Leadership and HRM: A Case Study of Ryanair's Organizational Behavior

This report provides a critical evaluation of the impact of leadership on human resource management (HRM) and organizational behavior, using Ryanair as a case study. The introduction defines leadership and its importance in achieving organizational goals, highlighting the significance of a suitable leadership strategy. The report analyzes Ryanair's cost leadership model and how the airline's leadership style, particularly the autocratic approach of CEO Michael O'Leary, has led to conflicts, staff shortages, and a decline in market share due to poor integration of HRM practices. The evaluation examines the consequences of prioritizing cost reduction over employee satisfaction, including strikes, trade union actions, and employee dissatisfaction. The report also explores the need for a shift from autocratic to transformational leadership to improve communication, address employee concerns, and enhance organizational behavior. The conclusion emphasizes the interconnectedness of leadership styles and organizational behavior and recommends that leaders control their resistance to power distribution and allow human resources to participate equally in workplace activities to improve business performance.

Human Resource and
Organizational Behaviour

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
CRITICAL EVALUATION ...........................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
..........................................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is defined as the skill to motivate individuals and groups so that shared goals
and objectives can be achieved (Viitala, Kultalahti and Kangas, 2017). Leadership has significant
impact on the way through which business operations are executed and human resources are
managed. For this study leadership is chosen as the theme as it is very important to adopt a
suitable leadership strategy so that the team members can be inspired and long term business
objectives can be fulfilled (Leroy and et.al., 2018). The aim of this report is to evaluate the
impact of leadership on human resource management and organisational behaviour practices.
Rynair is an airline service providers which serves flight services between Ireland and UK. The
study will evaluate that how the conflicts between leadership and human resources due to high
resistance to power sharing can influence the profitability and continuity of business.
The cost leadership strategy has helped Rynair to create superior value to consumers and
at the least prices as compare to the other competitive organisations. Though the leadership
model of Rynair has made it possible for the organisation to establish its dominance over the
market but it has also encouraged several complications. The company is suffering from the
human resource shortage and conflicts as a result of its poor and ineffective integration of
leadership and HRM practices (Thomas and et.al., 2018). The HRM practices can bring huge gap
in the performance of company and thus they are game changer. Thus, this case study can serve
as the suitable example for the discussion of the chosen theme and for evaluating the impact of
leadership on retaining talented human resources.
CRITICAL EVALUATION
From the long term Rynair has been leveraging the competitive superiority from its cost
leadership model. The cost strategy followed by the organisation strictly focuses on aspects such
as staff costing, airport charges, marketing expenses and fleet commonality. Organisation has
been successfully extracting benefits from its low cost model which is very efficient in attracting
customers. However, from the past few years the performance of organisation has been
significantly affected due to dissatisfaction among its employees.
The preference to only cost leadership has lead to this conflict and controversies among
employees of Rynair. The unsatisfactory management strategies of organisation has encouraged
several numbers of pilots to join trade unions and to boycott operational activities. This resulted
in cancellation of number of flights. The strikes from pilots and other crew members of airlines
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also affected the market share value of the organisation and huge damage was caused to the
brand reputation of the company (Keema, 2017). The strike and dissatisfied human resources has
acted as game changer for the organisation and provided competitive advantage to other
companies.
One of the key reason for such conflicts among the management and staff members of the
airline service company is that in order to improve the cost leadership Rynair is paying emphasis
to only price reduction (Chuang, Jackson and Jiang, 2016). For this purpose holidays roaster and
several other pay benefits of the staff members have been neglected by the organisation.
(Source: Powley, 2017)
The leaders are not being concerned about the difficulties and issues faced by the human
resources of the organisation (Singh and Srivastava, 2016). It can be considered that the Ryanair
leader has lower resistance to shift power to its human resources. In order to centralise the
leadership and power authority organisation is not willing to consider the demands of staff
members into considerations. The issue has not only influenced the operational continuity but
also resulted in staff shortage, increase number of flight cancellations, reduction in number of
passengers and declining market share value (Garavan and et.al., 2016).
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(Source: Powley, 2017)
Thus, it has become highly essential for the company to review its leadership strategy and
to integrate a leadership strategy which also emphasise on HRM (Masa'deh, Obeidat and Tarhini,
2016). The below table demonstrates that the number of staff members in different years. It can
be concluded from the table that staff retention have been declining in the organisation because
huge number of employees have furlough.
Type of staff
members
Year 2010 Year 2011 Year 2012 Year 2013
Management 99 95 99 99
Maintenance 180 149 138 139
Ground
operations
297 268 243 229
Pilots 2032 2344 2429 2625
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Illustration 2: Change in number of passengers from 2016
to 2017

(Source:Ryanair added 138 jobs per extra million passengers 2011 – 2013, but claim 1,000 jobs
are created per additional million passengers, 2013)
The human resources of Ryanair have major concerns that the working conditions are not
good and as per the regulations. The negotiations with the management have failed to bring any
satisfactory conclusions. The employees of the organisation are trying to create a travel chaos by
pressurising the management through strike (Thomas and et.al., 2018). It has been evaluated
from the case that the CEO Michael O'Leary is not willing to agree the recommended changes to
its existing HR policies. The Ryanair leader has always been the follower of autocratic
leadership styles. Such types of leaders dictates the organisational behaviour, policies and all
organisational activities (Lopez-Cabrales, Bornay-Barrachina and Diaz-Fernandez, 2017).
Thus, all autonomy lies in the hands of leaders. It has been analysed that Ryanair staff
members are having minor issues such as working conditions, leave policies, pay scale and
working hours. These issues can be easily resolved if the leader O'Leary and the other
management team members establishes effective communication with the staff members
(Ryanair cabin crew are pushing ahead with 'the biggest strike in the company's history, 2018).
It is very important for the organisation to assure that there is regular communication between
leaders and team members so that minor issues can be resolved before causing huge losses (Gill
and et.al., 2018).
The conflicts could have been resolved if instead of following autocratic leadership
others styles were followed. The change management has been one of the important element
which can integrated only through the support of leaders (Garavan and et.al., 2016). However,
the leaders who follow the autocratic styles tend to neglect the perspective of their team
members. It often influences the organisational culture and the behaviour.
Thus, it is very important for Ryanair that its leader O'Leary must shift from autocratic
leadership to transformational style. The adoption of the transformational leadership style will
help organisation to maintain its low cost model along with the equal involvement of the
employees in the decision making (Mabey and Zhao, 2017). The communication gap between
the leaders and staff members cause conflicts and thus the overall performance of the
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organisation is affected. When leaders are very firm in their autonomy and decision making then
it creates a wide gap between employee satisfaction and the goal achievements.
When leaders fail to keep alignment with the interest of their team members and
organisational goal then it is not possible to achieve the desired goals. It also enhances the failure
risk and brand value of the company (Viitala, Kultalahti and Kangas, 2017). The current human
resource conflicts in Ryanair are the result of inappropriate leadership style. It is leading to
adverse impact on brand value of the organisation.
The staff shortage has created a huge challenge for the organisation to ensure the
continuity of its operations. Such type of conflicts are not good for the global brand image of the
organisation. However, the leaders must identify such risk and they can avoid the occurrence of
such failure risk by motivating their employees (Millar, Chen and Waller, 2017). The safe
working environment, attractive salaries and other motivational models of human resources can
be used by the leaders to manage the organisational efficiency.
The leaders play a key role in the retention of talent within organisation for long term as
well as to explore the growth opportunities for organisation. The individual resources also expect
the equal chance of personal and professional development (Wang Demerouti and Le Blanc,
2017). Thus, for improving the organisational behaviour and culture leaders must encourage and
motivate the other human resources. It will also be beneficial for the organisation to understand
the fundamental HR needs such as training and the recruitment requirements (Bester, Stander
and Van Zyl, 2015). When the employees of organisation are not agreed or satisfied with the
leadership style then, for the long term it is recommended that leaders must reconsider their
approach. The same has been observed in the case analysis (Macdonald, Burke and Stewart,
2017). The Ryanair leader adheres to only autocratic style and thus it is creating negative impact
on the organisational culture and behaviour of the human resources. In order to sustain the
company's growth the organisation requires several improvements into considerations.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis of the Ryanair case study it has been analysed that in the
globalised era the business service providers must review and reconsider their leadership
approaches. The leadership style not only affects the operational efficiency but also has
significant impact on the organisational behaviour. It has been evaluated from the study that the
requirements and expectation of human resources plays a critical role in the leadership choice.
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For instance the autocratic leadership of Ryanair leader helped organisation to gain massive
success in Ireland as well as to establish its business in UK successfully.
However, in the current scenario when human resource management has become a
challenge for the Ryanair there is an immediate need that alternative leadership approaches must
be considered. The key to achieve the functional accuracy relies in the hands of employees who
work in suitable leadership guidance. It has been also analysed that when leaders fail to create
positive organisational atmosphere then internal conflicts and dissatisfaction is at the peak. Thus,
it is recommended that the leaders must try to identify the needs of their team members so that
organisational can assure that all necessary resources are available within company. It is
concluded for the study that organisational behaviour and leadership styles are not completely
isolated and distinct relationship. Instead, they have dependency over each other.
It is also concluded that leaders must control their resistance towards power distribution
and must adopt leadership style which allows human resources to equally participate in the work
place activities. It is the responsibility of the leaders and organisational management to identify
and explore that dependency. The performance of the business cannot be improved without
retaining the skilled resources. It becomes more sensitive and mandatory aspects for the business
organisation operating globally. As with the global exposure companies are required to manage
organisational behaviour capable to manage diversified culture.
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REFERENCES
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Viitala, R., Kultalahti, S. and Kangas, H., 2017. Does strategic leadership development feature in
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Online
Keema, C., 2017. Over 700 pilots left Ryanair in last financial year, Ialpa claims. [Online].
Accessed through <https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/over-700-
pilots-left-ryanair-in-last-financial-year-ialpa-claims-1.3225145>
Powley, T., 2017. Pilot relations in spotlight ahead of Ryanair results. [Online]. Accessed
through <https://www.ft.com/content/2e02ebde-bb10-11e7-8c12-5661783e5589>
Ryanair added 138 jobs per extra million passengers 2011 – 2013, but claim 1,000 jobs are
created per additional million passengers, 2013. [Online]. Accessed through
<http://www.airportwatch.org.uk/2013/09/ryanair-added-138-jobs-per-extra-million-
passengers-2011-2013-but-claim-1000-jobs-are-created-per-additional-million-
passengers/>
Ryanair cabin crew are pushing ahead with 'the biggest strike in the company's history. 2018.
[Online]. Accessed through <https://www.thejournal.ie/ryanair-cabin-crew-strikes-
september-2-4233533-Sep2018/>
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