“Community is more than a place; it’s at the Heart of what brings us together.” I say this often, and I get to say it with conviction, because at the Heart of Southwest Airlines is a healthy Culture, one that gives back to the communities we serve and takes care of our People.
Research confirms caring for people is good for business. Companies investing in their communities earn stronger reputations, hold onto their People longer, and see higher engagement and pride at work. Thankfully, we never needed convincing, because we had a champion in Colleen Barrett.
As a Servant Leader, Colleen created our Charitable Giving Team from the ground up and made caring for our communities part of the job long before anyone called it corporate philanthropy. She led with Heart, looked after our people first, and trusted us to carry it on. “The Culture is ours to own,” she would tell us, and that sentiment still shapes how I lead and how our Team shows up.
Owning it looks different in every era. Early on, it meant Employees adopting causes close to home and a Company willing to get behind them. Today, it looks like over 70,000 People giving back in good times and difficult ones: Employee Resource Groups leading the charge on causes their members care about most; coordinated efforts to raise funds or fly first-responders when disaster strikes; Employees giving from their own paychecks when a Coheart (Fellow Employee) faces the hardest moment of their life.
Watching our People show up for one another and their neighbors is the best part of my job. It’s proof that a giving Culture is in our Company’s DNA. It cannot be installed or announced. It shows up in what People do when nobody is keeping score. Community engagement doesn’t create a healthy culture, it reveals one. If you ask me, ours is alive and well.
The Southwest Culture ripples past our walls into something I call Return on Relationships. You won’t find it in a quarterly report, but it’s real. It’s the civic leader who calls us first when a market needs a partner; the nonprofit who champions us for our local impact; the Customer who chooses us for how we give back in their hometown. All fueled by bringing our authentic selves, earning trust, and building relationships where our People and Customers live, work, and play.
This is why community engagement matters so much to me. Herb described Southwest as a Company of People who just happen to fly airplanes. Our People are the reason any of it works, and being good to one another is the throughline that has sustained us fifty-five years. Hospitality. Kindness. A Culture of Caring nobody has to be asked to keep. It’s who we have always been and who we will keep choosing to be.
XOXO
Laura
