Kouzes And Posner's Five Leadership Practices Paper

Kouzes and Posner (2007) have defined the following five leadership practices as necessary to achieving great things in organisations;

Model the way

Inspire a shared vision

Challenge the process

Enable others to act

Encourage the heart

When Brenneman started working at Continental he developed a clear strategy for the business and enlisted his staff to help achieve the company’s goals together. All staff at Continental were facing unemployment, so with Brenneman’s strategy they were able to work together to save their jobs. He saw the value in inspiring a shared vision so that staff could be provided with a clear direction. Furthermore, it was clear to Brenneman that staff morale was low therefore he initiated a symbolic gestures of burning the rule book. It built camaraderie and sense of community through this one gesture. He valued staff members role within the company and enabled them to act so that they could look after their customers and get on with their jobs. He predicted that if he was to turnaround Continental that he would need to seek out new

opportunities to improve.

Kouzes and Posner (2007) discuss the importance of challenging the process through seeking out new opportunities to improve.

Brenneman had the courage to question his staff as to why the company was flying to places that were unprofitable, to which he was met with poor responses. Through challenging the status quo Brenneman was able to implement valuable cost saving measure for Continental through closure of unprofitable routes. Another financial initiative to help save money, was the on-time bonus paid to employees. Staff received 15% of Continentals profits for on-time performance which ultimately saved Continental money through reduced operating costs. Showing appreciation of employees contribution to on-time performance, reenforced with staff that excellent customer service not only rewards the company but staff also. This demonstrated how Continental recognised the importance of encouraging the

heart.

Brenneman created a workplace where people felt they could trust mangers. Firstly, they changed the way managers communicated staff whereby information was provided to staff on a regular basis through bulletin boards, voicemails, forums, magazines and videos. These were all designed to keep staff members in touch with what was happening within the company. Once trust had been established, it was evident that staff had ideas on ways to improve processes and felt empowered to share their ideas. An example of enabling others to act was when the baggage handlers asked to have the best customers bag tagged as priority so they could deliver these bags first to those customers.

Brenneman (1998), defined a healthy culture within a workplace as a place where honesty, trust, dignity and respect are considered paramount. Not only did he define these qualities as a necessity for a healthy workplace, but also modelled his own behaviour according to this. When he had to close Greensboro in North Carolina, he showed staff the respect and dignity that previous management had not shown staff by announcing the closure in person and providing employees with a financial a package that would help support them. By the end of the meeting he had gained the trust of the staff as he was honest about the situation and why it needed to be done for Continental’s longevity. By modelling the way, Brenneman aligned his own actions with the culture he had set out to implement for the company.

Quinn et al (2015) examines how translating theory in to practice is one of the main obstacles of mastering cognitive and behavioural complexity. Furthermore, Quinn et al. discuss the challenge of implementing different behaviours and the capacity to fulfil roles from multiple quadrants of the Competing Values Framework concurrently when attempting to master cognitive and behavioural complexity. Previous CEO’s had focused heavily on the compete quadrant of the Competing Values Framework through cost cutting measures such as inconsistent decor inside the place, removing food, and cessation of rewards. Therefore this was likely to have contributed to the failure of Continentals business as they had neglected their staff (collaborate quadrant), lost control of its finances (control) and ultimately were unable to adapt to the environment around them (create). Quinn et al (2015) discusses the importance of having an awareness of each quadrant, but most importantly paying equal attention to all quadrants and implementing each one concurrently as being the key to managerial leaders success within an organisation. Brenneman's awareness of mastering the cognitive and behavioural complexity was demonstrated by engaging and rewarding his staff which resulted in providing a service which enabled Continental to compete in the marketplace. This ability to implement and manage competing quadrants was a strength of Brenneman leadership practice at Continental.