The CEO's job is to make it possible for everyone who works in the business to succeed at the tasks they are given.
He (she) cannot succeed unless everyone else in the business is succeeding.
This is known as the "Reverse pyramid" theory of management where the CEO is on the bottom point of the pyramid and the coal face people who deliver the customers product are on the top.
This implies a certain humility in the CEO in dealing with staff which should always be inversely proportional to said staffs "position" in the organisation. This can sometimes be seen in European corporations where managers often delight in being polite and accommodating to juniors almost to a fault while being deliberately rude and familiar with peers (which I personally always found to be a lot of fun).
I subscribe to this theory, which I absorbed at my fathers side and always practiced it. Needless to say Qantas, at least since the rein of Strong, has never embraced it. The most offensive and telling comment came (I think) from Chairman Marg. Jackson who said words to the effect that the Board had done more for the company than anyone else. Contrast this with Rob Fyfe's style at Air NZ.
I used to get sick of her being paraded by John Rose in front of my MBA class as a "success" along with BS about glass ceilings.
My guess is that what the Board is worrying about now are the dark financial storm clouds gathering around America, which will not only destroy the demand for cheap air travel but play havoc with the cost of capital and exchange rates...
When that hits, the decisions to outsource a lot of core functions will be seen as the lunacy it is. If anyone remembers Mt. Cook airlines and how they used to scrimp and save, you are seeing the future of Qantas. By way of example, that airline had only Three spare CSD's because they couldn't afford more (B737 JT8D), and when one went kaput, say in Auckland, there was a tradesman and a repair kit waiting to overhaul it as soon as the busted CSD made it back to Christchurch.
Last edited by Sunfish; 23rd May 2011 at 18:16.