西南航空创始人：82岁，我心依旧狂野

    赫伯•凯勒尔与所谓“幕后老板”实在是不沾边。这位西南航空（Southwest Airlines）创始人及荣誉退休董事长现年82岁，但他喜欢喝野火鸡101威士忌，总爱不停抽烟，说起对航空业的了解，无人能出其左右。

    凯勒尔曾经是一名律师，最为人乐道的是他在一张（鸡尾酒会）餐巾纸的背面创造了西南航空的商业模式。凯勒尔绝对是一个另类：作为一名创业者，他不仅成功创办了一家初创公司，把它打造成一个巨大的企业，而且，这家企业曾多次登上《财富》杂志（Fortune）的最受赞赏公司（Most Admired Companies）榜单。在西南航空达拉斯总部，《财富》杂志的珍妮弗•莱因戈尔德与凯勒尔在他的办公室里，畅谈了他对一系列话题的看法，包括航空业的整合、他正在撰写的新书、如何正确对待员工，以及其它他感兴趣的话题。

    问：你经常会提到尽职尽责的员工对于一家公司成功的重要性。在西南航空，你是如何成功做到这一点的呢？

    答：实际上，是我的同事们做到的。我只是站在一边，别碍他们的事。

    但这在领导力中占很大一部分，对吗？

    我认为是这样。等他们遇到问题的时候，你再出现就可以了。一切顺利的时候，就别干扰他们了。

    放弃权力有没有让你觉得很困难？

    权力应该留到举重和划船的时候享用，领导力的本质是责任。如果你因为CEO是个掌握权势的职位而认为它重要，那么最终，当你不得不下台的时候，你肯定会遗憾不已。但如果你把CEO视为对其他人的责任，都能够你离开的时候，你可能会说：“呼！”知道为什么吗？“我终于再也不用承担这些责任了！”

    你现在还是会每天到公司里来。有时候，尤其当前任是一个大人物还是公司创始人的时候，继任者要做好自己的工作是不是很难？

    我从来不干涉公司事务。极个别情况下，如果我要表达自己的看法，我会给他们发私人信息。这种情况极少发生。因为我认为，加里•凯利做得很出色。而且，我会尽量保持低调，尽量服从加里的领导。比如，我不会经常出席公司活动，像热辣烹饪比赛等。因为我不想引起人们的误解，以为我是在和公司新领导抢风头呢！

    顺便说一句，这也是我从公司董事会离职的原因。因为，如果我一脸消化不良的样子，坐在会议桌前——你知道，就好像我需要吃Tums咀嚼片一样，这对于加里和整个新领导层都是不公平的。

    加里对权力交接处理地得心应手。现在，他在公司内拥有足够的影响力。他口才好。而且，他不仅智商超高，还非常勤奋。我想，现在可能所有人都会说：“哇！他真是一位了不起的CEO！那个满脸皱纹，坐在阳台上的老家伙又是谁？”

    跟我讲讲航空业的大整合吧。

    其实，与其他行业相比，航空业极度分散。与汽车行业更是无法相比。以汽车行业为例，当时，美国汽车业基本上就是福特（Ford）、通用（GM）和克莱斯勒（Chrysler）三家。如果放宽对竞争的限制，必然会减少航空公司的数量。现实一点的人都会得出这样的判断，因为40年来，美国民用航空委员会（Civil Aeronautics Board）一直对已有的航空公司进行竞争保护，甚至达到了放纵的程度。而这一切在之后带来了放射效应，不幸果然发生。许多伟大的传统品牌随之消失，比如泛美航空公司（Pan AM）、环球航空公司（TWA）、美国东方航空公司（Eastern）等。而现在，以我之见，你可以使用哲学中的归谬法来形容美国的航空业整合。比方说，你可以认为当今的美国只有两家航空运营商。（财富中文网）

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    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Herb Kelleher and "éminence grise" shouldn't really go together. But the Wild Turkey 101-drinking, chain-smoking founder and chairman emeritus of Southwest Airlines (LUV) is now 82 and knows more about the airline industry than practically anyone else on the planet.

    A former lawyer who famously created the business model for Southwest on the back of a (cocktail) napkin, Kelleher is one of those rare birds: an entrepreneur who managed to create a successful startup, then stuck around to build it into a huge corporation and a perennial on this magazine's Most Admired Companies list. Fortune's Jennifer Reingold sat down with him in his office at Southwest's Dallas headquarters to get his take on airline consolidation, the book he's writing, treating employees right, and basically anything else he felt like discussing.

    Q: You've always talked about how important committed employees are to the success of a company. How did you make that work at Southwest?

    A: Well, the people did it. I just stayed out of their way.

    But that's a big part of leadership, isn't it?

    I think so. Be there when they're having problems, and stay out of their way when things are going well.

    Has it been hard for you to give up power?

    Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility. The end result of that is that if you regard being a CEO as important because it's a powerful position, you're always going to regret that at some point you had to step down. If you regard it as a responsibility to others, you may say, "Whew!" You know? "At last, I don't have those responsibilities anymore!"

    You're still here every day. Sometimes, especially with a big personality and a founder, isn't it tough for a successor to do his job?

    I never interfere. If I have any comments to make, which are very few, I send them a personal note. And they've been few and far between because [CEO and chairman] Gary Kelly is doing a terrific job in my estimation. And I deliberately decided in deference to Gary's leadership that I should take a much lower profile. It involves, for instance, not going to a number of company events, like the chili cook-off, because I didn't want anybody to think that I was competing for attention with our new leader.

    And that's why I stepped down from the board too, incidentally. Because I didn't think it was fair to Gary and the new leadership as a totality to have me sitting there at the board table with a dyspeptic look on my face -- you know, like I needed some Tums.

    Gary has handled the transition beautifully. He's got a great presence. He's an excellent speaker. He's highly intelligent. He's very diligent. And I think now probably everybody says, "Wow! He's one heck of a CEO! And who's that old guy with the wrinkles sitting in the balcony?"

    Talk to me about the incredible consolidation in the airline industry.

    The airline industry is a very fragmented industry compared with other industries. Very fragmented compared with the automobile industry. I use that as an example, where you had Ford (F), GM (GM), and Chrysler basically at that time. And deregulation involving competition was bound to produce a smaller number of airlines. Anybody who was realistic about it anticipated that that would be the case because the Civil Aeronautics Board for 40 years had kind of coddled and protected the existing airlines from competition. So there was going to be some fallout. That happened. A lot of the great old names vanished, like Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, etc. Now, you can carry that, in my opinion, to areductio ad absurdum -- you know, where you only have, say, two carriers in the United States.