Defining Authentic Leadership
According to Bill George, a leader is that who is accountable to stay focused towards the organisational goal in an authentic way and has the capability to develop a meaningful relationship for the long-term period to obtain results (Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy 2014). In this context, authentic leaders are those who are able to establish personal integration for their own experiences and are demonstrating this through actions and attitude. In order to portray the leadership capabilities, Fletcher Jones take his own life story experiences into leadership techniques. Fletcher obtained authentic leadership by focusing on a consistent leadership practice by making sure that all the employees are motivated towards learning (Ibarra 2015).
However, Fletcher’s leadership style was supported by compassion and love in everything that he did. In specific, he worked to develop a shared partnership for the sake of community participation. On the contrary, Greg Brenneman, that was the owner of Continental Airlines. Greg was a leader that was not as focused and authentic as Fletcher, as it seemed from the organisational environment, that the organisational hierarchy was not much aware of their customers’ needs and demands (Goleman 2013).
Despite being focused and authentic leaders Jone’s state of being focused was a weakness in all together with the colleagues who were concentrated on their issues and miserably failed to identify the external components. Moreover, the managers of the company paid increased attention for bringing improvement in the company but they failed to note that incoming changes in the society.
As a result of which their assumptions were not much really. For instance, Brenneman decided to remove the business class facilities to accommodate more seats within the aircraft, the values of the travellers were not considered by the owner. As a result of the company lost their travellers and encountered a high fall down of revenue. Therefore, when Brenman arrived the continental organisation, the employees were not able to stay anything about the organisational strategies. After this, the leaders of the organisation understood the need for communicating with their employees by asking them the appropriate question to address the theory of business and to build a strategic planning for the purpose of organisational growth (Lars SØrensen 2015).
In contrast to Brenneman approach towards new realities in their organisational environment, Fletcher Jones leadership was more focused towards external environment. He was more focused towards building and safeguarding the clothing manufacturing workforces in Australia. More specifically, the organisation’s leadership strategy was more focused on the maintenance of the existing growth of the organisation with reformed patterns that were created by the company (Lawrence Levy 2017). Apart from these, Greg obtained authentic leadership through the process of exposing the expectations of achievement by ensuring that a higher number of employees were motivated.
Comparative Analysis of Jones and Brenneman’s Leadership Styles
In this context, according to, empathy triad is the most commonly used characteristic where the leaders need to focus on the three major types of leadership styles, cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathetic concerns. Based on this theory, it can be said that Fletcher idea of leadership was more concerned with cognitive empathy and emotional empathy as he was more inclined towards the cognitive needs of the customers (Brenneman 1998). In contrast to Brennman, leadership approach was more related to empathic concern where he was more inclined to fulfil their needs from the customers.
Despite all this, it is evident that the theory of business was understood by both the business owners where they both realised the needs of the organisation, to move the business towards productivity.
The paradox of leadership theory by Smith et al. signifies that leaders are always in a state of making and unmaking decisions around the boundaries in terms of geographic and functional decisions. According to the reference source, a geographically dispersed supply chain can be highly helpful for the organisation but it may lack stability (Peachey et al.2015). Again, a dispersed innovation can produce diverse ideas, however, certain advantages may go out hands.
Therefore, the global paradoxes of leadership are based on surface tensions, international connection and domestic needs. Based on this, paradoxes of leadership Brenman did not give much through on this concept of dispersed supply chains, and innovation rather it was more engrossed in building team cohesion and vision for the organisation. In a career of competitive advantage the company (Wendy et al. 2016).
On the contrary to this, it has been found that one of the major objectives of the leader is to manage the dynamic equilibrium within the organisation according to the view of the authors (Wendy et al. 2016). Thus, the managers with such objective do not always focus on desiring to be consistent but rather they confidently consume the paradox they are facing. However, Greg managed to handle these paradoxes occurring within their organisation through the implementation of the leadership styles by challenging the leadership technique.
In this context, he rejected the existing status cohesion but rather had to challenge the existing process. However, as a focused and authentic leader, Greg successfully ensured that he has challenged all the process present in the company by changing the rules and demanded that all the practices need to be proved not to enhanced further.
Empathy and Authentic Leadership
Apart from these, he was also aware of the existing boundaries of Continental airlines in terms of their business operations. Therefore, he decided to reform and exceed the limits by enhancing the quality of communication and the involvement amongst the working employees as well as various departments (Peter Arsenault and Sue 2014). In addition to this, he adopted the system of bonus appraisals, and individual recognition reward by listening to the problems of the employees and by communicating with them across the organisation, so that he could get a proper insight into the organisation and was able to take a rational decision. Brenneman also managed to stay focused on creating value for the stakeholders by not focusing just on the employees (Webster et al. 2016).
Rather he focused more on the enhancing the quality of the services by ensuring that the Continental airlines offer in accordance with the requirements of the customers for increasing the organisational productivity (Brenneman 1998). This instance is seen from their action they tool for the travellers with seat 9c and changing food policy that transformed the organisation into one of the best Airlines.
According to Kavadias, Ladas and Loch (2016), transformational business model can help in linking new technology with the needs of the market. At the time during which Brenneman was active in transforming the fortunes of Continental Airlines from the worst to the top, the application of technology and customer demand had a limited impact. One of the features that suggested the application of transformational business adopted by Brennerman is the adoption of an agile and adaptive organisation feature. Brennerman had released that lack of communication and engagement between the employees and the managers caused problems in organisations (Brenneman 1998).
Thus, Brennerman installed bulletin boards, voice recorders, newspapers and magazines so that the employees can provide their suggestion to the organisations. The infrastructure on communication assisted the employees to have a proper insight into the business, which resulted in a huge success for the firm. With an increase in the reputation, the value added to customers had increased. As stated by Wendy et al. (2016) this helped in the progress of the organisation in a more subtle manner. At the same time, Drucker (1994) had emphasised on three assumptions that are required for the success of business.
These assumptions include environment within an organisation, mission and the core competency. It has been seen that these assumptions fit with one another and in reality, the theory need to be understood by the effective test of the prowess of the organisations. The fact that Continental Airlines was unaware of the demands and needs of the customers resulted in the company to be in a crisis and operate on the edge of bankruptcy (Brenneman 1998). The company even started making losses, which affected the progress of the company in a negative manner.
Managing Paradoxes in Leadership
Having understood the current situation, Brenneman along with Gordon set forward missions that needed to be accomplished in order to rescue the falling standards of the company. Certain assumptions were made about the environment that helped Brenneman to cope up with the changes in the environment. For example, assumption related to the society was made in which 40,000 co-workers were asked the right question about the company (Brenneman 1998). At the same time, improvement of the structure of the organisation was made so that collaboration between employees, managers and departments increased. This helped in the collaborative effort undertaken for the success of Continental Airlines.
The leadership practise that has been proposed by Kouzes focuses on the application of five practises that can help in transforming the working of an organisation. In the case of Brenneman and the application of it in Continental Airlines, the leadership practise obtained clearly indicates the implementation of exemplary leadership practise. Brenneman had to inspire the employees in order to accept the changes. He needed to have a tough voice and set an example of the manner in which he wants to lead the employees (Brenneman 1998). He did so by applying a change in the communication process that involved excessive collaboration with the employees and the managers.
The discovery of the loss of cash prompted Brenneman to call for a meeting and the creditors were used to fix the current situation of the company. At the same time Brenneman had undertaken challenges to ensure that the condition of Continental Airlines improve in a dramatic manner. The fact that the employees’ could not trust the existing management teams compelled Brenneman to take a heavy decision in removing the teams. Although it did live a huge gap to be filled, it demonstrated the bravery of Brenneman and the manner in which the company can progress in the market.
At the same time as stated by George et al. (2007) communication is one of the most important factors that need to be undertaken by organisations. Brenneman ensured that the communication between the employees and managers improve and at the same time provided the strength for the employees to share their grievances and opinions with others. This provided the employees of Continental Airlines, to maintain a good relationship with the employees and help in improving the relationship with the customers. Brenneman even recognised the contribution of the employees and provided them with an opportunity to undertake bold decisions.
As evidenced from the case study, Brenneman started to implement changes in the functioning of Continental Airlines so that it can cope up with the latest trend that exists in the business market. With the help of George, Brenneman managed to implement changes that dependent on the personal sense that the two men possessed. According to Goleman (2013), a leader need to be focused and at the same time ensure that envisioning the right from the wrong is done for the betterment of an organisation. Brenneman had managed to implement the five principles of leadership and had applied personal sense in the activities undertaken. For example, Brenneman and George selected the type of food that needed to be served at the airlines so that the customers can be happy and satisfied. Brenneman tasted the food that was served so that no compromise was made and that he could lead by example (Brenneman 1998).
The fact that the focus was providing customers with a good quality food had helped Continental Airlines to turn its fortunes around in the industry. At the same time, changing the components of the management team was another personal decision that was taken by Brenneman. Chambers (2015) stated that changing a whole team require excessive and bold decision so that effective implementation of strategies can take place. Brenneman had ensured that the management team which was heavily criticised by the employee be removed from the organisation and improve the communication process between the departments, employees and the employers. Therefore, Brenneman implemented the theory of personal application proposed by Craig and Snook (2014) in a smart manner.
References
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Chambers, J. 2015, “Cisco’s CEO on staying ahead of technology shifts” Harvard Business Review, May 2015, pp. 35-38
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Peachey, J.W., Zhou, Y., Damon, Z.J. and Burton, L.J., 2015. Forty years of leadership research in sport management: A review, synthesis, and conceptual framework. Journal of Sport Management, 29(5), pp.570-587.
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