????赫伯?凱勒爾與所謂“幕后老板”實在是不沾邊。這位西南航空（Southwest Airlines）創始人及榮譽退休董事長現年82歲，但他喜歡喝野火雞101威士忌，總愛不停抽煙，說起對航空業的了解，無人能出其左右。

????凱勒爾曾經是一名律師，最為人樂道的是他在一張（雞尾酒會）餐巾紙的背面創造了西南航空的商業模式。凱勒爾絕對是一個另類：作為一名創業者，他不僅成功創辦了一家初創公司，把它打造成一個巨大的企業，而且，這家企業曾多次登上《財富》雜志（Fortune）的最受贊賞公司（Most Admired Companies）榜單。在西南航空達拉斯總部，《財富》雜志的珍妮弗?萊因戈爾德與凱勒爾在他的辦公室里，暢談了他對一系列話題的看法，包括航空業的整合、他正在撰寫的新書、如何正確對待員工，以及其它他感興趣的話題。

????問：你經常會提到盡職盡責的員工對于一家公司成功的重要性。在西南航空，你是如何成功做到這一點的呢？

????答：實際上，是我的同事們做到的。我只是站在一邊，別礙他們的事。

????但這在領導力中占很大一部分，對嗎？

????我認為是這樣。等他們遇到問題的時候，你再出現就可以了。一切順利的時候，就別干擾他們了。

????放棄權力有沒有讓你覺得很困難？

????權力應該留到舉重和劃船的時候享用，領導力的本質是責任。如果你因為CEO是個掌握權勢的職位而認為它重要，那么最終，當你不得不下臺的時候，你肯定會遺憾不已。但如果你把CEO視為對其他人的責任，都能夠你離開的時候，你可能會說：“呼！”知道為什么嗎？“我終于再也不用承擔這些責任了！”

????你現在還是會每天到公司里來。有時候，尤其當前任是一個大人物還是公司創始人的時候，繼任者要做好自己的工作是不是很難？

????我從來不干涉公司事務。極個別情況下，如果我要表達自己的看法，我會給他們發私人信息。這種情況極少發生。因為我認為，加里?凱利做得很出色。而且，我會盡量保持低調，盡量服從加里的領導。比如，我不會經常出席公司活動，像熱辣烹飪比賽等。因為我不想引起人們的誤解，以為我是在和公司新領導搶風頭呢！

????順便說一句，這也是我從公司董事會離職的原因。因為，如果我一臉消化不良的樣子，坐在會議桌前——你知道，就好像我需要吃Tums咀嚼片一樣，這對于加里和整個新領導層都是不公平的。

????加里對權力交接處理地得心應手?，F在，他在公司內擁有足夠的影響力。他口才好。而且，他不僅智商超高，還非常勤奮。我想，現在可能所有人都會說：“哇！他真是一位了不起的CEO！那個滿臉皺紋，坐在陽臺上的老家伙又是誰？”

????跟我講講航空業的大整合吧。

????其實，與其他行業相比，航空業極度分散。與汽車行業更是無法相比。以汽車行業為例，當時，美國汽車業基本上就是福特（Ford）、通用（GM）和克萊斯勒（Chrysler）三家。如果放寬對競爭的限制，必然會減少航空公司的數量?，F實一點的人都會得出這樣的判斷，因為40年來，美國民用航空委員會（Civil Aeronautics Board）一直對已有的航空公司進行競爭保護，甚至達到了放縱的程度。而這一切在之后帶來了放射效應，不幸果然發生。許多偉大的傳統品牌隨之消失，比如泛美航空公司（Pan AM）、環球航空公司（TWA）、美國東方航空公司（Eastern）等。而現在，以我之見，你可以使用哲學中的歸謬法來形容美國的航空業整合。比方說，你可以認為當今的美國只有兩家航空運營商。（財富中文網）

????閱讀英文全文請點擊此處>>>

????譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

????Herb Kelleher and "éminence grise" shouldn't really go together. But the Wild Turkey 101-drinking, chain-smoking founder and chairman emeritus of Southwest Airlines (LUV) is now 82 and knows more about the airline industry than practically anyone else on the planet.

????A former lawyer who famously created the business model for Southwest on the back of a (cocktail) napkin, Kelleher is one of those rare birds: an entrepreneur who managed to create a successful startup, then stuck around to build it into a huge corporation and a perennial on this magazine's Most Admired Companies list. Fortune's Jennifer Reingold sat down with him in his office at Southwest's Dallas headquarters to get his take on airline consolidation, the book he's writing, treating employees right, and basically anything else he felt like discussing.

????Q: You've always talked about how important committed employees are to the success of a company. How did you make that work at Southwest?

????A: Well, the people did it. I just stayed out of their way.

????But that's a big part of leadership, isn't it?

????I think so. Be there when they're having problems, and stay out of their way when things are going well.

????Has it been hard for you to give up power?

????Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility. The end result of that is that if you regard being a CEO as important because it's a powerful position, you're always going to regret that at some point you had to step down. If you regard it as a responsibility to others, you may say, "Whew!" You know? "At last, I don't have those responsibilities anymore!"

????You're still here every day. Sometimes, especially with a big personality and a founder, isn't it tough for a successor to do his job?

????I never interfere. If I have any comments to make, which are very few, I send them a personal note. And they've been few and far between because [CEO and chairman] Gary Kelly is doing a terrific job in my estimation. And I deliberately decided in deference to Gary's leadership that I should take a much lower profile. It involves, for instance, not going to a number of company events, like the chili cook-off, because I didn't want anybody to think that I was competing for attention with our new leader.

????And that's why I stepped down from the board too, incidentally. Because I didn't think it was fair to Gary and the new leadership as a totality to have me sitting there at the board table with a dyspeptic look on my face -- you know, like I needed some Tums.

????Gary has handled the transition beautifully. He's got a great presence. He's an excellent speaker. He's highly intelligent. He's very diligent. And I think now probably everybody says, "Wow! He's one heck of a CEO! And who's that old guy with the wrinkles sitting in the balcony?"

????Talk to me about the incredible consolidation in the airline industry.

????The airline industry is a very fragmented industry compared with other industries. Very fragmented compared with the automobile industry. I use that as an example, where you had Ford (F), GM (GM), and Chrysler basically at that time. And deregulation involving competition was bound to produce a smaller number of airlines. Anybody who was realistic about it anticipated that that would be the case because the Civil Aeronautics Board for 40 years had kind of coddled and protected the existing airlines from competition. So there was going to be some fallout. That happened. A lot of the great old names vanished, like Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, etc. Now, you can carry that, in my opinion, to areductio ad absurdum -- you know, where you only have, say, two carriers in the United States.