EasyJet Leadership and Management Analysis

This assignment requires you to analyze the leadership style of Carolyn McCall, the CEO of EasyJet. You will examine various management theories and apply them to her approach, considering challenges she faced and the impact of her leadership on the airline's successful turnaround. The analysis should draw upon provided case studies and academic sources.

Running head: ANALYZING THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF CAROLYN McCALL
Analyzing the leadership style of Carolyn McCall
Name of the University
Name of the Student
Author note

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ANALYZING THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF CAROLINE McCALL
Executive Summary
The main objective of the report was to analyze the leadership style of Carolyn McCall, former
CEO of EasyJet Airlines Company. The report included an introduction that described the
contents of the report followed by an overview of the company, EasyJet. In the overview, the
statistics and data revealing EasyJet’s performance prior to and after McCall’s appointment was
described. The report also contained a thorough analysis of McCall’s leadership styles by
drawing references from the different theories of leadership. It was found that two theories
particularly, the Contingency Theory and the Transformative Theory of leadership had
characteristics similar to McCall’s. The report concluded with an overall summary of the
analysis.

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ANALYZING THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF CAROLINE McCALL
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Overview of EasyJet Company.......................................................................................................3
Carolyn McCall and her leadership style.........................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................6
Analysis of McCall’s tenure as CEO – a combination of management and leadership styles........7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11

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ANALYZING THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF CAROLINE McCALL
Introduction
In the article authored by Nicola Clark, Carolyn McCall has been praised for exceptional
display of managerial skills that took her company, EasyJet to the peak of success (Nytimes.com
2018). In the given report, Carolyn McCall’s leadership style shall be assessed thoroughly by
gathering evidences from a wide range of works. The report shall however use Clark’s article as
the base for the analysis. The overview section shall provide insight into EasyJet Company while
the following sections would focus on Carolyn McCall, her leadership style, relevant theories
and critical analysis of her style. While presenting the overview, a brief outlook into the
European aviation industry shall be included as well. In addition, the report would analyze the
consequences of her leadership style in the future and analyze whether she should continue as the
chief of EasyJet or not. Whether McCall is both a leader and a manager or either one, shall also
be discussed.
The report will also compare and contrast McCall’s leadership to that of her predecessor
and evaluate whether she is best suited as a manager or a leader. The report shall further
elaborate the skills and qualities that have allowed McCall to take the company to a higher
position. An understanding of the different theories of leadership and management would help
explain McCall’s style of leadership, its effectiveness and future.
Overview of EasyJet Company
The European aviation industry is one of world’s biggest generators of employment
supporting more than 60 million jobs and 3 trillion pounds in GDP every year. Ranking below
the United States aviation industry, the European industry is slowly but surely making a mark
despite the region’s poor economic performance. EasyJet Company has an important role to play

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in this improved performance of the European aviation industry. The company made its humble
beginnings in the year 1995 at London and expanded to Europe the next year that is in 1996. In
2005, Andrew Harrison was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the company who
remained in office until 2010. EasyJet was awarded the best low-cost airline in Europe for ten
consecutive years that showed the company’s remarkable success. However, it was confronted
with loss and chaos during the 2009-2010 periods when it faced increasing customer complaints
of repeated delays and unsatisfactory customer service. The nightmarish phase was further
worsened by the losses that were close to 100 million pounds owing to strikes by air traffic
controllers and weather disruptions. Within one year after McCall took over as the CEO, the
company’s revenue started showing positive signs with an increase of 16.1% in 2011 totaling to
3,452 million pounds. By 2015, the company’s revenues went up and earned a profit of 686
million pounds before tax displaying an annual growth of 22.2% from the previous year. The
year 2016 however witnessed a fall in the revenues with only 495 million pounds of profit before
tax, owing to the turbulences faced by the aviation industry that include fluctuations in foreign
exchange rates. McCall managed to bring the profits on track in 2017 before her resignation as
the CEO of EasyJet with 5 billion pounds as revenues with a profit margin of 8.1% from
previous year (Corporate.easyjet.com 2018).
Carolyn McCall and her leadership style
McCall’s leadership style can be better understood by applying the different leadership
models and theories that about the scholarly world. These theories were formulated decades ago
with the Great Man Theory being one of the oldest of all. According to this theory, a leader must
possess a charming personality. The leader must have qualities like commanding authority,
charm, intelligence, courage and so on (Mendoza et al. 2016). Then other theories like the Trait

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Theory and later, the Behavioral theories and Contingency theories and Transformational were
developed. McCall’s leadership can be categorized as having minor aspects of Contingency
theory and major aspects of Transformational theory of leadership. The Contingency Theory
focuses chiefly on the setting in which the leader works. According to this theory, an effective
team is formed based on the leader’s style and the influence he or she has over the situation. On
the other hand, Transformational Theory describes that the leader has the ability to boost
employee morale and transform negative situations into positive ones. As mentioned in the
article, McCall applied inventive techniques to comprehend the issues that were faced by the
company (Greer, Lusch and Vargo 2016). Her frequent conversation with the flight crews inside
the flight demonstrated her eagerness to find out the problems and resolve those without wasting
time. She hardly had time for staying in the office. In fact, according a report, McCall had no
office at all. Although these things bothered her least as she was focused on improving the
company’s fortune.
By 2010, most of the top officials at EasyJet had resigned following the disastrous
performance of the aviation company. Then, in July 2010, Carolyn McCall joined the company
as the new CEO replacing Harrison. She demonstrated exemplary skills from the onset and took
the company to new heights with innovative decisions. The June 2015 article published on The
New York Times celebrated McCall’s success by praising her as the chief who turned around the
fate of the nearly sinking company. It took her just one year to turn things around with her
exemplary skills. During the disastrous year of 2010, when McCall took over, she was
determined to proceed systematically by focusing first on the employees and then on the
customers. This strategy helped, as she knew that without an enthusiastic team, she would not be
able to lead the company alone and satisfy the customers. After instilling a sense of confidence

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amongst the employees, she shifted her focus to the customers and was resolute to mitigate all
their complaints (Eichorn 2017). Knowing that she had no experience in the aviation sector
further elevates her role as a leader. Overhauled by unending difficulties in the first few months
of her tenure, McCall demonstrated extreme composure and despite few downs, EasyJet
maintained steady growth.
Mentioned previously, McCall’s leadership style has most of the traits of
Transformational model of leadership (Brescoll 2016). The transformational theory proposed by
James McGregor Burns describes that a leader must possess motivational power, a strong sense
of ethics and responsible use of authority. A look at McCall’s journey as the chief executive of
EasyJet brings forth all these qualities very clear. She never resorted to unethical practices to
bring profit to her company nor did she encourage others to do so. During her tenure, only hard
work and dedication worked as fuels for pushing the company to a position where it is today.
Literature Review
Studies and researches on leadership styles have been conducted innumerable times on
previous occasions. However, very few have focused on a female leader and analyzed her
leadership style. According to Tate and Yang (2015), female leaders are gradually coming to the
fore and making a mark for themselves and that has forced researchers to focus on them as well.
In many studies conducted previously, there was hardly any reference to female leaders when it
came to strong leaders of the world in different fields. Ho et al. (2015) however argue that in the
recent past, women have received the respect and accolades they deserve when it comes to strong
leadership. Most studies have been on women as leaders, not on any specific personality. In
addition, a major part of the research on leadership styles and theories relating to women revolve

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around gender bias and inequality. However, many articles have been published in different
newspapers and magazines about the magnetic leadership of Carolyn McCall and her
contribution to EasyJet. The media praised her patience and commitment in the midst of the
turbulence faced by the company during the first year after she joined. In her own words, McCall
had faced almost all the major shocks that aviation industry could face and yet the company
survived.
Many studies have been conducted on the similarities and differences between a leader
and a manager. According to a report published in the Harvard Business Review, the actual
definition of a leader can be comprehended by understanding the role of the manager (Hbr.org
2018). In addition, business has recognized a novel power ethic that supports cooperative
leadership and rejects individualism, promotes the authority of the group over personality. Stein
(2016), on the other hand is of the view that the roles defining a manager and a leader are distinct
and that the two entities although sometime overlapping cannot be considered the same. The
author has presented a clear distinction between the two entities by drawing reference from a
school setting.
Analysis of McCall’s tenure as CEO – a combination of management and leadership styles
Carolyn McCall resigned from her post as EasyJet CEO in 2017 after giving seven years
of dedicated service to the company as a leader. After the article was published in The New York
Times in 2015, McCall’s name was synonymous with dynamism, charisma, courage, patience
and intelligence. Her tenure as EasyJet CEO silenced many of her critics including her biggest
rival, Michael O’Leary, head of Ryanair who had once labeled her as a ‘media luvvie’ (Ft.com
2018). With zero experience and expertise in the aviation industry and coming from a media

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background, rarely anyone would have predicted the turnaround that McCall managed. Her focus
was on improving customer satisfaction and that was achieved within one year. By 2017, the
airline company managed to attract over 70 million customers worldwide with more than 12
million business travelers. These figures further solidify the effectiveness of strategies employed
by McCall.
As mentioned already in the previous sections, the leadership style demonstrated by
McCall inclines more towards Contingency and Transformational models of leadership. Apart
from displaying skills of leadership, she also demonstrated great managerial skills. A close
analysis of her tenure reveals the features of various theories of management as well. To cite an
example, McCall displayed characteristics like initiative, equity, authority, responsibility, and
discipline, which constitute the fourteen principles of Henri Fayol’s Administrative Management
Theory (Edward 2017). In addition, her leadership style at times hinted towards Elton Mayo’s
Behavioral Theory, which states that employees demonstrate productivity when they are exposed
to novel ideas and when they are motivated (Stahl 2016). The novel idea introduced by McCall
was to attract business travelers to travel in the low-cost airline thus generating higher profits.
Lopez (2014) argues that over the years, the gap between leadership and management has
expanded making it difficult for business students to comprehend both areas clearly. McCall,
however have been a leading example of combining managerial and leadership skills to attain
positive outcomes.
It is nonetheless a matter of deep evaluation whether she should be called a leader or a
manager. Going by the recent events leading to her resignation as CEO and her accepting of a
CEO’s post at ITV, it shows her impersonal relationship to EasyJet. A manager is the one who
has an impersonal attitude towards the company. McCall grabbed the post of the Chief Executive

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Officer at ITV, a commercial broadcaster in January this year (BBC.com 2018). However, on
several occasions, McCall displayed unrelenting dedication to bring the company from the
bottom and take it to the top. She displayed immense enthusiasm and motivational skills to
elevate her employee’s morale by personally visiting the airlines in different bases. It hence
shows that McCall thought and acted like both a manager and a leader. It is also evident that
McCall could have been the right person to carry on as EasyJet CEO for a few years more as she
had maintained a steady growth even after minor jolts in the later years.
Despite the fact that her performance as the chief of EasyJet failed to garner huge profit
post The New York Times article by Nicola Clark, her popularity remained undeterred.
Nonetheless, the fact is that no technique works forever and similar was starting to show in
McCall’s case. Every leader has to change his or her leadership style according to the needs of
the era. McCall luckily did not have to face the scare of Brexit as she had announced her
resignation only a month after the referendum. She was brave enough to face the wrath of her
rivals and critics during the start of her journey at EasyJet but with Brexit, the case is entirely
different and her techniques might not have been effective (Vial, Napier and Brescoll 2016).
Conclusion
In the end, it needs to be reiterated that Carolyn McCall carried the flag of female
leadership with pride and integrity. She was undoubtedly an exemplary leader leading from the
front to elevate her company as well as the aviation industry of British. In the report, the humble
beginnings of her career at EasyJet, the company’s overview, its position before and after her
arrival – all have been elaborated systematically. In addition, the report tried to produce a
comparison between leadership and management styles and associate those to McCall’s style.

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Carolyn McCall belonged to an entirely different industry – the media industry – before entering
the aviation industry. She however turned that disadvantage into advantage by employing the
skills learnt in the media industry into the aviation industry. Her motive was to think from the
perspective of a customer and apply strategies accordingly which worked brilliantly. The report
also highlights different leadership theories and models to describe McCall’s tenure at EasyJet
and reasons for her success. It has been mentioned that she demonstrated skills and qualities
inherent to the Contingency and Transformational theories of leadership. In case of managerial
skills, the report revealed close affinity of her style to that of Fayol’s administrative management
theory and Mayo’s behavioral theory. In conclusion, it can be stated that the purpose was
achieved to answer all the queries desired.

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References:
BBC.com 2018. EasyJet's Carolyn McCall heads to ITV. [online] BBC News. Available at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40628869 [Accessed 31 Jan. 2018].
Brescoll, V.L., 2016. Leading with their hearts? How gender stereotypes of emotion lead to
biased evaluations of female leaders. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), pp.415-428.
Corporate.easyjet.com (2018). Archive. [online] Corporate.easyjet.com. Available at:
http://corporate.easyjet.com/investors/reports-and-presentations/archive [Accessed 31 Jan. 2018].
Edward, R., 2017. An Elaboration of the Administrative Theory of the 14 Principles of
Management by Henri Fayol.
Eichorn, F.L., 2017. Internal customer relationship management (IntCRM) a framework for
achieving customer relationship management from the inside out. Management (open-access), 2,
p.1.
Ft.com 2018. Carolyn McCall wins over critics in 7 years at easyJet. [online] Ft.com. Available
at: https://www.ft.com/content/985b8a82-6b05-11e7-bfeb-33fe0c5b7eaa [Accessed 31 Jan.
2018].
Greer, C.R., Lusch, R.F. and Vargo, S.L., 2016. A service perspective. Organizational
Dynamics, 1(45), pp.28-38.
Hbr.org 2018. Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?. [online] Harvard Business Review.
Available at: https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-different [Accessed 31 Jan.
2018].

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Ho, S.S., Li, A.Y., Tam, K. and Zhang, F., 2015. CEO gender, ethical leadership, and accounting
conservatism. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(2), pp.351-370.
Lopez, R., 2014. The relationship between leadership and management: Instructional approaches
and its connections to organizational growth. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 6(1), p.98.
Mendoza, L.R., Orea-Amador, L. and Kendall, M.R., 2016. Mixed Method Study of the
Evolution of Leadership Traits during a Leadership Experience. In Proceedings of the 2016
ASEE Annual Conference and Exhibition.
Nytimes.com 2018. EasyJet Chief Leads Airline Through Turnaround. [online] Nytimes.com.
Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/business/international/chief-of-easyjet-leads-
airline-through-a-turnaround.html [Accessed 31 Jan. 2018].
Stahl, C., 2016. Innovation Management: A Shifting Paradigm to Innovation Management
Styles, Culture, and Strategies(Doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri--Kansas City).
Stein, L., 2016. Schools Need Leaders-Not Managers: It's Time for a Paradigm Shift. Journal of
Leadership Education, 15(2).
Tate, G. and Yang, L., 2015. Female leadership and gender equity: Evidence from plant
closure. Journal of Financial Economics, 117(1), pp.77-97.
Vial, A.C., Napier, J.L. and Brescoll, V.L., 2016. A bed of thorns: Female leaders and the self-
reinforcing cycle of illegitimacy. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), pp.400-414.