Evaluation of the Leadership and Management Style

Evaluation of the
leadership and
management style of
Michael O’Leary

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Is O’Leary a manager or a leader or both? Set out your rationale underpinning your answer.. .3
The characteristics and skills that have helped him drive the company forward...................4
What could be the consequences of taking his style too far?.................................................7
Will O’Leary be the right person for Ryanair during the times ahead, or does the company
now require more of a ‘manager’ than a ‘leader’? ................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is the ability within individual or group for influencing as well as providing
guidance to followers and other staff members of an business firm. Whereas, management is the
practices related to managing each and every activity within organisation (Harrison, 2018).
Although purpose behind management is to accomplish goals and objectives within effective
manner by continuing activities like planning, organising, leading and controlling. This report is
based on individual named as Michael O'Leary who is chief executive officer of Ryanair. It is
low cost airline company founded in 1984 and its headquarter is in Dublin Airport, Ireland.
Respective report will going to discuss that leadership as well as management style of Michael
O'Leary which he implement in their day to day working.
MAIN BODY
Is O’Leary a manager or a leader or both? Set out your rationale underpinning your answer.
Great man theory and trait theories explain that people inherit specific qualities as well as
traits which make them better suited to leadership. Although, there are several inborn
characteristics within individual which help them in becoming leaders (Are Leaders Born or
Made? A True Story, 2019). In other words it can be said that, by teaching skills and knowledge
cannot be build in individual but inbuilt knowledge don't require any type of classes to learn
anything again. Thus, Michael O'Leary is born leader and he believe in autocratic leadership
style which believe that leader will give rules and regulation and rest of the staff member have to
follow that. In such type of leadership style, leader world for the welfare of organisation only not
for the staff member working with them (Whitehead And et. al., 2019).
Michael O'Leary is an Irish businessman as well as the chief executive officer of Ryanair.
He is born in 1961 on 20th march and one of the wealthiest businessman within Ireland's. He is
leader by birth because it is in the nature of respective person to control other people. Michael
O'Leary follows Autocratic leadership style while working within Ryanair which is an Irish low
cost airline industry organisation founded in 1984. its headquarter in Dublin Airport, Ireland as
well as slogan of the respective organisation is Low fares, made simple.
Under this leadership style, a leader is willing to take decisions for the betterment of an
organization on their own without receiving the feedbacks and suggestions from their existing
employees. It is also known as authoritarian leadership due to putting control over all decisions

and little input from their existing employees. Autocratic leadership involved absolute involves
absolute, authoritarian control over a group (Reddy And et. al., 2015). Using such leadership
style brings more beneficial outcome in the situations when the time available for the leader is
limited. While those who rely on this approach to heavily are often seen as bossy or dictator-like,
this level of control can have benefits and be useful in certain situations. It assist an organization
to grab competitive opportunities by taking quick decisions which brings them ahead their rivals.
On the other side, this style demoralizing the employees which can leads to high level of
absenteeism and staff turnover. In the given scenario, an individual named as Michael O'Leary
who is autocratic in nature believes on the decisions taken by himself and doesn't invest time to
get ideas and suggestions from others as it consumes more time which may put behind him from
others (Wandling And et.al., 2016).
But the leadership style using by Michael O'Leary is not suitable as Ryanair. Because all
the time it is not possible that leader always take correction decision there is requirement of other
staff member involvement also. So that, decision will be taken in effective manner along with
some fresh ideas which can improve efficiency of organisation.
The characteristics and skills that have helped him drive the company forward.
While working in an organisation, it is required for a leader to influence positively
to their subordinates. As Michael O’Leary is a enthusiastic leader who influence positively to
their co-workers by the help of his characteristics and skill. On the basis of these kind of
practices organisation can attain its target objectives and goals in effective manner. There are
some characteristic and skill of Michael O’Leary are determine below as:
Characteristics of O’Leary:
 Confidence: For an individual it is required to have a courage to be confident towards
their decision and working practices. As Michael O’Leary, is a confident personality that
reflect in the success of their venture. To become effective leader like Michael O’Leary
an individual must have enough confidence so that other follow commands.
 Optimism and positivity: Michael O’Leary have quality of viewing difficult task or
situation as opportunity to become better. To influence other leader first should have
optimist and positive attitude. This will help in motivating oneself as well as others to
deal with challenges with energy and positivity.

 Engaged: Engage is a term refer to involvement with team and employees is very
important quality of a good leader. Michael O’Leary always engaged with his team to
help team members and solve their problems. Great leaders like Michael O’Leary make
themselves available for their follower and focus to attend problems without getting
distracted (Asseng and et.al., 2015).
 Creativity: A leader must be creative and innovative in their style of leadership. Michael
O’Leary creativity quality distinguish him from other leaders. He use innovative
approach in dealing with situation and problems which make difficult things easy.
Michael O’Leary use this quality for influencing employees to complete task effectively
and efficiently
Leadership skills of Michael O'Leary
 Communication: As a leader communication skills are very important. Michael O'Leary
as a leader is able to explain clearly to his employees everything that is necessary for
achieving organisational goals. Michael O'Leary is master in all forms of communication,
including one-on-one, full-staff conversations, as well as communication via email, social
media or phone. Furthermore Michael O'Leary is an Active Listening, Expression and
clear in delivering himself.
 Motivation: Michael O'Leary as a leader motivates his workers to serve better for the
organisation. He motivates employees by: building employee's self esteem through
recognition and rewards and he also his employees new responsibilities to increase their
worth in the company.
 Positive: Michael O'Leary is a positive leader. Positivity enhances employees work
skills. Some skills that helped Michael O'Leary making positive atmosphere at work
includes: caring, conflict management, diplomacy, encouraging, friendly and is social.
 Problem solving attitude: Michael O'Leary like a good leader is skilled at problem-
solving issues that arise on the Job. Problem solving skill have helped Michael O'Leary in
making quick decision and ensuring projects are completed on time.
 Decision maker: Michael O'Leary is a leader who makes quick decisions with the
information he have. Effective decision making comes with time and experience.

Decisiveness is seen as a valuable leadership skill because it has helped Michael O'Leary
in achieving projects faster with proper efficiency (O’Leary And et.al., 2018).
Above mention characteristics as well as skills help Michael O'Leary in doing their job
within effective manner without facing much issues but due to the leadership style using by
him he had faced through several challenges. Although, after finding some issues within
business environment Michael O'Leary face some difficulties. He want to overcome with
these challenges as he want to made changes within their leadership style which is autocratic.
Because in this decisions are taken by him only there is no involvement of other employees.
Generally he rule their staff members by giving them direction to do work.
After this, Michael O'Leary started using democratic as well as Laissez-faire leadership.
Because democratic leadership style is that in which decisions are made on the basis of input
given by every team member as well as such leader believe that every staff member have equal
right on decision making in relation of any project. For instance, in an organisation board
meeting democratic leader give their team member option to make decisions as they can discuss
each and every option available within organisation. After discussion get over, leader consider
feedback of staff members and take decision on the basis of it.
 Along with this, there is another leadership style using by Michael O'Leary is
laissez-faire leadership in which authority is given by leader to staff members. Thus,
within several aspects delegation is important because it will motivate other staff
members also in doing work within effective manner. It can't be denied that leadership
stands crucial when it comes to managing operations of an organisation along with
formation of an appropriate culture. Similar is the case of Michael O'Leary who have
been able to achieve distinct position for himself and Ryanair in the struggling airline
market. O'Leary have been known to employ his Autocratic top-down approach to
leadership in his working. It can be considered as a leadership approach in which
decisions are formed by a single individual and are further communicated to the different
segment in the organisation. The people employed with the company were never heard or
listened to when it comes to working under O'Leary. It can be said that his aggressive
approach to following cost oriented airlines were beneficial for the Ryanair and have
been able to attain explosive growth in the market. But on the contrary there were some
problems which manifested in the culture of the company during that period. For

instance: to keep down the cost of operation many of the inexperienced pilots were laid
off which resulted in spreading fear and insecurity amongst the existing staff. The low
pay off employees were further worsened with cutting down of benefits which were
earlier offered to employee resulting in raising a disengaged workforce (Bajaj And
et.al., 2016).
It was essential for leadership to consider all the crucial stakeholders in the organisation
but was not fulfilled under this aggressive approach to leadership. This approach raised questions
relating to sustainability of this approach and its future in context of this organisation. All the PR
spins, straight forward approach to leadership continued till the publishing of an article in The
New York Times in the year 2013. The aggressive leader had vowed in that article to address the
criticisms which have been put forward by the parties i.e. customers and employees. This
changes in the approach to leadership is further influenced by weak state of the airline economy
in the country. The state of the market was such in 2013 that business could not afford to lose
more customers as it will directly mean letting go profits of the company. This gradual shift from
orthodox to contemporary leadership was the need of the hour and it can be said as a right
decision by the company. It is the same individual who had been taking non-sense about the
profile picture of a women and have now started to consider social media as a way to connect
with people.

What could be the consequences of taking his style too far?
O'Leary, the chief executive officer of Ryanair consist with leadership style which every
individual cannot work with. Therefore, it can easily be said that if, O'Leary style which was
autocratic where the decision taken was him only brought many negative thoughts among
individuals who were working underneath O'Leary. This is being considered as a one of a
critical style that might create heavy conflicts among employees and the follower of autocratic
leadership style. Due to some of the blogs that came out for O'Leary, it made negative thoughts
among people working with this individual. This is because, O'Leary was taking decisions by
himself and was not taking any sort of suggestions from employees and colleagues. This was the
reason behind where Ryanair started facing arrange of issues in regards to its reputation, profit
margins, productivity and loss some competitive advantages as well. So, it can easily be said
that if the leadership style which O’Leary would have taken the company to a stage where it
main start diminishing in regards to repetition in all over the world. On the other side, it can also
be said that some of the decisions which were taken by O'Leary mostly beneficial as well for
Ryanair because it has helped company in in many cases as well where company might get
forfeited. So in the present case based on our Lifestyle that O'Leary was using in Ryanair has
impacted upon his decision making as well and filled employees with the motivation. This
affected their overall performance as well while performing different range of tasks in Ryanair.
It was pretty much required for O'Leary to make alterations in the style in order to become ideal
once again for staff.
But just when all the situations got changed for O'Leary, where he was shown a negative
individual within the Ryanair among different range of blogs. Then after that he started making
modifications in his leadership style that he was following (O'Leary, 2017).
After when all has happened, O'Leary changed the whole scenario for himself where the
leadership style that he started following was the democratic and this is where he started
listening to others as well before reaching to a solution or before taking any sort of decisions for
the company. Therefore, it is being summarised that if O'Leary did not make any modifications
in his leadership style then and he cannot be taken as an individual who can sustain within a
company like Ryanair for a longer period of time. The alterations that he brought in his owned
style of leadership and behaviour has made him an influential leader.

Will O’Leary be the right person for Ryanair during the times ahead, or does the company now
require more of a ‘manager’ than a ‘leader’?
If it is talked about the past where of O'Leary, then for Ryanair, he was not the individual who
was the right person for the company. Because just when he started working with the company
coma profit margins of runners started cutting down which impacted negatively upon the
reputation as well of both company and on O'Leary as well. Therefore, with the help of analysis
it can easily be said that O’Leary was not the right individual for the company as a manager or as
a leader. In the past it was much required for the company to find a new to manager or maybe a
leader because the leadership style which was been followed by O’Leary was not that influential
in its own way because decisions were taken by O’Leary was not that influential and impacted
upon competitive advantages as well that Ryanair was already having. Change O’Leary has
already made changes in his own leadership style and behaviour against the individuals who
were working with him (Kuenzi and et.al., 2019). This impacted positively upon overall
performance level of his own and on company as well. Therefore, now it can be said that
O’Leary will be beneficial for the company if he continues with it and there will be no
requirement of a manager then a leader within Ryanair (Wang and et. al., 2017). On the other
side, in order to stay on the safe side it is required for organisation to have managers as well
because these are the individuals who manages all the work within the business organisation like
Ryanair in order to run the operations in much more effective and efficient manner.
Taking support from others is not always goes right or wrong at the same time. But taking
decisions even when there are responsible supporters can take a company like Ryanair to go
through hard times. It was needed for O’Leary to deal with all the situations considering or
taking suggestions from peers. As this would have helped organisation to gain many competitive
advantages and also it is possible that employees that were feeling demotivated would have felt
motivated at the same time.

CONCLUSION
From the above discussion it has been concluded that, within an organisation it is
important to implement leadership style for managing team as well as its working in effective
manner so that things each and every individual do work in appropriate manner. Along with this,
it has been identified that leaders are born not made because things which are found in individual
and remain till death are inbuilt not artificially provided through skills. Thus, Michael O' Leary is
leader by birth not made as well as he believe autocratic leadership style. But after facing such
issues with respective leadership style respective man implement democratic as well as Laissez-
faire leadership style in their working so organisation can easily come out with the situations in
effective manner.

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Online
Are Leaders Born or Made? A True Story, 2019.[Online].Available
through:<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141026042807-150905450-are-leaders-
born-or-made-a-true-story>