Susan DrummCEO Advisor & Executive Coach | Leadership Change Agent

People First Leadership

4 Jun 2025 · 1 min

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Short transcript excerpt from a conversation where Susan Drumm (interviewer) and another speaker discuss 'people first' leadership—prioritizing employees over clients—and argue that taking care of employees leads to better customer service, referencing the founder of Southwest Airlines as precedent. The piece defends the claim that valuing staff leads to improved customer outcomes.

Chapters

I mean, just the fact that you lead with the people come first, you're not saying our clients come first, which was a lot of businesses would say. You're saying your people, your team comes first. I imagine some people might be like, well, that's. You've got it backwards. What would you say to that?
Well, you know, it's interesting. The founder of Southwest Airlines used to get asked this question a lot back in the 70s and 80s, from what I've read, because I've read some of the books about him. And so, you know, I think. I think my mentality is if you have. If you take care of your people, they're the ones touching the customers every day, right? And so if they feel taken care of, if they feel invested into, if they feel like they're working for a company that. That truly values them, right? They're just not. They're not just a number, a widget on a spreadsheet, but they're really valued. And then those people, how are they going to turn around and serve your customers?