Dan Webb

I have always admired Colleen Barrett, and one of the first things I have done when I board a Southwest aircraft is crack open the inflight magazine and read her monthly letter. Yesterday she stepped down as president of Southwest Airlines, and boy did the company through a heck of a party (she will be staying on as an employee until July 2013, though). Click here to see the video. Colleen is a fantastic leader, and in my opinion is most known for stressing the importance of treating employees and customers very well, but especially the employees. Southwest has always seemed to operate on the philosophy that if a company treats its employees well, the employees will treat the customers well. So far that seems to have worked wonderfully.

Luckily, I have my own personal story of Colleen’s leadership.

Back in my junior year of high school (this was March 2007), I had to write a research paper on any topic I wanted. Of course, I wanted to write about something aviation-related and chose to wrote about the “Southwest Effect,” at my home airport, T.F. Green, in Rhode Island. The June 2006 issue of the Southwest inflight magazine commemerated the airline’s 35 years of operation. Herb Kelleher mentioned the huge traffic boost Southwest provided at my airport in an interview for the magazine, and I wanted to look at the numbers. So, I wrote him a letter, not expecting a reply.

Herb didn’t reply personally, but I did receive a phone call from someone at the executive offices at Southwest! A few days later I received copies of the DOT data Herb referenced and a Southwest baseball cap (I still wear it all the time). I was pretty excited.

Fast forward a few weeks to the end of April. I received a letter from a Southwest manager saying he was happy I had a positive experience with the employee I dealt with. I also received a copy of a memo that Colleen sent to the employee, Laura, thanking her for her work, which said:

Your generous and thoughtful assistance to Dan Webb resulted in another happy Customer (and possible future Employee?), and I can’t thank you enough for the compassion and Fun-LUVing attitude you share with our Customers. I am truly grateful for your commitment to Living the Southwest Way, and I appreciate your passion for excellence!

(Notice how in the letter Customer and Employee are capitalized for effect.)

Managers in any industry can learn from Colleen’s style of leadership. If other companies encouraged and supported their employees as much as Southwest, they would probably have much better service and happier workers.

So, Colleen, thank you for all you have done for Southwest all these years. You will be greatly missed.