Leadership hero Alison Hawkes, puts XL bosses to shame
Leadership has a new hero and it’s not coming from where you would expect it to. There’ll be no books or speaking tours, there will be no consultancy fees, in fact only a few of us will ever know who she is in the context of this subject.
All the books you will ever read and the workshops you will ever attend will talk about integrity and personal authenticity and of course one of this decades best leadership phrases such as servant leadership. They will espouse the need for leaders to be there for the people, not for the title or the pay, you will here that only by being there for the good of the people and the business as a whole will you truly demonstrate leadership at it’s finest. Then like most of us you will wonder how to make it a reality in the everyday ebb and flow that is your working life.
- Alison Hawkes XL Tour Operator – Employee of the Century?
Alison Hawkes demonstrates servant leadership, though I’d hazard a guess she might not be that well versed on it (of course I am probably doing her a great dis-service). She worked for XL Holidays the UK’s 3rd largest holiday tour operator which on the 12th September announced it would cease to trade, at the moment of this announcement Alison Hawkes was out of a job, she and 1,700 other workers would not be required to turn up for work the next day and getting paid well…..good luck!
Now honestly what would you do? Really think about this, you hear you are out of a job through the media, you know you won’t get paid, to be true most of us would (post blaspheming) spend the next day trying to call your boss and get the CV up to date; this isn’t what Alison Hawkws did though. No she got up the next morning, got dressed and went into work in order to help people, which I think deserves a round of applause and I darned well wish I’d been there to give her one! Well done Alison Hawkes the Executive Coaching Guru salutes you.
- Management is at its most and overly simplistic, managing resources
- Leadership is setting direction, acting selflessly, seeing the big picture and doing what others are not willing to do, but above all leadership is the willingness to be a human being to other human beings.
We’ll never know the answer to this, but how many of the XL tour operators board of directors, XL non- executive directors or any of senior management tier turned up at any airport? I’m going to hazard a guess that Alison was one of a very small handful.
Executive coaching very often means touching the hearts and souls of people that have spent a long time building persona’s that they feel represents the kind of leader they want to be or most probably feel should be. The executive coach often has a primary role to enable the most senior of managers to ‘give themselves permission’ to be themselves, the whole person at home and at work. We often look to the business world for examples of where this has worked, but honestly I’m not really interested in the example of a millionaire business leader who has decided that to rescue their soul they will give something back through writing a book. I’m empowered by the humble and honest behaviour of Alison Hawkes, the XL tour operator employee of the century and the fact she demonstrated the core foundation of all leadership behaviour, leadership of oneself. If you are a coach I’d say these are the examples, these are the people you want to find to get to come and talk to your leadership groups.
The Executive Coaching Guru has always said, “if anyone looks to you for direction, then you are like it not, in that moment a leader”, when Alison Hawkes walked into that airport, I wonder how many people looked to her for direction!? That’s leadership by anyones standard.