Leadership In Aviation For Business Opportunities

The contribution made by the leaders to the success of the aviation organizations

Discuss about the Leadership in Aviation for Business Opportunities.

The safety and operational issues stemming from drastic environmental concerns have provided a major focus to alter the leadership attributes of the aviation sector. The majority of the leaders has faced the sustainability issue and global challenges to meet the set goals of the airline organisations. At the same time, the diversified business environment has also given lessons to the leaders on how to cope up with the challenges and allied business opportunities (Assaf & Josiassen, 2011). This scenario has become more crucial as the global aviation industry has experienced a range of alteration due to the socio-economic fluctuation and other political factors.

Considering the fact, the current study attempts to discuss the characteristics of the successful leaders in the aviation industry, followed by the identification of its impact on the organisational performance. A range of personal experience and the general opinion of the leaders have been conducted to draw a potential inference of the study.

Leaders are the key factors for making the business opportunities by influencing all the economic, societal, political, and the technological determinants. It has been identified in the case of United Airlines Flight 232 DC-10 accident; there is a good implementation of contingency leadership in Captain AI Haynes leadership style. The followers are the most important factor as the people adhered the way that allowed the crew to perform an emergency landing to save the lives of the travellers. According to the opinion of Greenstein (2009), loss of some passengers had occurred but the decision had also helped to survive the lives maximum passengers and the flight officials.  Furthermore, the Ansett Airlines is one of the leading examples to grow slowly from the Ansett Airlines to Ansett-ANA. Considering the words of McClellan (2009), the effective leadership style like McGregor’s X-Y Theory has been followed by the leaders of Ansett to expand the business. Supporting this, Hicks (2013) cited that the founder of the Southwest Airlines has focused on the good citizenship behaviour to increase the superior performance. The leaders of the Southwest Airlines focus on making work culture for enthusiastic motivate the employees to be the organisational citizens. Adding to this, the founder of the JetBlue inspired the employees to the organisational citizenship through the factor of dedication (Rolková & Farkašová, 2015). Later on, the founder has progressed to form another successful airline like Azul Brazilian. Thus, it could be inferred that the contribution of the leaders is effective to establish the organisational success.

Without the presence of a strong leader an organisational cannot be successful in the industry. The past scholars voted that self-management is one of the foremost characteristics of a successful leader. In the opinion of Ruderman (2008), an effective leader can regulate the time, feelings, attention and emotion to reinforce the strengths of the organisation and the employees. The resilience of the leaders involves managing the stress of the employees outside the work. It has been found that a successful manager has the capability to use the power correctly. The responsibility and the accountability of the leaders help the organisation to reduce the operational mistakes and establishing a balancing perspective for taking suitable actions (Steiner, 2013).

The characteristics of the successful leaders in the industry

Furthermore, the team building initiatives are one of the most participating approaches of the leaders to reform a group with a distinct personality and the skills for increasing the organisational productivity. Considering the opinion of Saini (2015), the leaders must follow a good code of conduct and the best ethical practices for increasing the organisation value and employee loyalty index. The problem-solving capacity of the leaders requires a variety of ideas and opinions to eliminate any organisational conflicting situation. The problem-solving attitude of the leaders is beneficial for minimising the environmental issues of the aviation sector. Hence, it could be deduced that the leaders of the organisation have to preserve a sustain vision for making a concrete goal for the organisation.

The three levels of leadership have the ability to anticipate and deal with the changes for establishing good leaders apart from the others. Every organisation has a greater need for employing an effective leadership. As per the three domain leadership model, the simple structure of the leadership model develops the employee skills by providing a good framework for training the employees (Shinfuku, 2010). The three levels of leadership theory can be categorised as below:

• Managing self for leadership domain
• Leading and managing the team and organisation domain
• Leading, managing, and adapting to the external environment domain

The first level of leadership capacity in the model identifies the skill and talent of the subordinates. The management provides a good training session to the employees for increasing the performance measures (McClellan, 2009). The second domain is the reflection of the effective work of the leaders in the changing environment within the workplace. The third level helps the leaders to build a strong formal and informal network team to obtain regular feedback on the organisational process. Hence, the leader reviews the actions and modifies the strategies as per the requirement of the organisational success. 

In order to develop a socially-based relationship role of a leader is a foremost important factor. The socially based relationship with the followers is significant as it is more effective rather than the economic-based relationship. As per the opinion of Greenstein (2009), it is the leader’s ability to build potential organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). It has been speculated that OCB is required to openly recognise the performance of the employees and provide an attractive formal reward system. OCB is also beneficial to promote an effective organisational culture (Rolková & Farkašová, 2015). Adding to this, employee retention policy of the leaders is another significant factor that influences the quality the employee relationship status of an organisation. In the case of Aviation Industry, employee retention is one of the most important opportunities to inspire the workforce.

Furthermore, the leaders can create a positive exchange environment that allows the subordinates to align the social identities with the organisational identities. The span of control becomes more effortless and valuable as the followers can communicate directly with the leaders. In the opinion of Steiner (2013), the leader provides a high structure for the extreme job satisfaction of the employees. AS the followers do not provide any types of authority leadership, thus, the leaders offer consideration in the workplace to uphold a good organisational culture. For an example, Saini (2015) mentioned that Emirates Group, France Group and the Lufthansa Group are leading players to improve the group effectiveness through the assistance of a potential leader. Hence, effective team building attitude, well communicator and a good decision making approach are the most imperative role of a good leader in the aviation sector.

Identifying the three levels of analysis of leadership theory

Being able to maintain strategic business planning:

The leadership approach in the airline sector helps to develop a strategic business plan. Eventually, the complex tasks get resolved. A sound leader brings workforce motivation and engages the employees within the business analysis process. Finally, the actual business need gets identified. A flexible leader also helps the staff to conduct a variety of market survey to determine the loopholes and the strength of the firms. Thus, the identified gaps can be minimised. The brand gets higher sustainability as well. Audley et al. (2010) also added that best in class leaders become able to look the variation of the industry and exploit technology to draw a new business model. Leaders from the corporate like Emirates, British Airline, etc. have managed to take care of the cost efficiency and greater differentiation of the brands from the others. Eventually, the brands have successfully managed the potential relationship with the investors.

Improving the customer focus and brand identity:

A flexible leadership style considers the Fielder’s Contingency theory, which helps to execute more control to the compound business situation. Assaf & Josiassen (2011) stated that leaders in the aviation industry need to follow a Dyadic Approach to increase the team effectiveness and the overall organisational success. Similarly, the majority of the directors working in the air transport sector develop a vertical dyadic theory and leader-member exchange theory to create individual responses among the in groups and out groups. For example, the integration and self-promotion of the Ryanair’s leaders make it feasible to maintain greater brand identity in the global aviation sector (Cento, 2009). Thus, it can be stated that the improved responses make the leaders able to identify the basic need of the customers depending on which, strategic intervention takes place. Therefore, the brand image increases.

The internal and external business environment can be considered as the determinant of the corporate performance of the airline industry. Suppliers, competitors and the market uncertainty are considered as the external circumstances that direct the execution of the airline firms. Eid & Zaidi (2010) supported the fact and stated that the internal locus of control helps the air leaders to prefer a participative style, which improves the approach towards the employee. Thus, the overall performance increases. On the other hand, Neises (2013) stated that more than 35% of the aviation firms lack from adequate corporate governance and leadership approaches to managing the brand sustainability in the global business environment. Nicolini & Salini (2006) stated that Emirates Airline has become successful in executing effective branding strategy and innovativeness as well. As a whole, the brand has met higher organisational success. Thus, the two dimensions need to be integrated each other to achieve long-term business goals in the volatile and turbulent market situation also.

The Path-Goal and Contingency Theory have helped the researcher while gathering the live expertise in the aviation sector. While managing employee attrition in the Ryanair airline, a lot of employee resistance and the turbulent business situation had been experienced by the current researcher. However, the employment of path-goal theory has helped to retain a few skilled workers, due to the introduction of attractive reward paths and career goals (Nataraja & Alâ€ÂAaliAbdulrahman, 2011). Thus, the retained employees became motivated, and Ryanair airline again started performing significantly in the global business market. The experience not only improved organisational performance but also helps in improving the personal life experience as well.

Discussing the role of a leader in contributing to group effectiveness

On the other hand, the Fielder’s Contingency theory has also helped to identify the operational gaps of National DC8, which met a crash in the year 1991. Past researchers have also revealed the fact that the lack of contingency pulling and technological adaptation had reduced the operational efficacy and resulted from massacre for the airline (Gures et al. 2014). Thus, developing a romantic element within the leaders has become a mandatory factor to improve the brand image and sustainability in the global market. Thus, it can be stated that the employment of contingency theory could help the leaders developing strategic goals and meet the long-term vision as well.

Conclusion

Managing safety, competency and sustainability have become a crucial task for the aviation industry. Lots of ups and downs are experienced by the global airline organisations. In the majority of the times, lack of strategic planning and corporate governance created issues within the industry. The overall analysis indicates that strategic planning comes from a sound leadership style, which prioritises on environmental sustainability, ethical behaviour and the overall organisational performance as well. A participative leadership nature can generate openness within the operational system, as it allows free involvement of the stakeholders in the decision making process. Therefore, managing environmental sustainability along with the organisational competitiveness could become an easy task for the airline organisations. With an increase of the business status, the trust factor and the brand loyalty index of the aviation industry can be improved. As a whole, the firm level and external stakeholder related benefit can be offered in the global context.

References:

Assaf, A.G. & Josiassen, A. (2011) ‘The operational performance of UK airlines: 2002â€Â2007’, Journal of Economic Studies, 38(1), 5–16.

Audley, A.-M., Carlsen, K.-H. & Fletcher, M. (2010) ‘The European lung foundation database on airlines’ policies for patients who require oxygen supplementation during air travel’, Primary Care Respiratory Journal, 19(3), 284–284

Cento, A. (2009) The airline industry. United States: Physicaverlag Heidelberg.

Eid, R. & Zaidi, M. (2010) ‘CRM in the context of airline industry’, International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 1(2), 35–42

Greenstein, F. I. (2009). The presidential difference: Leadership style from FDR to Barack Obama (Third edition) (3rd ed.). United States: Princeton University Press.

Gures, N., Arslan, S. & Yucel Tun, S. (2014) ‘Customer expectation, satisfaction and loyalty relationship in Turkish airline industry’, International Journal of Marketing Studies, 6(1), 23-36

Hicks, R. F. (2013). Coaching as a leadership style: The art and science of coaching conversations for healthcare professionals. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

McClellan, J. L. (2009). The levels of leadership and transcendent servant leadership development. Journal of Leadership Education, 8(2), 88–110.

Nataraja, S. & Alâ€ÂAaliAbdulrahman (2011) ‘The exceptional performance strategies of Emirate airlines’, Competitiveness Review, 21(5), 471–486

Neises, L. (2013) Social Crm in the airline industry: Engaging the digital natives. United States: Lit Verlag

Nicolini, G. & Salini, S. (2006) ‘Customer satisfaction in the airline industry: The case of British airways’, Quality and Reliability Engineering International, 22(5), 581–589.

Rolková, M., & Farkašová, V. (2015). The features of participative management style. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23(4), 1383–1387.

Ruderman, M. N. (2008). Great expectations: Resolving conflicts of leadership style preferences. Leadership in Action, 28(4), 8–12.

Saini, D. (2015). Integral leadership style: A new perspective. International Journal on Leadership, 3(2), 122–124.

Shinfuku, N. (2010). Three points of leadership. Asia-Pacific Psychiatry, 2(4), 177–178.

Steiner, S. (2013). Reflexivity in external religious leaders’ summit communication sequences (2005-2012) to G8 political leaders: The social (re)construction of cosmopolitan responsibility by world religious leaders. SAGE Open, 3(4), 24–26.