Transformational Leadership at EasyJet

This assignment examines the influence of dual-focused transformational leadership on EasyJet, a leading low-cost airline. It requires students to analyze scholarly articles and case studies highlighting the company's leadership style and its effects on organizational behavior and performance. The analysis should delve into specific leadership behaviors, follower responses, and the moderating role of factors like autonomy and power balance.

Running head: LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Name of the student
Name of the University
Authors Note

1LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary
The report throws light on the importance of leadership management. Efficient
leadership within an organization is the key element for the growth and success of an
organization. The leadership strategy implied by Carolyn McCall has improved the working
condition of EasyJet, the airline company and increased the efficiency of the organization. The
report elaborates on the management and leadership style of Carolyn McCall. Through her
transformational leadership style, McCall has transformed the corporate culture of easyJet from
that of Chaos to normality. Furthermore, Carolyn McCall has established herself as one of the
most effective and popular CEO. She proved herself right as a leader by bringing the desired
change and emerged as a role model. During the times ahead, the airline company would attain
more success under her leadership management.

2LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Discussion and Analysis:...............................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
Transformational Leadership.....................................................................................................5
Evaluation..................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................8
References:...................................................................................................................................9

3LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Introduction
In the current scenario, there is huge demand for efficient leader and mangers that are
capable of handling both external and internal changes that occurs within an organization. Easy
Jet is the British airlines operating in domestic and international services in various countries
with more than 700 routes (Easyjet.com 2018). It is the popular and famous for facilitating very
affordable flights to their customers at very reasonable rates. The company mission is to make
the rate of its flights to be as cheap as a pair of jeans (Clark 2015). The company’s net income
was projected to be $548 million in the year 2015. The Chief executive officer of easyJet is
Carolyn McCall and ever since joining the organization, she has improved the organizations at
each level very successfully. Culture and leadership have vital effect on the business outcome.
It can significantly lead to both success and failure of the organization. EasyJet’s efficient
leadership management helped in increasing employee performance and motivation in the work
culture.
The report will elaborates on the transformational leadership approach of McCall through
empowerment and clear vision. According to Medland (2017), proper decentralization of making
decisions besides delegations leads to the success of management handling. Carolyn McCall is
among one of the most powerful and admired female CEO in Britain. Her transformational
leadership style management created a vision to guide the effective change through inspiration.
As per Efficient leadership style is vital for employee’s commitment and job satisfaction.
Managing the change leads to creating a vision, efficiently communicating a plan as well as
evaluating results. She proved to be a role model by inspiring, motivating and enhancing the job
performance of the employees besides her followers. Choosing the correct leadership approach
helps the leader to implement leadership theories that successfully changes the management
within the organization.
Discussion and Analysis:
Literature Review
According to Golding (2016), the vital area toward effective leadership includes skills,
competencies, behavior and values possessed by an individual. It is the ability to understand
oneself by behaving as per self-beliefs and values. A person with a sense of commitment and
purpose is the foundation component required for being an effective leader. Leadership is

4LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
understood as a dynamic activity, which affects both organizational and social change. As
suggested by McCleskey (2014), leaders change and create cultures within an organization.
Leadership is all about creating change in the organization.
Dame Carolyn McCall being the CEO of easyJet that is the low-cost airline does not
have an office of her own in the large building of Hangar. McCall life as easyJet CEO was not at
all smooth and easy. Starting her career as a research planner at The Guardian and later on
became the CEO of Guardian Newspaper. In July 2010 Carolyn McCall started her career in
easyJet as an outsider with no experience in aviation industry (Staff, 2016). Michael O’Leary,
the head of rival airline industry also called her as ‘media luvvie’ and claimed that easyJet
industry should await it failure. But McCall proved each of her critics wrong by emerging as a
leader and transformed the outlook of the airline company. Her six and half years in the easyJet
as the CEO have increased the profit of the airlines industry.
According to Burn-Callander (2018), besides being a CEO Carolyn McCall proved to be
a leader as well as the manager of the company by focusing on customers and boosting the
morale of the employees. Her approach is hands-on and includes lot of travel. She spends most
of her time with subordinates and customers. As communicating directly with the customers
provides the information more easily that is to be needed to change within the company. The
transformational leadership style of McCall changed her subordinates in the organization in a
significant way. This approach leads to win the overall confidence and trust of the followers for
the leaders. This improves the output of the employees work and performing jib activities to
achieve the goals within an organization in a more efficient way the main characteristics of
Carolyn McCall was to increase the confidence of the employee’s and raising their awareness
so that the employees performance can be enhanced. This also helped in achieving their
personal development and outgrowth. The quality of transformational leader includes the
courage to take bold steps, ability to trust others, clear vision, ability to trust others and value
driven characteristics.
In order to improve the external and internal functionality in the organization that needs
changes as per the demand of time (Espedal 2017). Any firm that does not adopt changes is
unable to survive in the long run in the business. This change is only possible, if the leader
present in the organization is able to change the working techniques of individuals working in
the environment and having common goals and objectives. McCall bought the change process
in the organization and that proved to be very challenging and significant for easyJet. Carolyn is

5LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
set on acquiring air-operating certificate in Europe that would facilitate the airlines to fly
smoothly within Europe without any restrictions and regardless of the outcome.
According to Smith (2018), gender diversity is promoted within the organization to
encourage women employees. Major emphasis is led on the support and internal development
of the organization to develop a pipeline for females in the management. Leading the
organization in such a variable environment involves lot of uncertainties. McCall firmly believes
that women holding leadership position is significant to inspire other female leaders. Known for
her warm and down-to-earth personality, she supported other women and embraced femininity
in business.
The leadership approach of Carolyn McCall involves focusing on its customers and
providing them maximum satisfaction. According to Lawrence (2015), the ability to bring
customers inside the boardroom is considered to be one of the top leadership skills in the recent
times. The company needs to clearly understand the needs of the customers and work in
delivering better brand promises. Employee intelligence is also significant for leadership. It is
beneficial for a leader to relate with other people and maintain harmonious relationship with the
customers. As per Dong et al. (2017) McCall gets close to both customer and staff. To engage
with the customers and get acquainted with their know-how, she would visit cockpit to know the
activities of the pilots. Moreover, picks rubbish from customers on board just to have chat with
customers and know the functioning of the company.
Transformational Leadership
According to Schmitt, Den Hartog and Belschak (2016), transformational leaders
consider the important aspects related to human relation besides technological changes.
Carolyn McCall communicated her vision through exercising skills and showed her role as a
path finder for the world. This is the process of leader engagement with their subordinates so
that a connection is created with the subordinates. This helps in creating connection and
promoting motivation, ethics and inspiration in both subordinates and the leader. Boehm et al.
(2015) believed transformational leadership as the reflection for actions and qualities that is
essential for implementing change process. . As per the author’s transformational leaders have
better skills in terms of creating visions and capabilities of for impression management. These
skills of the leaders help in creating strong bonds with their subordinates to guides and assist
them in achieving their goals by advancing in their performance.

6LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
On the other hand, as per Qu, Janssen and Shi (2015) the leader’s role is very limited in
managing and controlling factors like technological, political and social changes.
Transformational leadership is completely based on the impact of the leader on its subordinates
as well as the behavior that is performed by the leader to achieve their goal. The vital elements
include intellectual stimulation, idealized or charismatic influence, individualized consideration
and inspirational motivation are the main pillars of transformational leadership. Change,
innovation and transformation programs are increasingly becoming important to gain
competitive advantage (Engelen et al. 2015). McCall developed change in the organization
through her innovative style of managing and leading the airline company.
Moreover, transformational leader like Carolyn McCall supports their subordinates and
executives to manage and take control of the management to allow strategic change that is to
be carried in the organization. McCall initiated a vision to be people focused in her management
style and this helped in enabling the change required in the management style. According to
Breevaart et al. (2014), leaders need to be more communicative to affect the employee’s
performance. The employees adopting the new procedures and policies is rewarded, this further
helps the other employees in motivating to follow them and overcoming the barriers and
objections to change. Efficient leaders recognize that to achieve long-term success it is
important to prepare the employees for change (Lawrence 2015). Assessing the needs of the
people and responding to actions helps in implementing the required reforms to ensure a long-
term tenure for the leaders and increasing the company’s continuing growth and profitability.
Evaluation
The essential Skills possessed by Carolyn McCall that proved her as a true leader and
manager of easyJet were to lay more importance to the customers by bringing them inside the
boardroom. According to Golding (2016), a true leader listens with humility to their employees
and customer and act with courage. They take risks and never bet the company and build their
team around them. McCall urged the top business executives to use the social media power,
where consumers can easily rate the services and products of the company online through. It is
important to gain the trust and faith of the customers. Approaches like ‘thank you’, ‘sorry, we
have made a mistake’ through Twitter and Facebook. But according to Medland (2017) the
leaders needed to be more flexible and not floppy. As the successful leaders requires knowing
when to be pragmatic and resolute. Surrounding with people having great people is important
rather than having dominant personality. Building a sense of credibility and trust is the key
aspects for leaders operating in this competitive environment (Engelen et al. 2015).

7LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
To be a top business executive in the industry, McCall believes it is important to have
both resilience and energy. Both of these features have helped her in achieving top slot in the
business industry. Earlier there used to be huge widespread cynicism about her role and ability
to lead the airline industry as she never worked for any travel industry. Moreover, McCall faced
various difficult altercations that also included her pay package. But later on the game changed,
when the profits of easy jet began to sky rocket and gained appreciation. The world witnessed
the transformational leadership style of McCall as her people focused approach turned out to be
the biggest commercial broadcaster of Britain’s.
As per Burn-Callander (2018), McCall had made a remarkable mark by turning easyJet,
the company from chaos to one with steadily raised profit in the fiercely competitive airline
industry of Europe. The effort made as a leader has expanded the market of easyJet beyond
tourism into a major lucrative business travel industry in the European market. Though majority
of airlines has consistently lost majority of their finances during the onset of financial crisis in
2008 but easyJet had reported an annual profit of in the last few years. The net income of the
company during the financial year has increased to 450 million pounds. Moreover, the recent
decline in the prices of oil also led to a stiffer competition in the airline industry from its rival
company Ryanair. Recently easyJet has turned out to be a dominant carrier at major airports
like Geneva, London Gatwick and Berlin Schonfield.
The key to success of easyJet in the recent years is that McCall has been able to pull
the increasing number of higher business traveler into the airlines passenger mix. As per the
authors, Boehm et al. (2015), Carolyn has perfectly recognized the biggest market opportunity
and its cost base. McCall was able to improve the revenue quality and making it appealing to
the business passengers. This further resulted in increasing the profitability of easyJet as better
network leads to better frequency as a virtuous circle. In the year 2010, the airline company,
easyJet, was completely in turmoil. The company was struggling to build a reputation among
their customers as most of the company’s flight was late and the services provided to the
customers were too poor.
According to Clark (2015), McCall viewed the airline industry, easyJet from the
customers or passenger perspectives. As per the author, she made a habit of speaking daily
with the pilots and assisting the cabin crew member while flying, usually various times. The
passengers on flight are used to seeing the CEO of the airlines making her way in the aisle to
gather trash. McCall set to work initially on addressing all the crew scheduling issues and

8LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
operational activities of the members, which was the main source of punctuality problems of
easyJet. On time-performance is very co-related with the satisfaction level of customers. Among
the change introduced by McCall flexible ticket options and online seat selection appealed the
tourists mostly all the business travellers. The outcome was striking as the performance rate of
easyJet increased to a great extent narrowing the competitive gap with its rival Ryanair. The
passenger numbers has considerably increased to millions, which included mostly business
traveller. The main focus of McCall recently is to expand its business in the European market.
The fleet of company’s Airbus A320s has increased to more than 300 by the end of the decade
with a high purchase option (Easyjet.com 2018).
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that efficient leaders develops management styles that helps the
employees to generate quality services and products in a cost-efficient way. By developing a
well-defined mission statement allows the leader to set an effective strategy of the organization.
Carolyn McCall set all the activities in the organization that aligned with the strategic goals of
the company. She prepared people to work differently and would further motivate the
employees to modify their behavior. Carolyn McCall managed change in easyJet expertly
through her leadership style and earned profit and retained competitive edge in the
organization.
Transformational leadership style of McCall established confidence and trust in his
followers to adopt new policies and plan. Therefore, it can rightly be said that McCall would be
the right person for easyJet even in future because of her leadership and management style.
The innovative approach of McCall proved helpful to foster growth of culture within the
organization. Moreover, proper vision of being customer focused also proved effective for the
sustainability and development of the airlines industry. The effort made by her to bring change
in the organization leads to betterment of EasyJet Company. Change leader is therefore related
with planned change and deals with emotions of the people.

9LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
References:
Boehm, S.A., Dwertmann, D.J., Bruch, H. and Shamir, B., 2015. The missing link? Investigating
organizational identity strength and transformational leadership climate as mechanisms that
connect CEO charisma with firm performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), pp.156-171.
Breevaart, K., Bakker, A., Hetland, J., Demerouti, E., Olsen, O.K. and Espevik, R., 2014. Daily
transactional and transformational leadership and daily employee engagement. Journal of
occupational and organizational psychology, 87(1), pp.138-157.
Burn-Callander, R. (2018). EasyJet's Carolyn McCall 'most admired leader' in Britain. [online]
Telegraph.co.uk. Available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/ezj/12027513/EasyJets-Carolyn-McCall-
most-admired-leader-in-Britain.html [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].
Clark, N. 2015. 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 6 Feb. 2018].
Dong, Y., Bartol, K.M., Zhang, Z.X. and Li, C., 2017. Enhancing employee creativity via
individual skill development and team knowledge sharing: Influences of dual‐focused
transformational leadership. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(3), pp.439-458.
Easyjet.com 2018. Home | easyJet.com. [online] Easyjet.com. Available at:
https://www.easyjet.com/en [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].
Engelen, A., Gupta, V., Strenger, L. and Brettel, M., 2015. Entrepreneurial orientation, firm
performance, and the moderating role of transformational leadership behaviors. Journal of
Management, 41(4), pp.1069-1097.
Espedal, B., 2017. Understanding how balancing autonomy and power might occur in leading
organizational change. European Management Journal, 35(2), pp.155-163.
Golding, I. 2016. Carolyn McCall, CEO, Easyjet – An Example of a Courageous Customer
Focused Leader - I J Golding. [online] I J Golding. Available at:
https://ijgolding.com/2016/07/19/carolyn-mccall-ceo-easyjet-example-courageous-customer-
focused-leader/ [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].

10LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT
Lawrence, P., 2015. Leading change–Insights into how leaders actually approach the challenge
of complexity. Journal of Change Management, 15(3), pp.231-252.
McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), p.117.
Medland, D. 2017. easyJet CEO Dame Carolyn McCall on transformative leadership. [online]
Managers.org.uk. Available at: http://www.managers.org.uk/insights/news/2017/april/easyjet-
ceo-dame-carolyn-mccall-on-transformative-leadership [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].
Qu, R., Janssen, O. and Shi, K., 2015. Transformational leadership and follower creativity: The
mediating role of follower relational identification and the moderating role of leader creativity
expectations. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), pp.286-299.
Schmitt, A., Den Hartog, D.N. and Belschak, F.D., 2016. Transformational leadership and
proactive work behaviour: A moderated mediation model including work engagement and job
strain. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 89(3), pp.588-610.
Smith, R. 2018. What easyJet's UK boss learned from Carolyn McCall about leadership. [online]
Managementtoday.co.uk. Available at: https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/easyjets-uk-boss-
learned-carolyn-mccall-leadership/article/1392166 [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].
Staff, M. 2016. Carolyn McCall is Britain's Most Admired Leader for the second year. [online]
Managementtoday.co.uk. Available at: https://www.managementtoday.co.uk/carolyn-mccall-
britains-admired-leader-second-year/article/1416721 [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].