Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

"We're Not Looking for Blind Obedience"

We are looking at the insight that Herb Kelleher had in talking about control and the people at Southwest Airlines (LUV). He mentions that he never wanted control, his people knew what they were doing and did it, and that they were devoted to the pupose of the company, one another and their customers.

In addition to this in relationship to control, he said, "We're not looking for blind obedience." There's nothing more devastating to a company than a culture of "blind obedience." On the outside it looks like it's all controlled and everything has its 'i's" dotted and it "t's" crossed, but underneath all sorts of problems are boiling over.

There is no initiative with blind obedience. People will have no desire to solve problems, they will just wait to be told what to do; they will never take responsibility or risk.

As we started this part of the series concerning control, Kelleher mentions that his people knew what to do and they did it. There was no need for control, they had confidence in the mission of the company and the people being trained in what was needed to be done and how to do it.

What blind obedience implies is that there is no trust for the workers themselves, and when you come right down to it the company or its leadership. If you need people to obey in this way, it shows that there are issues of insecurity in hiring, training, individual makeup and purpose.

As Kelleher said, "I've never had control." That means that he understood the purpose of the company, was secure, wanted a great place for people to work, had strong training measures in place and hired the right people. All he did was stick his nose in to see if an obstacle of some sort needed to be removed so they could go about doing what they knew to do.

Other Herb Kelleher Sources:

Special Event

Leadership: The Essential Herb Kelleher

The CEO as Brand Guardian

Herb's way

Speeches and Presentations from Southwest Leaders

Southwest Airlines: The Hottest Thing in the Sky

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