Analysis of Alan Joyce Style of Leadership

To study the idea of autocratic leadership boosting business performance, one must inspect a leader who exhibits decision making skills, relieving pressure and offering structure in the workplace (Cherry, 2020). Though this figure is notorious for his ruthless leadership nature, he has indeed saved an organisation from an extreme economic recession. As a step in answering the question: ‘Are leaders born or are they made?’, Alan Joyce, Qantas' CEO, who now excels at an autocratic style of leadership, will be analysed in terms of his ability to learn qualities of leadership. These learnt qualities will then be scrutinized under the light of enhancing Qantas business performance. 

Alan Joyce and his autocratic leadership style certainly facilitated the performance of Qantas and ensured its future survival in the market. Today, Qantas Airway is publicly recognised as a leading airline organisation (Alan Joyce voted Australia’s top CEO, 2017). Qantas faced a multitude of struggles, despite these challenges, Qantas remained in the market - defeating its competitors.  It is important to evaluate how Joyce became one of the most effective leaders in history despite having no absolute authority figure present in his family. Having grown up in a household where his mother was a cleaner and his father was a tobacco factory worker, autocratic leadership qualities must have been learnt externally (Harvey, 2011). Joyce's early activism in movements including Australian Republic, Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, as well as being an active speaker for the LGBT community becomes evident in arguing that leadership is learnt. One can undoubtedly claim that investing time taking part in foundations and movements that inspire leadership qualities which is later shaped into authoritative traits.  Observing early life proves that he is not born a leader but leadership habits are indeed developed by living and breathing with the community and becoming a spokesperson for their needs  (10 Leadership Lessons From Inspiring Leaders In History, 2014).

Decision making is the key element which aids in boosting the performance of Qantas. The extreme recession experienced by Qantas in the 2020 will serve as the basis of this argument. The authoritative characteristics of ruthless and tight-fisted nature of Joyce is emphasised in the COVID-19 recession phase which revealed a $1.9 billion statutory full year loss. As a centralised hierarchical figure, the economic strain of border closure resulting from the pandemic forced Joyce to make “tough decisions”  (Hatch, 2020). To sack 20% of the Qantas workforce as a part of the three-year recovery plan is certainly difficult especially in terms of Qantas’s reputation and public image. However, having built the foundation of autocratic leadership, Joyce immediately took the risk to dismiss 6000 employees in hopes for a $15 billion in savings by 2023 and $1billion in annual benefit thereafter  (Hatch, 2020). The hierarchical structure of Qantas certainly makes decision making efficient as having numerous opinions would have interfered henc taking longer to act upon. Therefore, autocratic leadership quality of decision making combined with visionary leadership definitely assisted Qantas in cutting costs hence promising the survival of the company.