Serving Your Way to the Top

, // @ Mark Harai // View Comments Follow @Mark_Harai

Those who subscribe to abusive management tactics in business to drive revenue and profits are idiots.

This business philosophy is driven by short sightedness and no respect for people – only the bottom line. This is a cowards mentality and probably the result of being picked on in school.

Leaders who value others are always searching for ways they can improve, enhance and enrich every individual that crosses their path. Treating others in this manner will provide a savings account that can accumulate value for your future. It pay’s dividends in the form of opened doors and advancement opportunities that otherwise would not have been made available to you and it can ensure a rewarding and fulfilling life. There may be a few debits along the way, but you’ll end up ahead of the game in the end.

Here’s a great leader’s example to follow – meet Southwest’s Colleen Barrett, Servant.

Much has been written about Southwest Airlines and co-founder Herb Kelleher, particularly with regards to the people-centric style of leadership. But in many respects, it was Colleen Barrett who created that culture. There aren’t too many major airline executives quite like Colleen Barrett, 63, who rose from legal secretary to the front of the corporate suite over a span of 23 years. It was Barrett, working closely with mentor and company co-founder Herb Kelleher, who pioneered Southwest’s unusual and now legendary approach to customer service, which aims to treat the company’s 35,000 employees like family, to make the workplace fun — and then to carry that upbeat attitude to consumers. It’s a strategy that has made an upstart discount carrier into America’s busiest airline by passenger volume.

“Customer service is really my passion,” Barrett said, adding that she probably spends 85% of her time as president dealing with worker issues — what she called “pro-active customer service to our employees” — with the underlying idea that a happy and motivated workforce will essentially extend that goodwill to Southwest’s customers. “When we have employees who have a problem — or have employees who see a passenger having a problem — we adopt them, and we really work hard to try to make something optimistic come out of whatever the situation is, to try to make people feel good whatever the dilemma is that they’re dealing with,” Barrett said.

One unusual aspect of her philosophy is that employees come before customers, although that’s intentional in order to ultimately drive the most value to the customer. That philosophy, coupled with the brilliance to hedge fuel costs, is creating remarkable success even in today’s floundering air industry. Once again, it all comes down to people.

Category : Blog &Inspiration