Leadership Styles of Sir Richard Branson - Chairman from Virgin Group - Case Study Example

? Sir Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin Group Ltd. Sir Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin Group Ltd Branson’s leadership styles and the evaluation of the likely effectiveness of those styles in the U.S. today. Richard Branson is regarded as one of the successful leaders or entrepreneurs of United Kingdom, as he has established a large conglomerate called Virgin Group of companies. From his early life, Branson has been exhibiting strong leadership traits. Having under-performed in his formal education, Branson jumped into business at a young age of 16, when he launched a student newspaper called simple Student. From those humble beginnings, Virgin has developed into a major conglomerate with over 400 businesses or companies operating in number of business sectors. In the business circles, the talk is there may be not many business sectors, in which Virgin has not made his mark. “Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow successful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays and health & wellness.” (Virgin, n. d.). Among other factors, this optimal growth is primarily due to the leadership of Richard Branson, particularly the combination of transformational as well as authentic style of leadership. Under these style, leaders will provide the employees under them maximum autonomy to plan as well as implement the various organizational processes. (Avolio and Yammarino, 2002). By adopting decentralization structure or even democratic form of management, these authentic as well as transformational leaders will productively involve employees in all stages of organizational management, giving them optimum responsibilities. This form of leadership was prominently visible in Branson, when he launched those 400 odd companies. When an idea for a business arises in his mind or comes from others, Branson starts that enterprise by maintaining a controlling interest in it, and then will manage it in the initial phase. After the company starts to function in a steady manner, he will delegate leadership roles to the second rung leaders and will move on. This process of delegation and productively involving the employees was pointed out by Branson himself. He stated, “I come up with the original idea, spend the first three months immersed in the business so I know the ins and outs and then give chief executives a stake in the company and ask them to run it as if it’s their own,” (Sukhiy, 2007). This combination of authentic and transformational leadership styles can be aptly applied in United States, because with most of the prospective employees coming out of the current effective academic environment exhibiting entrepreneurial skills as well as willingness to take responsibilities, this style can be aptly applied business leaders in U.S. In addition, as these leadership styles can elevate the motivation levels of the employees and bring out their best, it can be adopted. Thus, if these leadership styles are followed in U.S., organizations there can diversify or expand their operations optimally, as the leaders can initiate new processes and just oversee them, by giving maximum responsibilities to their employees, who will take it to the logical and positive end. 2. Recommending a different leadership style that would make Branson an even more effective leader. Although from the above discussion of Branson’s leadership traits it is clear that he has maximally exhibited effective traits, there are room for improvement in some of his traits. One of the optimal traits of Branson is having a great vision. Because of such a vision, Branson takes high number of risks, when it comes to launching new companies or products or services. That is, without fully analyzing the product’s feasibility and success, Branson has impulsively launched many products or services, and sizable of them have ended in failures. Some of the examples, Virgin Cola, launched as a competitor to Coca-Cola, Virgin Pulse, launched to compete with Apple’s iPod, etc. This being the case, it could be better if Branson as part of situational leadership style functions according to the demands of the situation. The main concept behind this situational leadership is leaders should adapt and act according to the ability and efforts of the employees, and importantly based on the course an organization takes, after the leader has initiated certain strategies. That is, instead of blindly flowing a single strategy, situational leaders will keep their mind open, so that they will first look at the situations in hand and then adopt apt strategy from an array of strategies. On those lines, Richard Branson instead of following a single strategy of launching as many companies or brands as possible should analyze how the newly launched existing companies are fairing, and then take the decisions based on the changing situations. This way he can take minimum risks, particularly avoiding the risk of directly competing with already established strong brands, although he may have a great vision for it. On the same lines, it is crucial that Branson should focus and build his business, so it survives and succeeds in the long term. One of the criticisms leveled against Branson is that he is only concerned about making a short splash, instead of building something concrete and longstanding. This being the case, it would be better if Branson gives more focus to his newer initiatives till it strengthens and is ready for a long haul. 3. Branson’s development and leading of a global team When Branson had to develop and lead a global team to work on a major project, he will without doubt follow certain strategies. These strategies can be gleaned from how he has previously handled various teams during his management at Virgin. One of the key strategies, he will implement is actualizing a barrier-free communication channels, so that all the ‘stakeholders’ of the global team including employees can air their views, grievances and also suggestions. In that direction, he will go to the extent of giving access to his personal contact details including his contact number as well as his residential address. Through these channels, not only employees but also customers and also other interested parties can pass on their viewpoints about that project. Branson supports this form of open communication channel by pointing out, “With Virgin, we make decisions on the phone. If you've got a good idea and I like it, you can get on with it.” (Sukhiy, 2007). Normally, employees in a team will get de-motivated, if their grievances and also their ideas for improvement are not listened and acted by the management. Thus, Branson by implementing open communication channels, he will facilitate all the members of the team to approach him and give their valuable suggestions, as well as criticisms. The other strategy or even key leadership trait that he will exhibit while developing and managing a global team is optimally inspiring them. In the case of Branson, he not only inspired the employees in his organization, but even inspired individuals in faraway countries to initiate their entrepreneurial ventures. As Branson began as an entrepreneur and became a successful leader, he inspired few Indian management graduates to start an enterprise of their own. That is, inspired by a line, “look around your life. If there is any process that can be improved, it could be the next big business idea”, found in Branson’s autobiography, Phanindra, Charan and Sudhakar started an online bus ticket booking portal named redBus. (Chatterjee, n. d.). As he is able to inspire people crossing borders, he will be able to surely inspire all members of the global team, based not only on earlier achievements, but through his actions and words. 4. Incorporation of some of Branson’s leadership qualities discussed here into my role at work From the above analysis, it is clear that Branson has exhibited number of effective leadership traits as part of organizational management, among which all or sizable of them can be incorporated into any work environment including mine. The key leadership style of Transformational leadership can be adopted, when I reach leadership positions. I fully understood how adopting democratic and participatory style of management as part of transformational leadership, and thereby giving responsibilities to the employees and encouraging them can lead to better output from the employees. Leaders productively involve the employees particularly during decision making processes. When the employees are made to participate during the decision making process, and asked to give their ideas and suggestions, they will be motivated to give their best. That is, by this act of the leader, the employees will understand how they are and importantly their ideas are being valued by the leader. In addition, if their ideas or suggestions are accepted, the employees will achieve optimum satisfaction and will be highly motivated to actualize that idea. Because of such a possibility, I intend to adopt the transformational leadership style in my work environment or when I get elevated to leadership positions. The other key leadership trait of looking forward with great vision was another leadership trait, I intend to adopt. Branson exhibited this trait quite early. That is, after running the newspaper for few years and featuring advertisements for music records, Branson understood that there is high demand for popular music records. Due to that demand and opportunity, Branson looked forward with a great vision and that only resulted in the establishment of the record music business called Virgin Music. In addition, if the leader has a strong vision, it will also transfer to the employees. This perspective comes under the Organizational support theory because this theory states that if the leader has a great vision, the employees for their part will share that vision of leader and importantly will extend their fullest support for the actualization of that vision. Thus, by having great vision, without any skepticism, I can not only come up new steps for the organization, but also make the employees share my strategies, when I reach leadership positions. Effective leaders can only ‘assemble’ effective set of employees, focus them on the organizational objectives as well as their personal tasks, and then motivate them to accomplish those tasks, thereby making them contribute to the organizational success. The other set of traits that make a leader into an effective one include exhibition of honesty, having forward looking mindset, inspiring other and showcase competence in various organizational process. With Branson coming under that category of effective leaders, observing and absorbing many of his leadership traits can positively influence my career. References Avolio, B. J. and Yammarino, F. J. (2002). Transformational and Charismatic leadership: The Road Ahead. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.. Chatterjee, S. (n. d.). BITSian Entrepreneur Showcase. Retrieved from: http://sandpaper.bitsaa.org/archives/links/SandpaperFall2006/13_entrepreneurs/showc ase.html Sukhiy, I. (2007). Richard Branson, the Founder of Virgin Group. Retrieved from: http://www.good2work.com/article/34 Virgin. (n. d.). About Us. Retrieved from: http://www.virgin.com/about-us Read More