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Sharon Silber
SPC 4445
Professor Christine Donaldson
12 July 2016
Leading During a Crisis
The Southwest Airlines CEO James Parker has demonstrated significant leadership skills.
A CEOs leadership tends to shine when the company makes extraordinary decisions during hard
times that have a positive outcome. For James Parker, this challenging time was right after the
September 11 terrorist attack in New York City. James Parker made sure to uphold the
companys good reputation with employee and costumer service. He also made sure not to
dismiss employees after having to ground planes for those days that the government demanded.
Leading change is a very difficult but an important responsibility. Unfortunately for
Parker, his time for change was more complicated than normal because rapid action had to be
taken due to the terrorist attack of the two airplanes hitting the Twin Towers, also known as the
World Trade Center. Our book suggests the stage in reaction to a change in order to help cope
with such an incident. This theory has been formed from observations about typical sequence
reactions to sudden and traumatic events. The four stages of this reaction pattern are denial,
anger, mourning, and adaptation. (Yukl, 1981, p. 79) People deny that change will be necessary
because of the shock. When entering a stage of shock it is hard to make sudden drastic decisions
such as change because not only is it something that you were not expecting, but you do not
know what the future holds.
The next step is to get angry. It is only natural to get angry that 3,000 people died in the
World Trade Center and its surrounding. (History.com, 2010) Once realizing what has been lost

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and how these horrible terrorist airplane crashes affected the people, the mourning process comes
in. Since Southwest Airlines is such a big company, there were surely many employees that have
lost or known someone that lost a loved one from this attack. The final stage is acknowledging
the need for change. These steps are very useful for a leader to understand change during
challenging times and to deal with it appropriately.
Parkers situation was more severe than normal because there was fear if the airline
industry would even survive after such a tragedy. (Glynn, 2014) His ability and confidence to do
a task agrees with the situational leadership theory of the contingency theory. He clarified the
standards and procedures, defined roles, directed the work, and monitored the progress. (Yukl,
1981, p. 166) It takes time, but he was able to restore maturity of performance.
In a speech Parker made in 2014, he said he believes that a company such as Southwest
Airlines has success partly because its employees work together toward the greater goal and
main picture of service to customers rather than focusing solely on their own jobs. (Glynn, 2014)
This kind of excellent customer service helped Southwest airlines stay afloat during their crisis
even though they made the tough decision to provide customers with unquestioned refunds if
they requested it. Thanks to the fact that Southwest airlines uphold their standards that provides
outstanding customer employee relationships, there were barely any requests for refunds. Rather,
a lot of their customers were telling the company to keep the money or even sending the
company money. (James, 2008) We can learn from this example that if a leader pushes their
employees to show support and respect for its customers during hard economic times, then the
company will stand out and will be respected. Parker used inner locus of control orientation to
take action rather than wait and see what fate had for his company or to see if people will fly the
airline again.

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Parker once shared that in order for effective leaders to create an atmosphere where the
employees can be proud of their jobs, they need to understand the employers mission and their
want to do the right thing. It is a challenge to make people do the right thing, but you can make
them want to do the right thing. (Glynn, 2014) The path-goal theory of the early contingency
theory is consistent with the expectancy theory of motivation. Leaders may motivate employees
by influencing their perceptions about the possible consequences of different levels of effort.
(Yukl, 1981, p. 164) The employees understood the hard times that everyone; even they
themselves were going through. This motivated the employees to go above and beyond with
effective effort that goes beyond expectations, especially knowing that their company did not fire
employees like other companies did.
It is hard to anticipate a terrorist attack such as 9/11 because no attack of this extremity
has occurred in the United States. Therefore Southwest airlines or any airlines were not able to
anticipate the problem to be ready for it. However, James Parker was able to quickly identify the
nature of the terrorist attack and come up with the decision of what were to be the next steps to
be taken. Since all airports were shut down and it was unknown for how many days exactly,
many airlines had to fire about 20% of their employees. Parker believed this would have a
negative outcome in the long run so he took a risk for the company. It was a long-term
investment to keep all their employees at hand. By doing the right thing for him and his
employees he was able to show power and effective leadership to his whole company creating
business success. (James, 2008)
Parkers leadership actions represent the contingency theory well. Contingency theories
show how aspects of a leadership situation may change up a leaders effectiveness and influence.
In the long run, Parker was able to salvage Southwest Airlines and keep their excellent customer

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service reputation in doing so. Leadership is not about you; it is about inspiring others to be the
very best they can be.

Works Cited
History.com Staff. (2010). 9/11 Attacks. Retrieved July 12, 2016, from
http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks
Glynn, M. (2014, May 19). Ex-Southwest Airlines CEO offers lessons in leadership from
post-9/11 crisis - The Buffalo News. Retrieved July 12, 2016, from
http://www.buffalonews.com/business/ex-southwest-airlines-ceo-offers-lessons-in-leadershipfrom-post-911-crisis-20140519
James Parker on Doing the Right Thing at Southwest Airlines. (2008, January 11).
Retrieved July 12, 2016, from http://www.amanet.org/training/podcasts/James-Parker-on-Doingthe-Right-Thing-at-Southwest-Airlines-08-02.aspx
Yukl, G. A. (1981). Leadership in Organizations (Eighth ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.