Final answer:
Gary Kelly, as CEO, performs a decisional managerial role, which involves setting strategy and making key organizational decisions. This aligns with an Authoritarian leadership style where communication flows from the top down.
Step-by-step explanation:
CEO Gary Kelly, in setting the direction and strategy for Southwest Airlines, is performing a decisional managerial role. The decisional role encompasses activities such as developing strategy, making important decisions affecting the organization, and allocating resources to achieve goals. This is in contrast to interpersonal roles that involve interactions with employees and other stakeholders, informational roles that involve the processing and dissemination of information, and other specific roles that do not apply in this case. Type A (Authoritarian) group leadership is characterized by a communication pattern that flows from the top down. This style is closely associated with the decisional role of a CEO like Gary Kelly, where the leader makes decisions independently and passes those decisions down the hierarchy for implementation.