Discuss about the Styles of Leadership for Autocratic and Democratic.
Airlines companies operating in the country and worldwide. The airline industry in Australia is seen being growing rapidly due to thriving economy and rising population. The main sectors operating under Australian airline industry are general aviation sector, international airline sector and domestic regional sector. Small airline segments of Australian airline industry comprise of gliding, ultra-light aircraft and autogyros. The average number of passengers travelling through Australian airline around the world is around 16 million which shows the market share of airline business in Australian economy. Presently there are many airports present in Australia that deals in both domestic as well as international flights (Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, 2011). Out of all airline companies, Qantas Airlines proves to be the most prominent airline industry situated in Australia which is also the second airline industry of the world. This report has therefore selected Qantas airline for making analysis of Airline Company’s business structure and leadership style.
Qantas is known to be the largest airline company of Australia that deals in both domestic as well as international operations. Qantas was established in the year 1920 in Queensland City of Australia. Presently the airline is based in Sydney from where it operates its international and domestic flights management. From its inception, Qantas have given a
considerable effort for becoming one of the largest airline businesses in the world that have even helped the company gain extraordinary reputation. Qantas believes in providing with safer airline facility to its passengers by operating efficiently and applying excellence in maintenance and engineering. The company’s primary business involves with providing travelling service to the passengers from one destination to the other. The company has further divided its business under two divisions namely Jetstar and Qantas that operates in Australian boundaries as well as international countries. Qantas is a successful brand where the vision of the company lies in becoming world’s top airline company. The company also concentrates on giving low fares so that its customers remain attached with the company. It also provides premium facilities to achieve company’s vision. The key value of the company helps it to formulate strategies and structure in a manner that aligns with Qantas core objectives (Amadeus, 2006).
Companies exist to achieve goals where goals are broken down under several tasks based on work. According to Lunenburg (2012), organisational structure refers to the official configuration of groups and individual activity where allocation of work and responsibilities are given to them within the organisational context. Departments formed in the companies can be categorised into different departments like advertising, manufacturing, administrative, marketing etc. (Lunenburg, 2012) Within each department, distinct people are allocated with responsibility or job that needs to be done. Organisations matrix depends upon the managerial functions required for organising the type of business. Therefore, determining of roles and power becomes very crucial while formulating organisational strategy. Company’s organisational structure largely depends upon objectives and strategy of the company where most of the companies follows either decentralised or centralised structures.
Qantas follows centralised as well as decentralised company structure in which the roles of the company are exercised by different departments. The company has many subsidiaries that are supervised by executors in which the executers are given authority to take decisions along with reporting the activities to the top management. Company’s goals and objectives are given priority while delegating works to the employees and they are managed in a system through which maximum work output can be realised. The two distinct business management company deals with are Qantas domestic Airline and Qantas International Airline where each individual division are supervised by separate CEO (Alam, n.d.). Both the divisions are managed for performing operational and commercial functions. The basic reason behind formulating such structure is to focus upon expansion strategy while improving business standards of the company. The organisational culture of Qantas shows that the company follows medium type of structure. The top-level management of the firm has members that manage corporate governance along with top executive team of the company. These top-level management teams are also responsible for formulating company rules and policies that requires to be implemented in different departments of the organisation. The departments of the company comprise of administrative section, commercial management, project developing teams and other functional managers. The mixture of all the teams concentrates in working for satisfying the goal and objective of Qantas where they are answerable for their responsibility to immediate superior level (Anon., 2015).
According to scholars and researchers, the concept of leadership styles differs from management styles. Some of them agree that they are the same while others believe that management are just a division of leadership. According to Val and Kemp (n,d), leadership is the talent of making a group move towards a specific goal that would have been possible only due to presence of a leader. In management, leadership can be applied according to the business situations or from the broad perspective of leadership style where leadership can take place at any attempt to influence other employees. Leaderships provide organisations with those features which motivates the groups or employees for implementing strategic plans and regulations (Val & Kemp, n.d.). Leadership styles commonly used in organisations are delegation, authoritative and participative style (Chand, n.d.). In them, delegate leadership style permits other subordinates or employees taking their own decision (Qantas Airways Limited, 2018). In such circumstances decisions are taken by employees but ultimate responsibility that the work is carried according to company’s objectives belongs to delegators. Authoritative leadership trait entails managers giving orders to other employees. Under this style, employees are supposed to carry their duty according to manager’s orders where their decisions or ideas are not considered. Contemporary managers, however, consider employees ideas in few situations. Participative leadership style is also known as democratic leadership trait in which employees along with managers makes decision for the company. Under this style, the decisions are made jointly but the responsibility of decision and final decision is made by the managers.
Since Qantas is a large organisation, the management present there have to deal with several types of issues in management styles. For this, the company uses different leadership style to operate the company’s activities more efficiently. There is a vertical line of management leadership authority in which critical reviews made by shareholders are managed by top level executors. The management of diversified people and employees are also handled by them so that conflicts within organisation are avoided. The company has been rational while making decisions and thus stakeholders remains contended with its leadership styles. There are many scenarios also where the company follows authoritative leadership style to handle the situation promptly. For the sake of company’s objectives, Qantas leaders even had to take tough decisions many times. Although this has made many employees turn into non-favourable side, but under severe situations Qantas remains authoritative. On the other hand, Qantas also follows participative leadership where the decisions are made for the long run of the business and its progress. This attribute of leadership style shows both participative as well as authoritative leadership trait of the company (Amadeus, 2006).
The leaders of the company are aware of the requirements for effective management style for which they refer to the vision of the company while allocating work to different departments. For this they provide appropriate directions to their employees along with motivating them constantly to support company’s vision and effective execution of tasks. Qantas is an international company where all its dealing is made after considering diversified people cultures. For this Qantas management comprise of managers belonging to diversified cultures who assist other employees according to the requirement of different people (Parker, 2015). Variety of skills and views enhances the management of the company while diverse teams offer effective communication within organisation. Leaders of diversified groups also provide leadership style that aligns the requirements of the company with its employee’s tasks. During decisions made for long run and significant issues, leaders of the company seek advices from its employees so that different ideas can be collected, and most effective idea can be find out. This participative leadership trait has involved its employees on regular basis so that they become aware of company’s situation and can work more for organisation’s progress. Qantas from the beginning has given importance to its employees and has consulted them while making important decisions. Therefore, it can be said that Qantas not only motivates its employees but also keeps encouraging them for bringing effectiveness in its management (Qantas Group Business Practices, n.d.).
The strategies adopted by airline industry shall be made in a manner that allows taking advantages and opportunities while handling threats effectively. Since Qantas faces competition from other Airline companies of Australia like Virgin Australia, its international strategies are made to expand its business in more locations and diversified countries. The brand name of Qantas allows it to capture new markets with ease. Jetstar of Qantas is an important division of international operation of the company which serves travelling service to many continents like Asia, USA and other European countries (Airline Analysis, 2016). Qantas applies variety of strategies to make strong market position. Firstly, the company follows Multi Branding strategy under which its service departments including holidaying and catering are branded under separate names. This also implements collaboration with other firms for dealing in specific industry. This strategy of Qantas has helped it to gain high financial returns by making its business operations collaborated with other firms (CAPA – Centre for Aviation, 2012).
Brand factor is very important for enabling effective marketing strategy. Qantas, due to its low pricing strategy and strong portfolio has gain support from local people. The company has been able to maintain superior technology and innovation in its aircrafts by investing considerable amount in new fleets. The Qantas Airline is even found to be up to date in terms of airbuses and aircrafts which is the reason behind getting support from local airline partners. The emerging international strategy of Qantas shows its consideration in foreign markets especially in Asian countries where the company has seen tremendous growth in past few decades (Qantas, 2011).
Company structure and strategies refer to the process through which organisations manages people and performs accordingly to get desired goals and objectives. Complexities and issues are managed by managements of firms where work is delegated according to the structure decided by employers. Different departments of company are divided according to the requirement of the task like marketing, advertising, accounting, HRM etc. Similarly, strategies are also made after recognising the core objectives behind company’s formation and are directed to other employees towards achievement of company’s success (Child, 1972). Qantas has made its mission and vision in such a manner that allows it to get public and governmental support. It also comprises of strong management structure that supports in providing sufficient returns to its stakeholders. The combination of leadership style analysed in Qantas shows its exclusive predictable temperament where the decisions and leadership style are followed according to the situation. The leaders of the company are seen to act critically during intense situation whereas considers group discussions for long term improvement of the firm. However, Qantas leadership issue has been recognised in Singapore Airline case where the company made a closure with SIA (Ho, 2015). This decision of the company made criticism for Qantas in public and at that time Qantas was even suspected to be following only authoritative leadership style.
Conclusion
The effective leadership style can be seen from the success realised by Qantas in both global and domestic marketplace where the company has followed effective management structure. The above evaluation of Qantas strategies and structure shows that it follows correct and suitable marketing strategies and therefore has been able to claim high market share. The company adopts leadership traits and structure that suits Australian Airline industry regulations. The resources are utilised efficiently by the company that allows Qantas perform its operations more effectively. Qantas has a strong leadership control and an effective company structure that that has made it one of the most recognised companies in the world in Airline industry.
References
Airline Analysis, 2016. Qantas is averaging 28% passenger share in international markets; steadily losing domestic market share despite growth; next stop Beijing. [Online] Available at: https://www.anna.aero/2016/10/20/qantas-is-averaging-30-percent-passenger-share-in-its-top-international-markets/ [Accessed 19 May 2018].
Alam, Q., n.d. QANTAS AiRliNES. [Online] Available at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/61060574/Qantas-Case-Study-1 [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Amadeus, 2006. Qantas, the sky is the limit. [Online] Available at: https://www.amadeus.com/documents/airline/qantas.pdf [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Anon., 2015. Strategic Management – Group report: Qantas case study analysis. [Online] Available at: https://milanpintar.com/2015/10/25/strategic-management-group-report-qantas-case-study-analysis/ [Accessed 19 May 2018].
Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics, 2011. International airline operations. [Online] Available at: https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2012/files/avline_2010_11.pdf [Accessed 18 May 2018].
CAPA – Centre for Aviation, 2012. Qantas and Virgin Australia pursue different, but equally logical, strategies to grow domestically. [Online] Available at: https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/reports/qantas-and-virgin-australia-pursue-different-but-equally-logical-strategies-to-grow-domestically-72898 [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Chand, S., n.d. 3 Styles of Leadership: Autocratic, Democratic and Free Rein Style. [Online] Available at: https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/leadership/3-styles-of-leadership-autocratic-democratic-and-free-rein-style/28002 [Accessed 19 May 2018].
Child, J., 1972. Organizational Structure, Environment and Performance: The Role of Strategic Choice. [Online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249824307_Organizational_Structure_Environment_and_Performance_The_Role_of_Strategic_Choice [Accessed 19 May 2018].
Ho, O., 2015. 23-hour flight delay due to Jubilee celebrations: Qantas. [Online] Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/23-hour-flight-delay-due-to-jubilee-celebrations-qantas [Accessed 19 May 2018].
Lunenburg, F.C., 2012. Organizational Structure: Mintzberg’s Framework. [Online] Available at: https://platform.europeanmoocs.eu/users/8/Lunenburg-Fred-C.-Organizational-Structure-Mintzberg-Framework-IJSAID-V14-N1-2012.pdf [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Parker, A., 2015. QANTAS GROUP SUBMISSION. [Online] Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=9542f952-0e75-4150-a684. [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Qantas Airways Limited, 2018. Corporate Governance. [Online] Available at: https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/governance-structure/global/en [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Qantas Group Business Practices, n.d. WORKING TOWARDS OUR VISION. [Online] Available at: https://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/about/corporateGovernance/BusinessPracticesDocument.pdf [Accessed 18 May 2018].
Qantas, 2011. Building a stronger Qantas. [Online] Available at: https://www.aspecthuntley.com.au/asxdata/20110907/pdf/01215896.pdf [Accessed 18 May 2018].
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