Interim CEO Appointed: Could this be a NEW DAWN for SAA?

As with a number of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), the challenges in South African Airways (SAA) can be traced back to earlier decisions taken by those in charge. With the state-owned airline intent on turning its fortunes, one has to consider the impact of leadership on management. This argument follows on the longstanding debate of leadership vs management. Drawing from John Kotter's table below, where he highlights the differences between leadership and management, one can really wonder as whether there practically exists leadership at SAA. This is in part owing to the lack of strategic direction that we have seen from the entity, coupled with the unstable and demotivated workforce who have been anxious about their job security over the years and shown their dissatisfaction through their trade unions.

More so, as the ailing national carrier was losing its ground in the market, not even once did we see any sign of leadership coming forth to salvage the airlines fortunes by taking the nation and its loyal customers into its confidence, nor communicating any turnaround strategy to its employees. Instead, the nation would only wake up to negative reports about the interference of the ‘Chairperson of the board on management issues’, and the chopping and changing of leadership at board level.

Furthermore, Table 1 below focuses on four areas of differentiation: Programming, human resources, implementation, and the expected results. Leadership struggled to create an agenda into the new reality post its deregulation hence the management found itself wanting. In recent times, we have witnessed the upheavals pertaining to the human resources. This can be evidenced from the endless tussles between the airline’s leadership and employees trade unions, at the top of the agenda being the gap on the benefits that pilots receive versus those of other operational department workers. To this day the debacle has not been concluded, leaving us wondering as to whether the newly appointed Interim CEO, Thomas Kgokolo, will manage to lead an unhappy and disgruntled workforce.

 

	Management	Leadership
Creating and Agenda	resource management	Establishing direction
Developing a human network for achieving the agenda	Coordinating architectural staff, contractors, consultants	Aligning people towards a common goal
Execution	Each project proceeds on schedule, within budget,	Motivating and Inspiring to perform optimally
Outcomes	Full satisfaction of clients, design intent is fully realized and within budget every time	Produces change, often to a dramatic degree; potential of producing extremely useful change

 (Kotter, JP 1990) https://doi.org/10.1177/002194368902600109  

The multiple crisis in key roles within SAA indicate this dominant logic where those with charged with governance do not seem to care much about the going concern of the entity nor the future of its employees, thus resulting in the erosion of its vision and competitiveness, and the resultant loss of market share.

If SAA is to emerge victorious from the current COVID-19 crisis, it will need a leadership process that prioritizes purpose and public trust. It is imperative that they endure a mind shift by moving away from their dominant logic that is characterized with unconscious biases and past successes, and thus move into new logic that prioritizes its employees. After all, it is the people who drive an organization’s strategy, not the ‘organisation’ itself. Hello SAA, wake up and smell the coffee. This is the new normal.

One can only remain hopeful that the newly appointed Interim CEO delivers a new dawn for SAA; one that is characterized by sustainable financial prosperity, a happy and satisfied workforce, and not be entangled in the existing doldrums of poor performance and continued begging for government bailouts. Let there be harmony and tranquility between the leadership and management of the airline. After all, both these roles are vital to providing strategic direction and its successful implementation thereof which can yield a sustainable competitive advantage and consequently bare quality results for a better South African Airwaves.