Reload: Servant Leadership and Building a Culture of Engagement with Ginger Hardage

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova for this What’s Next! Reload. 

This week I am bringing back an episode with the wonderful Ginger Hardage on Servant Leadership. Ginger recently retired as Senior Vice President of Culture and Communications at Southwest Airlines after an illustrious 25 years. She is recognized by many as a foremost authority on building and sustaining organizational culture, and during her time at Southwest, the airline experienced 22 consecutive years on FORTUNE’s “Top 10 Most Admired Companies in the World” list. Throughout her career, Ginger has received countless awards and honors like the PRWeek Top 50 Power list, PRWeek 50 Most Powerful Women in Public Relations, Texas’ Most Powerful and Influential Women, and “Legendary Communicator” by Southern Methodist University in 2007. Ginger was also inducted into the Public Relations Hall of Fame in 2015 and received the prestigous Legacy Award from the Plank Center for Leadership in 2016. Ginger currently serves as a Trustee on two global boards—Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Arthur Page Society. I am absolutely thrilled to have Ginger Hardage on the What’s Next! Podcast! 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders, aspiring leaders, managers, and anyone interested in leading effectively and building a successful and organizational culture. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Happy employees make customers happy. When customers are happy they return. This is what helps you successfully take care of your shareholders. Too often organizations start backward, focus too much on pleasing shareholders at the expense of everything else. In order to build a successful organization that takes care of its employees and by extension its customers, it is important to address three main points. First, it behooves you to define your company culture and the values that matter to your organization and how you will live those out. Second, it is important to analyze and establish what makes your distinct purpose and value set unique. Third, you must focus on leadership alignment with your values–how are you as a leader, or your organization’s leaders living out the values of the company. Successful, servant leadership starts from the top down, and how we act backs-up what we say. 

WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… Speaking to Ginger, who has successfully driven this type of culture at an iconic organization like Southwest, about the power of focusing on your employees. Great advice on how to navigate the soft side  

Running time: 35:59 

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Ginger’s Website: Unstoppable Cultures