MBA Assignment: Reflection on Leadership in Airline Hiring Process

This MBA assignment is a reflective essay analyzing a team's decision-making process during the hiring of a station manager in an airline simulation. The student, as part of a five-member team, discusses their contributions and the rationale behind selecting a candidate from internal recruitment. The essay details the team's evaluation of four candidates, including a minority female cabin attendant, an internal employee with two years of experience, the son of a local business owner, and a middle-aged white male with five years of experience as an assistant station manager. The student reflects on the team's democratic leadership style, the benefits of internal recruitment, and the trade-offs between diversity and experience, ultimately choosing the experienced candidate. The essay also explores the implications of the chosen hiring strategy, referencing relevant theories and concluding with a summary of the key decisions and their impact on the airline's operations. The assignment emphasizes the importance of cost-effective strategies, employee retention, and the systematic approach to the hiring process.

Running head: MBA ASSIGNMENT: REFLECTION
MBA Assignment: Reflection
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

1MBA ASSIGNMENT: REFLECTION
Table of Contents
Reflective Essay...............................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
The hiring decision..........................................................................................................................2
Theory implication and Reflections.................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Reference List..................................................................................................................................8

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Reflective Essay
Introduction
This essay deals with the decision-making process of hiring in the airline simulation. Our
team consists of 5 members and our net profit of the business stood second highest among the
competitors. In addition, we acquired highest cumulative net profit in quarter 2. In the third
quarter, we have decided to take the selection of Station Manager. In this essay, I am going to
cover my contribution in team when my team took the decision of hiring. This essay will explain
the decisions which we made in selection critically and reflect my personal behaviour in decision
of hiring process.
The hiring decision
The team was asked to select a station manager for the airline industry. Commercial
airlines trust on employees who work in the ground station at each of the airports. These people
oversee the ground operations. Airline ground operation is all about passenger ticketing,
baggage, check-in, cargo service, boarding, deboarding and aircraft servicing. We aimed at to
select someone who has experience in the post of station manager in the airline industry. The
candidate has to work for 9 hours a day and he/she will get week off. In every stage, our team
member decided the steps that we would be following. Each of the team members' decision was
kept in a file. Two of my team members told that we should take an employee who already
experiences in the similar field with good academic back ground. One of the team members
provided preferences for young male candidate. Then, I put my opinion that as it was the third
quarter of business, the organisation needed low-cost strategy and it would be an easy task we if

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we could hire a candidate in internal hiring process. As stated by, internal recruitment is hiring
an employee within the company. As this internal recruitment process must alienate he biases in
hiring. All our members have the training in educating ourselves in the hiring process with
recognizing the organisation's needs. The first step we followed was to check the candidates'
applications. In the following step, we followed application tracking system through an online
application. Application tracking system helps an organisation to control entire recruiting process
easily (Zhang et al. 2014). Interview process was not easy as we needed to plan a screening
interview and that would be face-to-face. In the first stage, candidates must face two interviewers
as Personal Interview and in the second round; selected interviewees would get a chance to
participate in group discussion. As this is internal recruitment strategy, we decided to take the
application within the organisation with low competitive strategy.
We got several applications from employees who were within the organisation.
Option 1:
We had an application from a middle aged minority female who was previously a cabin attendant
for an airline that went bankrupt.
1- Why: This candidate could be a good choice as an organisation needs diverse workforce and
she was from minority sector. Diversity is simple that an organisation must comprise with
variety of ethnic class, gender, age, group and cognitive style (Cadden et al. 2013). Our team
researched that most of the organisation focus on diversifying workforce that makes an
organisation educated from a various background with intrinsic motivation.
2- Why not: We could not choose as we needed an employee with experience. Customer
experience in the airport is important and interacting with experienced employees gives better

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customer experience (Anitha and Begum 2016). We did not choose her as we may diversify our
organisation later as multi ethnic background can boost the financial performance.
3- Decision: Our team did not choose her for her experience.
4- Result: The result was that the organisation may lack a diversity organisation, however, in
short-term, this organisation needed profitability and experience employee.
Option 2:
Another application came from a lady who has been working for the airline for two years.
1- Why: Our team could select her as she had been in the airline sector with two years of
experiences. HR management of an airport should be strong and HR must retain talent. The
airport HR needs the talent to be fierce and this lady has good performance evaluation
throughout. Experience employees can inspire complex project and transform the workplace as
the organisation desires (Rice 2015).
2- Why not: We did not select her as she did not have experience in the mentioned field as
station manager in the airports. In relation to this, we may relocate her in future and that may
create another issue. A good talent management can improve the employees’ competitiveness
(Sleeter et al. 2014). Airport may make a contract with the female employee and would mention
that about relocation.
3- Decision: Our team did not select her as the relocation and experience in the same field
became an issue.
4- Result: The airport organisation may lack the diversify organisation as if a lady would have
been a part of the organisation, diversity would increase.

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Option 3:
The son of the owner of the largest employer in town who has associated degree with aviation
industry applied.
1- Why: Our team could choose him as he had degree with academic qualification. As stated by
Harvey and Allard (2015), Younger and hungrier – and a lot cheaper. Betting on potential has
become one of McKinsey's defining characteristics. The idea was simple: It was easier to mould
a young mind than to change an older one.
2- Why not: We did not choose him as it might bring corruption in the system and he had not
sufficient knowledge in the field and lack of experiences. Our team do not emphasise on
favouritism and do not treat unequally with employees. We decided to hire an employee from
internal recruitment policy. Internal recruitment policy selects an employee who already knows
his/her capabilities and has knowledge (Rice 2015).
3- Decision: We did not select him as we wanted to select someone within the organisation with
experience.
4- Result: The airline industry may face a challenge as this candidate is fresher and has
academic knowledge. Fresh brain and young resources are needed.
Option 4:
We had another application from the middle-aged white male as had been working as an
assistant station manager in an airport for five years.

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1- Why: This male candidate is white male and has experience of five years in the same field. As
stated by Blount et al. (2016), experienced employees can provide a better result and could
manage work efficiently. As he was from the same company and experienced workers had the
knowledge, employees have punctuality, honesty and dedicated at the same time. According to
Marlow and Dabbish (2013), the employees are who are experienced, can be detail-oriented,
attentive and focused. The candidate with five years of experience would be the best for the
organisation.
2- Why not: However, one of my team members asked to recruit the people from different
ethnic group to make the workforce diverse workforce. Middle aged employees sometimes may
lack the motivation in working and this can result in the ground-level employees (Deci and Ryan
2014). The organisational goal cannot be achieved through this.
3- Decision: This man was perfect for the post as he had experiences and in the similar field, we
wanted. Our team decided to choose him as a station manager for the airline.
4- Result: Station manager has to face customers and customer interaction is necessary. Good
performance of the employees was another criterion for the employees to choose. This may bring
the airline good customer service facility.
Theory implication and Reflections
As stated by Ash et al. (2013), internal recruitment policy increases over time as it is cost
effective, it is easier to assess, boost workplace morale and it makes balance to the workplace.
One of my team members argued that internal recruitment does not pay the high salary to the
candidates as it is taken as ‘designation change'. However, I think that internal recruitment brings
motivation within the employees and the organisation may take it as an employee retention

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strategy. The employees would be bestowed with higher responsibilities and it may boost the
morality and that provides both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. On the other hand, external
recruitment brings fresh talent within the organisation; one team member explained that in bulk
hiring, external recruitment is better.
About internal recruitment process, our team thought that the white male with five years
experiences would be best-suited candidates. He would be from internal recruitment policy,
highly experienced, high external and intrinsic motivation would work within him. Taking an
employee within an organisation would be helpful as it does not expense much money as the
employee is within the company and it does not include professional loyalty (Hbr.org 2017).
Conclusion
In case of working as a team for taking the hiring decision, we followed democratic leadership
style and shared everyone's decisions. However, my decision with internal recruitment policy
worked as I showed benefits of internal recruitment with examples in the airline's industry. As
organisation in this situation needs more about strategic implementation of cost-effective
strategy so that we could not provide the organisation with diversify workforce. Recruiting an
employee within the company with experiences may bring the good relationship with
subordinates. Internal recruitment does not advertisements expenses and promotion of the
employee would do the work. We gave the notice of the vacant post and select through the
systematic process. Our team do not believe in favouritism.

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Reference List
Anitha, J. and Begum, F.N., 2016. Role of organisational culture and employee commitment in
employee retention. ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1), p.17.
Ash, R., Hodge, P. and Connell, P., 2013. The recruitment and selection of principals who
increase student learning. Education, 134(1), pp.94-100.
Blount, J., Wright, C.S., Hall, A.A. and Biss, J.L., 2016. Social Media: Creating Student
Awareness of Its Use in the Hiring Process. Southern Journal of Business and Ethics, 8, p.202.
Cadden, T., Marshall, D. and Cao, G., 2013. Opposites attract organisational culture and supply
chain performance. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 18(1), pp.86-103
Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M., 2014. The importance of universal psychological needs for
understanding motivation in the workplace. The Oxford handbook of work engagement,
motivation, and self-determination theory, pp.13-32.
Harvard Business Review. 2017. 7 Practical Ways to Reduce Bias in Your Hiring Process.
Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/06/7-practical-ways-to-reduce-bias-in-your-hiring-process
[Accessed on 3 Sep. 2017].
Harvey, C.P. and Allard, M., 2015. Understanding and managing diversity: Readings, cases, and
exercises. Sydney: Pearson.
Marlow, J. and Dabbish, L., 2013, February. Activity traces and signals in software developer
recruitment and hiring. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported
cooperative work. 39(20), pp.145-156

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Rice, M.F., 2015. Diversity and public administration. London: ME Sharpe.
Sleeter, C.E., La Vonne, I.N. and Kumashiro, K.K. eds., 2014. Diversifying the teacher
workforce: Preparing and retaining highly effective teachers. Abingdon: Routledge.
Zhang, X.Q., Liu, X. and Sun, J., 2014. Research on innovative talent recruitment based on
organizational commitment theory. BioTechnology: An Indian Journal, 10(9), pp.34-38