That statement says it all. You can fake a lot of things, but that is not one of them and employees readily see that!

I think the simple answer is because it is too hard and it requires leaders to trust others to do what is needed to make the organization a success. And, there doesn’t appear to be many role models like Kelleher who truly trusts, respects, and appreciate his employees.. I say appear, because we rarely hear about them in the popular press, but if we look a bit deeper we will find many leaders (at all levels of their organizations) who truly care for people and realize that it is the employees, the people of the organization, who get the job done and take care of the customers, both internal and external.

Seton Hall University’s online Master of Arts in Strategic Communication & Leadership program uses Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s best selling book, The Leadership Challenge in one of its courses. In it, the authors asked U.S. Army Major General John H. Stanford “how he’d go about developing leaders, whether in colleges and universities, in the military, in government, in the nonprofit sector, or in private business. He replied…The secret to success is to stay in love….The best-kept secret of successful leaders is love: staying in love with leading, with the people who do the work, with what their organizations produce, and with those how honor the organization by using its products and services. Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.”

I think we can all agree that Herb Kelleher was in love.

Er, something like that.