This document provides a personality analysis of Michael O'Leary, the CEO of Ryanair Airlines. It discusses his leadership traits such as setting clear goals, self-confidence, and risk-taking. It also examines his management traits like being goal-oriented, aggressive, and rational. The document analyzes O'Leary's leadership style in the context of authentic and charismatic leadership theories. It notes some problems his authoritarian style causes, like high employee turnover. Overall, the document offers a detailed overview of O'Leary's personality and how it has impacted Ryanair's transformation into a highly successful low-cost airline.

1. 0
A Personality Analysis of Michael O’Leary CEO of
RYANAIR

2. 1
Contents
1.0 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………. 2
2.0 Background of Study……………...……...…….…....……………………………….. 3
3.0 Traits of Michael O’Leary……………………….………………………………………5
3.1 Leadership Traits…………………………………………………………………..6
3.2 Management Traits…………………………………………………………..…….9
4.0 Leadership Style of Michael O’Leary……………………….………………………11
4.1 Authentic leadership Theory ...…………...…….…….…………………..…….11
4.2 Charismatic Leadership Theory ...……..……………………….………...……13
5.0 Problems & Recommendations……………...………………..…………………..…14
6.0 Learning from Leadership Style ……........………………….….………………….16
7.0 Conclusion……………………………………………..............................................16
8.0 References……..……………………………………………..………………………..17

3. 2
1.0 Introduction:
The RYANAIR Airline based in Dublin, Ireland. The RYNANAIR Airline known as one of
the cheapest Airline in the world. Michael O’Leary is the CEO of the RYANAIR and through the
leadership and management skills Michael O’Leary transformed loss making organization as a
most valuable airline in the world.
The RYANAIR is an Irish low cost airline which is founded in 28 February 1984 and starts its
operations from July 1985. The RYANAIR was the largest European airline of the year 2016 by
the number of passengers. RYANAIR is popular airline in the Europe for cheap rates. The
airline is operational in 33 countries including Europe, Africa and the Middle East. RYANAIR
runs 2000 flights in the day. The RYANAIR Slogan is “LOW FARES, MADE SIMPLE” it’s
indicating the company priority.

4. 3
2.0 Background of the Study:
Michael O’Leary is the CEO of the RYANAIR Airline. He was born on 20 March
1961. He graduates from Trinity College Dublin in Economics and social studies program in
1983. After graduation he starts work as trainee accountant in KPMG. After two years he left his
job from KPMG. After doing different jobs in different places in 1987 he join Ryanair’s founder
Tony Ryan as his financial advisor. In 1994 Michael O’Leary becomes the CEO of the RYANAIR
Airline.
The extraordinary and different management style, passion and the aggressive nature of
the Michael O’Leary transformed the RYANAIR as ordinary airline to popular and cheapest
airline of the world.
Michael O’Leary is popular among the CEOs of the European airlines because of his
outspoken, aggressive public statement and sometimes foul language against their competitors.
Because of Michael O’Leary’s aggressive attitude and harsh management style, his reputation
is very controversial in airline industry.

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The RYANAIR minimize their cost of travelling and instead of earing from selling airline
seats the company receives a lot of revenue from on board shopping, Hotel booking, Car hiring,
on board internet paid games and other services which provided to their customers. RYANAIR
also negotiate with airports and get discounted landing fees.
The RYANAIR achieved more strong position in the commercial aviation world in Europe
through their cheap fares in last few years. Following are the numbers of passenger in Italy in
2016 to 2017 with respect to the airlines.
According to above mentioned table in 2016 RYANAIR stand on top one position with 32.6
million passengers and in 2017 the number of passenger increased as 36.3 million with 11.2%
rate.

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3.0 Traits of Michael O’Leary:
The personality of Michael O’Leary is very unique and different from other people.
The outspoken and abrasive management style makes him different from others. The Michael
O’Leary personality lies between leadership and management because he has many
characteristics of the leadership as well as he has also good manager qualities.
The following are some quotes by the Michael O’Leary on different occasions as CEO of
RYANAIR. We can analyze the personality approach of the Michael O’Leary from them.
These quotes clearly defined the personality of the Michael O’Leary which indicates the
aggressive and ruthless style of management. It shows the element of self-confidence and
knowledge of business. These statements show Michael O’Leary’s proper understanding of
business and confidence on services of RYANAIR.
There are many mixed characteristics of the Michael O’Leary. Some of his characteristics make
him a leader and on other hand some traits are making him a good manager. The combination
of both types of traits makes him different from other larders and managers. The deep analysis
of his traits and characteristics tells us about his personality. To analysis the personality of the
Michael O’Leary we can divide his traits in two parts. The first part is contain the traits which
indicates him a leader and the second part is contain his traits which make him a good manger
and highlights Michael O’Leary’s management skills.

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3.1 Leadership traits of Michael O’Leary:
In this section we will discuss the traits which make him a good leader. The
traits of Michael O’Leary which indicates him as a good leader are as follow.
 Set Clear Goals:
When Michael O’Leary starts his job in RYANAIR Airline, the company was loss
making airline. Through his goal setting and goal achieving ability Michael O’Leary
makes RYANAIR as top European airline.
Attractive
to people
Self
Confidence
GENUINE
FORESIGHT EXPERTISE
High
Standards
VISION
RISK
TAKER
CREATING
VALUE
INITIATOR
Compassion
ate
Set Clear
Goal

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 Compassionate:
Michael O’Leary compassionate by personality. In 2004 he purchases a taxi number
plate for his personal car to enable to show his car as taxi so he can use the bus lane to
avoid the traffic rush. It shows his passion towards his work.
 Self Confidence:
Michael O’Leary has highly self-confident personality. The way he talks and his
statements on public platforms clearly show his self-confidence and self-esteem so high
which makes him a leader. The following statement by Michael O’Leary shows his self-
assurance and his confidence to his company.
 Genuine:
Michael O’Leary is outspoken and his clear statements on public platforms shows his
genuine and loyalty towards his company.
 Attractive to People:
Michael O’Leary attracts people through his personality. His outspoken personality
and self-confidence attract people.
 Initiator:
Michael O’Leary is initiator. He transformed RYANAIR from ordinary airline to most
valuable airline of the Europe. He made RYANAIR as the cheapest and low fares airline
of the world.
 Creating value:
Creating value and innovation is the main characteristic of the Michael O’Leary. He
runs the largest airline of the Europe. He is competing with all his competitors by adding
new ideas and strategies in RYANAIR.
 Expertise:
Michael O’Leary has full knowledge what he is doing and he has expertise in his
field. Michael O’Leary has good experience in his field and he knows about situation
handling and how to create influence in uncertain condition. This trait makes him a good
leader.

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 Risk Taker:
Michael O’Leary is risk taker and likes to create new and innovative way to solve the
problems. He chooses different and smart ways to solve the problem or create new
strategies. The idea of “Cheapest Airline of the world” reflects his different strategic mind
and risk taking nature.
 Vision:
When Michael O’Leary takes responsibilities of the RYANAIR as CEO, It was a low
standard airline with only 450 employees and limited operations. He creates the
structure of the RYANAIR and passionately works for his vision and makes this company
top on the list in Europe. The vision and ability foresight make him to achieve his goals.
 High Standards:
Michael O’Leary believes on the high standards of the work and always projects his
company as the future of the world. On 24 February, 2011 during giving to Newsnight he
said that:
It shows his views about high standards of his company.

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3.2 Management traits of Michael O’Leary:
. Michael O’Leary is more leader than manager but still he has some managers’ traits. The
traits of Michael O’Leary which makes him a manager are as follow:
 Administrator:
Michael O’Leary is a good administrator of RYANAIR. The RYANAIR operates in 33
countries and runs almost 2000 flights on daily bases. In 2017 the RYANAIR has 13,000
employees and fleet size is almost 465 airplanes. Under the administration of Michael O’Leary
the staff of RYANAIR operating successfully and achieving their goals which indicate that
Michael O’Leary is a good Administrator and Manager.
Goal
Oriented
Power and
Control
Aggressive
Problem
Solver
Skilled &
Professional
Administrator
Give
Directions
Rational

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 Skilled and Professional:
Michael O’Leary is highly skilled and professional and understands the importance of
the management. His professionalism towards work, Decision making abilities, deep
knowledge and vast experience of the management makes him a good manager.
 Goal Oriented:
Leaders usually focus on the people but Michael O’Leary is purely goal oriented. He
believes the Staff is the biggest cost for the company.
 Aggressive:
The aggressive nature of the Michael O’Leary makes him different from others. The
way he is talking and the statements he give on public platforms make him a
controversial and the harsh statements against their competitors make him popular in
the airline industry. His popular statement about the airline industry is as follow.
 Rational:
Leaders use their heart to make decisions and go to people for advice but managers
always do what is right according to their calculations and take rational and measured
decision which has least factor of risk. Michael O’Leary as CEO takes rational and
measured decision for the company which makes RYANAIR more successful.
 Give Directions:
Leaders ask for suggestions but managers give directions. Michael O’Leary believes
on giving direction. If we focus on his management style he has authoritarian style of
leadership who always gives instructions to their subordinates.
 Power and Control:
Michael O’Leary believes on authoritarian style of leadership. He controls all powers
and gives instructions to his subordinates, which makes him a good manager.

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4.0 Leadership Style of Michael O’Leary:
Michael O’Leary has many unique and mixed characteristics of the leadership and
management. He is a good leader as well as working as a good manager at the same time. As
a leader Michael O’Leary follows the Autocratic Leadership Style. In autocratic leadership
style leader give instructions to his employees and expect to achieve the goals according to his
plan. There is no advice and suggestions included in the plan.
There are two theories of leadership which are very close to the traits of Michael O’Leary’
personality. These are as follow:
 Authentic Leadership Theory
 Charismatic Leadership Theory
4.1 Authentic Leadership Theory:
Authentic Leadership theory defines as a process where self-discipline, understanding of
the purpose, emotions and high moral values involve. It draws from positive psychological
capabilities and awareness about the organization.
In simple words there are five components involve in authentic Leadership:
 Purpose:
The understanding of the purpose and awareness about the objectives which
requires to achieved. It leads to passion in the work. In case of Michael O’Leary we can
see his passion towards the objective and goals. When he starts working for RYANAIR
the airline was the non-profit business for the owner but after his purpose orientation and
passion makes RYANAIR as no.1 airline in Europe.

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 Emotions:
The emotions and feeling of the person associate with the organization or others.
Michael O’Leary worked with RYANAIR since 1980’s. He is compassionate about
RYANAIR and emotionally attached with the company. The emotional attachment gives
more passionate sense of behavior towards the organization.
 Values:
Leaders should know the ethical values which are directly related to the self-regulations
and behavior towards work ethics. Michael O’Leary strongly understands the values and
it reflects in his behavior, which is too defensive towards RYANAIR.
 Self-Discipline:
Self-Discipline is the main and basic component of the authentic leaders. It leads to
achieve their goals and targets. Michael O’Leary is motivated and self-declined leader by
his work ethics. He focuses on the goals and targets and achieves their goals by
consistency in hard work.
 Relationship:
The trusting relationship with others is the key component for the leaders to achieve
any goal. Michael O’Leary personality leads to goal or task oriented, which automatically
create the trusted relationship between the Michael O’Leary and subordinates.

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4.2 Charismatic Leadership Theory:
The charismatic leadership defines as the leaders hold some exceptions abilities or
traits which attracts the followers and subordinates. These characteristics influence the
followers to be loyal and inspired.
The charismatic leaders gather followers in one platform through their personality, Ability to
speak and internal traits instead of using external power or authority.
In charismatic leadership the personality traits and exceptional abilities of the
leader create the emotion of love or hate in the heart of followers towards the leader.
The personality of Michael O’Leary is controversial in the airline industry because of his
outspoken and unwanted public statements about their competitors but the personality of the
Michael O’Leary is attractive and Michael O’Leary has many followers, although most of the
People hate him because of its behavior but still majority of the follower like to hear about
Michael O’Leary. This is why as a leader Michael O’Leary lies in charismatic Leadership.

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5.0 Problems & Recommendations:
The leadership style of the Michael O’Leary is unique and different, which creates
many positive impacts on the growth of business. RYANAIR growing under is administration
very quickly, but there are some problems which are RYANAIR facing because Michael
O’Leary’s leadership style.
 High Turnover of the Employees
 Mistrust and Lack of benefits by Employees
 Sole decision making without participation of Employees
 Less psychological satisfaction
High Turnover of the Employees:
The high rate of employees leaves RYANAIR because administration of RYANAIR
giving them unsatisfactory facilities, the zero hour contracts and low rate of pay which
demoralize the employees of the RYANAIR. The RYANAIR administration treats their
employees as commodity to reduce their cost. Michael O’Leary needs to consider their
employees as the part of the company otherwise it’s difficult to survive without the experienced
in commercial airline industry in long run period.
Mistrust and Lack of benefits by Employees:
RYANAIR consider their employees as biggest cost on business and not giving any
employee’s benefits. By doing this RYANAIR creating gap between administration and staff and
encouraging mistrust in staff. It’s alarming situation for the organization because as RYANAIR
can’t continue their operations without expert staff. In long run RYANAIR can face uncertain
situation due to their attitude towards their own staff. Michael O’Leary should change his policy
and try to minimize the gap between staff and administration of the RYANAIR.

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Sole decision making without participation of Employees:
Michael O’Leary follows the authoritarian style of leadership and in decision making and
problem solving process there is no participation of the employees. The lack of involvement of
employees in decision making process ultimately impact on their work and creates
communication problems within the organization and also for RYANAIR there are limited
solutions of the problem without participation of the employees and the element of innovation
and new ideas also missing in organization through this limited approach of the employees.
Michael O’Leary needs to change value of employees in his organizational structure.
Less psychological satisfaction:
The psychological situation of the employees of RYANAIR is unsatisfactory;
people do their best and provide productive changes to the organization when they feel safe
and trust by the administration. In RYANAIR organizational structure the employees trade their
time with the money and don’t like to invest their abilities in organization. In long term period it
will create problems for the RYANAIR. Michael O’Leary needs to change his attitude towards
employee and give them opportunity to speak up. It will positively beneficial for the RYANAIR.

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6.0 Learning from Study:
There are many points which I learned from the personality analysis of the Michael O’Leary.
Some points are as follow:
 Give people what they really want for example cheap travel facilities.
 There is no concept of famous and notorious in the business. The publicity makes you
more popular and wealthy.
 A good reputation of the business is not as important as good offers matters to the
customers.
 If you want to change the direction in business, Change it loudly.
 Your competitors are offering low prices you can offer cheapest.
 Price matters more than service in Airline industry.
 Your company is always right.
7.0 Conclusion:
The personality of Michael O’Leary is complex and mixed type in nature. Michael O’Leary
can run RYANAIR by same strategy but RYANAIR needs to change its organizational structure
for the long term growth because with the current organizational structure RYANAIR can’t
survive in the long run.

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