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Airbus Leadership: Tom Enders Is Flying High

This article is more than 9 years old.

He called it “a pretty good year,” but Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders could barely contain his glee at announcing the company’s 2014 record annual results last week in Munich, where the German headquarters of the pan-European company is located (the group HQ are in Toulouse, France). In line with his leadership philosophy, he is struggling to be humble in front of the media.

Thing is, Enders actually does have something to crow about: Airbus 2014 revenues up 5% to 60.7-Billion Euros (nearly $80_Billion USD at last year’s exchange rate); EBIT up 54% to 4.0-Billion Euros with a 6.7% return on sales; earnings per share up 61% to 2.99-Euros (despite a 551-Million Euro charge on problems with the company’s A400M military transport turboprop), and positive free cash flow of 2-Billion Euros. All-in-all a record year for the15-year-old company, an industrial symbol of European unity.

Them vs. Us

Though Enders told reporters at the news conference that “ Boeing is not the example to follow for us,” it is impossible not to make the comparison with the American juggernaut, as the two companies have been going head-to-head at least in the commercial aircraft market since Airbus became an international reality in 2000 when EADS (European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co - a title that gave marketing directors migraines) was created as a parent pan-European aerospace company. And the best gauge of that competition is in the order books: in 2014 Airbus took orders for 1,456 new jets while Boeing took orders for 1,432; Boeing’s backlog shows 5800 planes to be built, while Airbus has 6386 to make.

Enders showed up at the news conference in a Bavarian jacket – well-cut, but nevertheless unmistakably nationalistically German – an unusual move for an executive publicly intent on maintaining an equilibrium between the several countries involved in the evolved Airbus Group, as it has been called officially since shareholder approval was given for the name change in May, 2014.

The new name reflects a new corporate governance that separates governments from the company’s business-focused board of directors – a structure that had been crafted in anticipation of the proposed purchase of BAE, the British aerospace company, by EADS a few years ago. That merger never went through, but the corporate structure was adapted by EADS anyway; the company divided along business lines (civilian aviation, military, and helicopters) rather than national ones, and the company officially became Airbus Group . It is no longer, as Boeing is still wont to say, “government-run.”

Today Airbus has nearly 140,000 employees of more than 80-nationalities, working in 160 locations, including in the US (Mobile, Alabama, and Wichita, Kansas, for example). While the company has today shed the stultifying burden of egalitarian administration (half French, half German, with the other countries represented marginally), Enders’ tenure at the head of the group has been an exercise in international diplomacy. To begin with, his series of titles: CEO of Airbus Group since June 2012; before that CEO of the Airbus unit under EADS since 2007, and before that “co-CEO” of EADS from 2005…you see how this has evolved.

Before joining the aerospace industry, Enders was part of the planning task force of the German Defense Ministry and a member of several think tanks. His education took him to UCLA after the University of Bonn where he studied economics, political science and history. The California lifestyle, he says, suited his love of the outdoors.

So it’s not surprising that Enders is often asked to speak about leadership on an international scene. And therein we learn something valuable about leadership as he sees it.

Ten Tenets

A few years ago, just before being appointed head of then-EADS, he addressed

the USAir Force Academy’s National Character and Leadership Symposium, “Follow directions,” he says, “but challenge decisions; success depends on the ability to innovate and to engage a passionate workforce.” He went on to make ten points about leadership:

  1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence and courage;
  2. Lead from the front: “follow me” and then led the way;
  3. Develop your team: build, mentor, lead by example;
  4. Get out there: get to grips with issues first-hand;
  5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their job;
  6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles;
  7. Remain humble: don’t worry about getting credit and don’t let power and authority go to your head.
  8. Take a moment for self-reflection;
  9. Stay in shape: physical stamina brings mental strength;
  10. Hang tough and never, ever give up.

He exercised some of those principles at the Munich press conference, fielding a few political footballs. A reporter from Spain asked if the Spanish government had been informed of anticipated changes in Airbus’s leadership and procurement in the troubled A400M military transport. Enders’ reply was to the point: “I’ve seen these articles circulating in the Spanish press about the idea that skills and capabilities in military aircraft are being transferred from Spain to Germany. That’s absolute nonsense.”

And a question from a journalist for the Italian news service about the future of the Airbus relationship with the Italian industrial group Finmeccanica . Enders replies with praise for the Italian company but doesn’t give away any specifics as to the joint venture the two companies have in missiles and helicopters, .and ends by praising Finmeccanica’s new leadership: “(Mauro) Moretti brings really fresh air to this important aerospace company in Europe.”

As to the future of his own company, the CEO of Airbus Group sees a pretty solid year ahead in terms of revenue, orders, cash flow and the new medium-long haul Airbus A350 XWB, delivered to Qatar Airways at the end of last year, and n commercial service as of January of this year. He also has an eye on the competition. ”Coming in second in a duopoly is not a silver medal, it’s a defeat,” he told an audience in Munster earlier this year, referring to the Boeing-Airbus rivalry. “I don’t underestimate (Boeing CEO) Jim McNerney…but I certainly hope he underestimates me!”