Tony Fernandes Leadership Talk

Leadership

A Leader is defined a person who command an organization, country or group.

Are leaders born or developed?

It is a question which makes people struggle all the time in business industries. From my perspective I think that leaders are more often made through development. I do not deny that some humans are born with extra intelligence, guts, and responsibility. Etc. But even though they have own those benefits, they still have to develop talent in order to use to their talent to the limit. As for leaders that are developed, they just do not have the benefits like born leader do, but those benefits can be trained by attending courses, inner students. Etc. From the statement above, It shows that everyone can be a leader though born leaders have it easier and leader that is trained needs time.

Naturally, my selected leader is Tony Fernandes as you can see his catch phrase through. “Now, Everyone Can Fly”- Tony Fernandes. From the word “fly”, airplane is the transport you can relate to. Tony Fernandes is the first person on earth who introduced the concept of budget airlines and has applied this concept by establishing his own airlines, Air Asia. From what I know about Tony Fernandes through the web, his leadership style is most likely democratic when considering the overall situation.“The guy who is not carrying bags actually subsiding the guy who is carrying five bags because and we need more people to carry those, even the plane becomes heavier it means will burn more fuel so invariably if you charge the same, some of the people who travel with no bags actually are the low cost to me. So, we are trying to make things democratic as possible as we can.

We will charge only where you have an option like in bags and food.” – Examples given by Tony Fernandes.

So, what I admire Tony Fernandes for is his determination and courage. Before he invaded the airline industry, he suffered from his failure in the music industry. And he took another high risk by purchasing an airline for RM1 but with the terms that consist of $11 million of debt. Furthermore, airline industry wasn’t doing that well due to 911 terrorist attack. He had zero knowledge of airline industry at the time so he says that "It really was a little bit of stick your finger in the air and hope for the best.”.

Usually, presidents likes to sit in their own private room and having upwards communication within his employees. But Fernandes likes more of both which he has also set his own office table within his employees, known as downwards communication. He doesn’t want his small office being sealed with walls because he wants to let his employees know that they can come to him with problems. At the same time, he also recognizes his employees needs and wants better conditions. It could also help him to understand issues his department are having by working as a cabin crew, baggage-handler or even a check-in-clerk for day, weeks or months.

Organization Structure

Organization structure is an arrangement of roles, duties, rights .etc. of a person in that particular company. So, below is a picture on how Air Asia’s organization structure looks like:

As I do mention that Tony Fernandes is the cofounder of Air Asia which obviously tells that he is the CEO of the industry.

Strategy

From what I have acheive on this article about him, his strategy is to keep the flight cost as low as possible. In this 10 years, Air Asia has already build a good foundation in terms of financial and reputation which lead them to stamp its foot print in Thailand , Indonesia, Philippines and Japan. If This development goes higher and higher, Fernandes estimates that they could have stamped its footprint in all ASEAN country which are Vietnam Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Myanmar, Korea, China or even India. So, this will increase the amount of passengers aboard Air Asia airplanes in which case Tony Fernandes needs to import a bigger airplane in order to fulfill the demand and the payment of higher airport charges and fuel prices but he still needs to keep the price low which is a challenge to him.

Motivation

Motivation is about the ways a business can encourage staff to give their best.

Employees are the ones who are in the responsible of a company's reputation, image, etc. to the customers. So they might impact a company to be success or not. According to his theory, he believes that employees will treat the customers well if his superior do so. His solution is to try providing the est facilities and welfare to his employees such as free flights.

Corporate Culture

“Our corporate culture it is, it’s what makes us”- Tony Fernandes. You could buy the world top airplane but if there are none of the people would like to invest your planes, you’re going to vanish. Allstar (team members in air asia) can learn, grow, achieve his or her own dreams. Besides, Tony Fernandes provides its team member a good environment without any racism, discrimination, sexual orientation, religion .etc. and he will not tolerate harassment, or any bullying between employees. Tony fernandes also focuses on what brings people together rather than on what keeps them apart. Yet, fernandes has shared 5 methods on what make him successful. They are: hire the right people, encourage your people to pursue their passions, be clear about your mission, break down hierarchy and dream big.

In conclusion, I think that tony fernandes is a very effective leader because he was able to makes an airline company which almost bankrupt upright again due to a new concept that no one has tried before on air plane industry which is budget airline. Yet, he does also keep his promise regarding to the slogan of “Now, everyone can fly” that maintains the flight cost in low price from the beginning till now though they are facing high airport fees and fuel fees. Then, he puts effort on this industry from the head to toe. example like caring each employees in his company, try to understand their problems by life experience of the job roles, reflect on a solution regarding to the problem and provide a good environment in terms of bullying, racism .etc. in airline industry, it is hard to find such leader who willing to lower down his identity and mix with the workers.