely de-centralized environment. This change in the leadership style at the company prompted employees to be more open, make decisions promptly as well as becoming more innovative. This therefore allowed BA to form better strategic alliances to achieve economies of scales. Further “It also got employees and managers talking about and working hard to create a strong, entrepreneurial culture at British Airways. And, this platform of devolving accountability and decision making to the lowest possible level brought the “action” closer to the customer level. Thus, customer service was dramatically improved as a direct result of the development of this new platform.”(Rubenstein, 2005). BA started as a government owned company however, it was subsequently privatized and after its privatization, it has been able to generate good corporate results. However, these results were achieved through drastic cost cutting and outsourcing of some of the key functions of the organization. (Ledwidge, 2007). However, these actions by the airline resulted into development of a culture within the organization which where employees feared most regarding their job safety and serious industrial disputes emerged which seriously tarnished its public image. Being a publicly owned company, BA was largely a transport giant with strong bureaucracies where leadership, in most of the cases, were slapped onto the organization by the government regardless of the organizational culture and its needs. However, after its privatization, BA has been able to initiate a new blood into its leadership circles and leadership styles now more focus on the expert leaderships with focus on people. Leadership Practices to be adapted There are various leadership theories which BA can adapt. The following sections will discuss some of the theoretical approaches to the leadership which may be adapted by BA. Great Man Theories These theories suggested that the leaders are born. The inherent and implicit qualities of leadership are present already in the leaders. These theories suggested that the individual achievements of the leaders are causal factors of progress. (Barrow, 1977). By focusing on what leaders are rather than what leaders should be, various sets of personal traits like originality, knowledge, persistence, patience, prestige as well as biological characteristics like height, gender were studied to suggest the variables which determine the emergence of leadership. These theories presented leaders to possess some mythical powers which are given to them by divine powers and they are born leaders. However it was largely considered that the great man theories are close oriented approaches and cannot be empirically proved as one set of personality traits cannot work in other situations thus cannot be theoretically substantiated. Leader Behavior Investigation With the collapse of great man theories, researchers started to focus their attention and what leaders actually do hence an investigation into the leader behavior was initiated to understand whether the behaviors can be behind the emergence of leadership behaviors. The studies at Ohio States University suggested that the leadership behavior emerge from the consideration and initiating structures whereas studies at Michigan Survey Research Center suggested that the leadership emerge from employee orientation as well as production orientation of leaders. The Skills Mix theory propagated by Mann proposed that leadership can emerge from a trilogy of skills set namely human relations skills, technical skills and administrative skills. Human Relations skills include facilitating interpersonal interaction and creating positive working relationships between employees as well as external agents. Task structures as well as work accomplishment counts towards the technical skills whereas planning, organizing and involving into group dynamic are counted towards the administrative skills. The three sets of skills combine together to give emergence to the leadership behavior as well leadership qualities in any leader. Wofford’s managerial behaviors theory was another attempt to define the orientation of leadership. This theory was based on the five factors characterizing managerial and leadership behaviors. The five factors model was thus defined the orientation of leadership and provided a better explanation of the orientation of leadership and its emergence. Situational Investigation The situational investigation on the emergence of leadership focused on the influences of external environment on the personality of the managers in order to help them evolve into leaders. This approach is also considered as more open approach towards the emergence of the leadership. Situational factors were thus largely considered as the influential factors which determined the orientation of leadership. These theories suggested that the leadership emerge largely due to the stage of economic development in the country, group influences and norms, span of control, external threats and stress, variations in leadership power, organizational size as well as organizational culture. (Horner, 1997). The situational approach the leadership emerges due to the qualities of the persons to show reaction towards various group settings and their demands.(Hollander, 1971) Reciprocal Causation Investigation This approach to the leadership define leadership as a mutual interpersonal influence process between leader and subordinate thus leadership is viewed largely as a social exchange theoretical framework. The basic assertion behind this approach of leadership is the fact the subordinates view leaders in a particular context and held certain expectations from them and when these expectations are fulfilled, subordinates start to develop a level of respect and trust and hence leadership starts to emerge from that organization. It is also believed that the effectiveness of the leadership emerging out of the social exchange is one of the important yardsticks of a leader’s effectiveness. Is Charisma the single most important factor for the originating of leadership? Having discussed the various theoretical approaches towards the leadership, we may come to the conclusion of narrowing our focus on the specific variables which might help evolve the leadership. It is in this context that the leadership has also been considered as a process emerging out of charisma. Charisma has been described as the personal power of the person which derives so much power that it attracts people attention and hence helps individuals to emerge as leaders.(Conger & Kanungo, 1987). Max Weber suggested that the charisma is a basis of legitimacy and described it something through which leaders derive his authority not from rules and regulations but out of personal and exceptional sanctity of the leader. Thus charisma is one of the strongest variables which are largely behind the determination of the origin of the leadership.(Conger & Kanungo, 1987). However to use charisma as one of the single most important factor, one has to look into various contextual meanings of charisma and in what context it can be used to create the leadership. It is largely believed that the leaderships emerging out of the charisma is largely dependent on the perception of the subordinates that their leader has almost supernatural abilities and he or she is exceptional.(Bendix, 1967). The earliest work on charisma as one of the proponents of leadership was undertaken by Max Weber who took the concept both in secular as well as religious concepts however believed that the institutionalization of the charisma depends upon the heredity, kinship as well as office. This is particular evident in the family owned businesses where the influence and charisma of family members has been large as compared to other leaders. Take an example of Ford motors whose turnaround in the recent past possible only when one of the family members of the ford family took over to bring back the traditional family charisma into the Ford Motors to ensure its survival and turnaround. Similarly Steve Jobs of Apple Computers is another glaring example of charismatic leadership who made possible the turnaround of Apple Computers in the market largely through his charismatic personality. Thus evidence does point out towards the charismatic tendencies of the persons to emerge as leaders. However, the charismatic leadership does often evolve into authoritative leadership with less flexibility. (Hermann, Preston, Korany, & Shaw, 2001). References 1. Ledwidge, Jonathan. (2007). British Airways: the case for a human makeover. Human Resource Management International Digest. 15 (5), pp 7-10. 2. Dana,Leo-Paul & Vignali, Daniella . (1999). British Airways plc. nternational Marketing Review. 16 (4/5), pp:278-291. 3. Rubenstein,Howard. (2005). The platform-driven organization. Handbook of Business Strategy. 6 (1), pp:189-192. 4. Appelbaum, S. H., Molson, J., Audet, L., & Miller, J. C. (2003). nd gender? A journey through the landscape of theories. Leadership & Organization Development Journal . 24 (1), pp 43-51. 5. Barrow, J. C. (1977). The Variables of Leadership: A Review and Conceptual Framework.. The academy of Management Review. 2 (2), pp-231-251. 6. Bendix, R.. (1967). Reflections on Charismatic Leadership. Asian Survey . 7 (6), pp 341-352. 7. Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N.. (1987). Toward a Behavioral Theory of Charismatic Leadership in Organizational Settings. The Academy of Management Review. 14 (4), 637-67.. 8. Hermann, M. G., Preston, T., Korany, B., & Shaw, T. M.. (2001). Who Leads Matters: The Effects of Powerful Individuals. International Studies Review . 3 (2), 83-131. 9. Hollander, E. P. (1971). Style, Structure, and Setting in Organizational Leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly . 16 (1), 1-9. 10. Horner, M.. (1997). Leadership theory: past, present and future. Team Performance Management , . 3 (4), 270-287. 11. Thorson. (2005). What is Leadership. Available: http://www.med.umich.edu/csp/Course%20materials/Fall%202005/Thorson_What%20is%20Leadership.ppt.. Last accessed 17 May 2008. Read More