Leadership Development and Strategies: Emirates Airlines Case Study

This case study examines the leadership of Maurice Flanagan at Emirates Airlines, focusing on his transformational leadership style and significant achievements in shaping the airline's success. The assignment delves into the objectives of developing a training course for Emirates, emphasizing the importance of interpersonal and communication skills for staff. It highlights Flanagan's role as a champion of innovation and his strategic decisions, such as adopting lean management and super-sized Airbus jets. The case study further explores the characteristics of Flanagan's leadership, lessons staff can learn from him, and various strategies for staff development, including high-performance working culture, strategic human resource management, continuous professional development, and self-evaluation practices. The analysis emphasizes the importance of risk-taking, ethical conduct, and collaboration within the organization. The assignment is a valuable resource for understanding leadership principles and their practical application within the aviation industry.

ORIGINAL CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................................................3
Objectives of the Course.............................................................................................................3
Maurice Flanagan’s achievements at Emirates...........................................................................3
Reasons on considering Maurice Flanagan’s as good leader .....................................................3
Type of Leadership ....................................................................................................................4
Characteristics and behaviours of Maurice Flanagan ................................................................4
Lessons staff can learn................................................................................................................4
Different processes and strategies for development of Emirates staff .......................................4
Approaches and practices by Emirates staff ..............................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Leadership and personal development skills are key aspects in achieving success and
personal growth at the organizational context. An individual with combination of inter-personal
skills and leadership quality gets exclusive profitability in professional career. This assignment is
based on developing a training course for Emirates Airlines to incorporate the required skills for
maintaining the quality and delivery of services.
Objectives of the Course
In this regard, the major objectives is to inculcate a sense of responsibility and awareness
when dealing on site location with clients and personnel staff as well. Their focus is to enhance
the communication skills to avoid any accident or overcome challenging issues with effective
decision making. There is a need to develop the interpersonal skills such as time management,
conflict-resolving skills, quick decision maker, collaboration etc.
Maurice Flanagan’s achievements at Emirates
He is considered as the vocal champion of innovation who shaped the entire future of
Emirates. It is his consistent efforts that brought this company as the cross-roads of the world. He
was the driving force of many ideas that led to revolutionary success in the airline services of
Emirates. His static efforts in exploiting the corporate taxes and the ability to keep fixed costs
below the nominal charges as compared to the rival competitors.
Reasons on considering Maurice Flanagan’s as good leader
Maurice Flanagan's achievements are clear indicative towards the robust approaches that
he took when their company's competitors were flourishing. He was a risk taker. Pinnington and
et.al., (2018) stated that Emirates offered top-notch services in terms of hospitality, technologies
and cabin facilities for longer distance travelling. There was provision of personal video screens
for all classes. Such remarkable innovation led to escalated success of this company under his
efficient leadership. Additionally, his other decisions such as super-sized Airbus jets, adopting
lean management structure etc. turned out as the best strategies which led to transformational
changes in this sector. His risk-taking abilities with proficient calculative moves made him a
good leader.

Type of Leadership
Maurice Flanagan is considered as the transformational type of leader. Shannon, 2018
elucidated on his participative leadership brought excellent profitability and productivity as well
during his 35 years of career span at Emirates. He created valuable integrated systems through
using motivation, influential ability, intellectual quotient and individual considerations. These
components assisted him to foster his relationships with the workforce and successfully inspired
them to take the leaps efficiently.
Characteristics and behaviours of Maurice Flanagan
According to Matthew, (2015) there are many characteristics traits of Maurice that made
him a successful leader all around the world. He believed in his decisions and was confident to
take up any challenging situations. His passion and dedication led to influence his colleagues
and employees to work hard in collaborative manner. His mentoring skills supported this
airline's growth and overall progression in leaps and bounds. He was the visionary who directed,
guided, designed and evaluated the ongoing operational activities at Emirates in profound
manner. He was a team player and considered as loyal and trustworthy. For e.g. during crisis, he
stood by his company and brought back from that obstacle in effective ways.
Lessons staff can learn
There are many lessons that can be learn from him. His staff should understand the risk-
taking abilities. They must analyse the circumstances and mould it with their hard work,
dedication and passion. Along with this, his quick thinking process must be developed by the
staff to overcome any difficulties. They must be loyal and must always follow the ethical code of
conduct. Nevertheless, the staff must work in collaboration to establish team spirit and gain trust
of each member of their team they are working with.
Different processes and strategies for development of Emirates staff
There are many processes and strategies that can be undertaken to develop staffs'
personal leadership competencies, characteristics and behaviours. In this regard, the staff must
try to develop their situational awareness to comprehend the difficulties and challenges in
proficient manner. Along with, they must focus on implementing strategic planning through
several parameters such as empowering through gaining knowledge and understanding the tasks

or projects through delegation; resolving the conflicts by addressing the issues with
communication and interactive frameworks and more.
Furthermore, there are mainly four types of leadership styles which must be adopted to
enhance the leadership skills by the Emirates staff. Here all the types can be practised in order to
acquire insights for proper processing of available resources. There is also need of facilitating the
learning concept with the help of understanding the basic information of this sector to sustain the
competition. Moreover, there is an accountability factor that assist in the development of
competencies and characteristics to work in a professional setup. One must be able to ensure the
designing and executing of plans where ethical standards are strictly followed to bring radical
development.
Approaches and practices by Emirates staff
Dikes, (2018) stated that Emirates staff can adopt practices and approaches to become
good role models for proper development of one's competencies in evaluating the personal
effectiveness. This would be beneficial in creating an effective culture at this company's
workplace. The following are to be used in establishing a framework for the staff:
High performance working culture (HPWC): This is one of the important approaches for
demonstrating the needs and requirements of the staff with the help of effective employees'
engagement. It is done through applying tools and techniques like promotion, rewards, appraisals
etc.
Strategic Human resource Management (SHRM): This assist in using technologies, tools and
methodologies for maintaining the performance management of the staff. Their focus is to make
them aware about the latest updates and principles to improve the competencies.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD): It is one of the practices to understand the
professional development on a consistent and cyclic manner to maintain the competencies and
behaviours that affect the environment in direct order.
Self-evaluation practices: This is useful in laying the foundation of knowing the strengths and
weaknesses about the staff in transparent manner and by taking feedbacks, surveys or one to one
interaction would help in overall assessment.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dikes, J., 2018. Ask Historians directed by Cordis_Melum, Casefile True Crime produced by
Mike Migas, Cults produced by Max Cutler and Ron Cutler, Last Podcast on the Left
directed by Marcus Parks, Liar City produced by Brian Flanagan, Transmissions from
Jonestown directed by Shannon Howard.
Pinnington, A.H. and et.al., 2018. Macro talent management in the United Arab Emirates:
Developing more informative government perspectives. In Macro Talent Management in
Emerging and Emergent Markets (pp. 167-190). Routledge.
Shannon, M.R., 2018. The Transformational Effect of Trigger Events and Leadership Crucibles
in the Lives of Authentic Leaders Development (Doctoral dissertation, Regent
University).
Online
Matthew, F., 2015. Obituary: Sir Maurice Flanagan — A vocal champion of innovation.
[Online]. Accessed through:<https://gulfnews.com/business/aviation/obituary-sir-
maurice-flanagan—a-vocal-champion-of-innovation-1.1508060>.