Deregulation of the airlines in 1978 forced the industry to rethink their business strategy in order to be successful during a period of widespread operating losses due to an economic recession, striking air traffic controllers and brutal price wars. The poster child for innovation during this period was Astro Airlines founded in 1980 by its charismatic leader, Arthur Burton. Enthusiasm, excitement and optimism were watch words used to describe the atmosphere at Astro Airlines in the initial years. This case analysis will discuss;
Burton’s leadership behavior;
Burton as a charismatic leader, and;
Dysfunctional aspects of Burton’s charismatic leadership style.
Central to this this case analysis is Astro’s inability to sustain itself
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Finally, we can see where overconfidence, risky decision making, failure to develop successors created an eventual leadership crisis and led the company to ultimately file for bankruptcy protection.
My read of question one, part one is that Burton’s leadership behavior was most certainly that of a charismatic leader. He was a visionary, could effectively articulate his visions and exuded a confidence and optimism that inspired and motivated his followers. He was willing to take personal risks and make self-sacrifices to attain the vision, at least initially. He used strong expressive forms of communication when articulating the vision. With respect to his followers, he communicated high expectations, expressed optimism and confidence in them and empowered them. Evidence of charismatic leadership is provided by the leader-follower relationship, and a charismatic leader has profound and unusual effects on followers. This was certainly the case initially where the organization provided, “a better way for people to work together, thereby unleashing their creativity and improving productivity.”
Question two of part one asks, “Was Burton a charismatic leader in the company at this time? Explain your answer.” The short answer is yes. However, in order to answer this question more completely we must first understand that, “Attributions of charisma are the result of an
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Before David Neeleman’s non-compete agreement with Southwest Airlines expired, he envisioned the concept of starting a low-fare airline that would combine common sense, innovation, and technology and bring the humanity back into air travel (Gittel & O’Reilly, 2001). In 1998, JetBlue was born. In order for David to fulfill his goal of a “do-it-right” kind of airline, he needed to recruit superior industry veterans who were willing to start from scratch and place an emphasis on employees and customers. Each of these individuals, from the President, General Counsel, CFO, and the HR director, wanted to create an airline that was fun, had
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One of the single most important traits to possess in order to be an effective leader is charisma. Jeff Skilling exuding charisma and was able to convince the media, shareholders, employees, and everyone in between that he was acting in their interest and running a company with integrity and honesty. Skilling’s charisma can be seen in many instances during his career at Enron, but one of his more striking instances of charismatic leadership was how he was able to influence all of the workers at Portland General Electric to convert their 401k’s into company stock (Gibney, 2005). Though this may sound like a relatively commonplace act, it took massive amounts of charisma to gain the trust and confidence of an entire company’s employees.
In the past three years the airline industry has faced an unparalleled list of challenges and American Airlines has certainly had more than the others. Year by year AA has tried to recover with a great deal of effort to turn the company around. The strategies they are applying to counteract the status are : Lower costs to compete, give to the customers the service they are expecting
The airline business is an industry that is competitive and unique, focussing on consumer choice and the responsiveness of airlines to changes in the external business environment. For any airline, this environment can be very complex as it is ‘hard for them to fully understand and impossible for them to fully control’ (The Times, n.d. p1). Virgin Atlantic is an international airline that is based in the UK. It was started by the entrepreneur Richard Branson in 1982 and now flies to 30 destinations around the world (Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, 2011). By looking at
In terms of the Servant, Transactional and Transforming leadership model, what does Lincoln, Leo, and Dr. Stockman do well and why?
American airline industry is steadily growing at an extremely strong rate. This growth comes with a number economic and social advantage. This contributes a great deal to the international inventory. The US airline industry is a major economic aspect in both the outcome on other related industries like tourism and manufacturing of aircraft and its own terms of operation. The airline industry is receiving massive media attention unlike other industries through participating and making of government policies. As Hoffman and Bateson (2011) show the major competitors include Southwest Airlines, Delta Airline, and United Airline.
Charismatic leaders are able to inspire emotion and passion in their followers by being optimistic and enthusiastic. Without passionate and emotional employees, an organization will be crippled and unable to face
At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based
Launched just 8 years ago, today, the Jetstar Group consists of a network of value-based air carriers that deliver high quality air passenger services for budget-minded travelers across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. Beginning with just 400 employees, the company currently employs more than 7,000 people and carries about 20 million passengers a year. To gain some insights into how the Jetstar Group achieved this impressive growth in such a short amount of time, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning the air passenger industry in general and the business strategy used by the Jetstar Group in particular. A summary of the research and recommendations for this company are provided in the paper's conclusion.
3,4- The Airline industry and the market The airline industry is large, specially in the United States, mainly due to the “ Deregulation” of the industry. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Board was created to control the growth of the air transportation industry. This board had the authority to control entry, exit, prices and methods of competition. In the late 1970 this structure was found inefficient and in 1978 deregulation took place. Due to the deregulation of the industry competition intensified, prices dropped, and the number of people travelling increased. Many new companies emerged and regional airlines saw deregulation as an opportunity to expand. Due to the rise in competition, by 1986 mergers started to take place and in 1987 64.8% of the market was controlled by the four largest airlines. The demand for air travel is determined mainly by price, studies revealed that half of the leisure travellers and on quarter of business travellers did not have a preference for a particular airline, which means that prices determined the
Bryman, A., 1993, ‘Charismatic leadership in business organisations: some neglected issues’, Leadership Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 289-304.
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In examining the history of aviation in the U.S. and the development of the airlines, it is clear that the Federal Government played a vital role in the development of both. Historical records clearly show that this involvement by the Federal Government was critical in getting them established and in helping to develop them into the globally dominant enterprises they are today. Furthermore, it can be easily argued that U.S. aviation as a whole, and the airlines in particular, would not be where they are today without this direct involvement by the Federal Government and some of the very specific actions that it has taken to keep them relevant and competitive during the most dire of times. The Federal Government ensured that U.S. aviation and its airlines would develop and achieve a worldwide leadership role by becoming involved in three major ways: through funding, legislation, and policy setting.