Many of these levels of empowerment are found at SWA. SWA employees,
including flight attendants, customer service reps, and baggage handlers, are
encouraged to take whatever action they deem necessary to meet customer
needs or help fellow workers ± even if it means breaking company policies (Noe
et al., 1997). If employees make mistakes in judgement, the employees are not
punished, but given feedback on how to improve the next time. In fact, errors
are sometimes celebrated with the intent of turning failures into personal