CALF_News_Feb_March_2019

12 CALF News • February | March 2019 • www.calfnews.net Whitt and Wisdom The Leadership Legacy of Herb Kelleher By JimWhitt Contributing Editor T he world lost a great leader when Southwest Airlines co-founder and longtime CEO Herb Kelleher passed away, but his legacy is one every leader should aspire to emulate. I personally experienced how his leadership impacted people, even after he was no longer involved in the daily operations of the company. there, but the place was packed. Our friend Kay Caldwell, who spent many years with Southwest and had hired me to speak at one of her meetings a few years before, was at the party and she introduced us to Herb. Herb’s fondness for Wild Turkey was well known, so I told him I was drinking Wild Turkey that night in his honor. Exhibiting his characteristic quick wit and humor, he looked me square in the eye and said straight-faced, “You are a man of good character.” As we wandered through the crowd, we bumped into Col- leen quite by accident, who said,“Well, here’s Jim and Sondra!” I was shocked. This was months after my presentation and she had just greeted us by name. Herb and Colleen were famous for remembering names. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you care about people. And that tells you everything you need to know about the success of Southwest Airlines. In Herb’s words,“The business of business is people. The essential difference in service is not machines or ‘things.’ The essential difference is minds, hearts, spirits and souls.” As evidence of the sincerity of those words, consider this. The president of a major airline not only cared about the opinion of a flight attendant, but valued his advice enough to have me speak to their culture committee. Imagine the impact of not just listening to your employees, but valuing their advice enough to do something about it. That sums up Herb Kelleher’s legacy as a leader. He created a culture where people wanted to follow him because they wanted to be like him. He loved people, and they loved him. I was on a Southwest flight several years ago and struck up a conversation with a veteran flight attendant. It didn’t take long to see that he embodied the customer service culture that Southwest was famous for. I had a copy of Riding for the Brand: The Power of Purposeful Leadership , in my bag, so I gave it to him and said,“You’re old school, so I think you’ll enjoy this.” A few weeks later I received a call from the office of Colleen Barrett, Herb Kelleher’s longtime executive assistant who had succeeded him as president at Southwest. Matthew Siebenlist, my newfound flight attendant friend, had read my book and wrote to Colleen, telling her about it. As a result, I ended up speaking at a meeting of the South- west Culture Committee comprised of a couple of hundred people from all departments and levels of the company. As you might imagine, they were an enthusiastic audience. I had a heart-shaped branding iron made (the heart is the focal point of their logo) and presented it to Colleen at the end of my pre- sentation. One of the committee members piped up and said, “I suppose we’re all supposed to line up, drop our pants and get branded now!” My wife, Sondra, had accompanied me to the meeting, and Colleen invited us to attend her Christmas party at her home in Dallas, which we did. I don’t know how many people were I’ve had the opportunity to speak at several Southwest Air- lines meetings and have met and gotten to know many South-