Colleen Barrett, from a low-income family, got her first job as secretary to Herb Kelleher, a very talented and at the same time very disorganized lawyer. Colleen, always very attentive to people, knew how to understand Herb and how to help him organize all his professional issues and also accompanied Herb to the trials.
Herb was later hired to run Southwest Airlines, a low-cost American airline that was going through times of crisis and was about to disappear. Herb took Colleen, his most efficient collaborator and advisor, with him.
There Colleen implemented the customer service strategy based on the Golden Rule, treat your employees well and they will treat your clients well.
Colleen pioneered Service Leadership, based on the golden rule: she dedicated 85% of her time to employees under equal treatment to all of them, training them, empowering them to actively participate in actions of care and satisfaction. to the client.
Excellent results were not long in coming, and Southwest became the leading company in customer experience and profit. Colleen was named President of the company. She has been the only woman to preside over an airline and when she retired in 2015 she donated $ 1 million to create a leadership and entrepreneurship center.
Currently Colleen is President Emeritus of Southwest and continues to be linked to the company helping to continue working on the values ??on which Service Leadership is based.
How close are you to your collaborators and clients?