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In recent years we've gotten used to stories about the departure of top executives. Some have gone out under pressure. Some have been shown the door for nonperformance. Some have backed out defending their high salaries. Some have left in handcuffs.

But Herb Kelleher went out as Chairman of Southwest Airlines the way we'd all like to go. The Dallas Morning News has the best coverage in a piece titled "Tears, kisses mark Herb Kelleher's send-off at Southwest Airlines."

There were mounds of praise, waves of praise. Southwest's unions even got into the act. That's not something you see every day.

Members of the unions filled the room, not to protest, but to say think you. The pilot's union took out a full page ad in USA Today to thank him for his leadership. The flight attendants handed out recipe cards with "Herb’s ingredients for fostering positive labor/management relations and Herb’s simple recipe for success."

He's been successful. There have been decades of profits. Southwest Airlines has been among the top airlines in customer service since the FAA started keeping records. But he didn't start out to be an airline executive.

Herb Kelleher was an attorney in private practice when he helped birth Southwest Airlines in the regulated times of the early 1970s, even working for free part of the time. He became Chairman of the airline because the previous chairman got in a fight with the board. That was over thirty years ago.

What strikes me most, looking at Kelleher's tenure at Southwest isn't what pops up in so many stories. I love Wild Turkey, too, but I don't think it makes either of us a better manager. I think it's great that he once spoofed the litigation process and arm-wrestled another CEO for the rights to a slogan, but that doesn't have anything to do with the real lessons we can learn from Herb.

We can learn about how perceived value in the target market is a way to profitability. Herb and the other founder, Rollin King, set out a simple idea: "If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline."

Anybody can say that. Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines have lived it.

Being "the low-fare airline" means building your system and making your choices around that notion. You choose your airports, your routes, your planes and your practices based on your goal. And you hang on to the basic idea when analysts tell you that there might be more marginal profit in changing.

Everybody says that people are their most important asset. I don't know that Herb Kelleher ever actually said that, but he sure has lived it. Southwest made its first profit in 1973, even while it was still engaged in legal battles that went to the Supreme Court.

They immediately established the first profit-sharing program among US airlines. Herb thought there were going to keep being profitable. He wanted Southwest's people to share in those profits.

That was the first of 35 consecutive years of profitability. Long time employees have done very well with that combination of profits and profit sharing. A New York Times article about Southwest a couple of years ago was headlined: "On Some Flights, Millionaires Serve the Drinks."

Southwest hasn't just offered profit sharing and some of the highest wages in the industry. The company is known for encouraging employees to be what they are and let their personality show. That's why those occasionally hilarious announcements you sometimes get on a Southwest flight aren't part of some program cooked up by the folks in PR. They're the expression of individual people.

Kelleher has talked the talk that many executives chatter on about. But he's also walked the walk. He has a lot of business savvy and discipline, but he also knows that business is a people thing. You can almost imagine him listening to another Texan, Willie Nelson, and singing his own words, "The life I love is making money with my friends."

So at the end of Herb Kelleher's last meeting as Chairman of Southwest Airlines it all came back to people His words are best:

"I'm Lucky Herbie for having all of these years with all of you....who have been wellspring of my business life for so long. Wonderful, beautiful people to be with. I have consistently described the people of Southwest as my fountain of youth. I know I look like a basset hound, but I'm still young inside."

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.