Richard Branson Leadership Style Analysis

Key elements of Richard Branson’s leadership style and the impact of the elements on his business.

Concrete element

Branson’s leadership style encourages leaders to be specific, confident and concrete when addressing their investors. A message map can be used by leaders to craft confident and concrete story for a business. A leader has to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the business concept and lay out the procedure for offering something new and deliver healthy returns on the investments (Branson, 2011).This creates an impact on winning the trust of an investor by actually avoiding the phrases and language that make an investor doubt and distrust the business intentions.

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Prove that growth is sustainable

This element of Branson’s leadership style explains that nothing stays the same for a long time so leaders should be able to explain into details on how they are planning to tackle the inevitablemarket shifts and technological change that is coming their way. Partners and investors needs to understand the surroundings in which they are working on in selling their products. This can be achieved by starting with a problem before focusing on the solution because every great story has a protagonist. The leader needs to take some humble time to explain how the product will be a solution to the problem.

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Be unapologetically disruptive

Branson’s leadership style focuses on the passionate business people who understand the competition in business arena. Entrepreneurs should emphatically explain how they would give their customers better deals than their competitors by actually believing that passion for disrupting the status quo is the main component of charisma and for one to be successful then you need to be passionate on what you do. This can also be done by showing and making the investors feel that they are the right people to work within your business. The easiest and best way to show them that the business has bench strength is by sharing the stage.

Unique Aspects of Richard Branson’s Leadership Style.

Branson’s informal style and unconventional attitude has made the Virgin group successful despite the many facets. The greatestBranson’s business attribute has been the affinity to the hippie movement which allows him to project the Virgin brand as a good alternative in the market. The fact that Virgin group is described as the fast growing entrepreneurial company, it tends retain its employees despite the fact that employee retention has become a problem today to many HRs and organizations. Branson’s style of leadership doesn’t not regard money as measure to retain workers instead it considers that the culture in which the employees embrace and work with motivates their work spirit thus leads to the success of the organization because everyone loves, enjoys and feels proud to be part of the organization (Kelly, 2010).

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Branson’s leadership style has an aspect on the reputational branding of an organization rather than the traditional branding. The Virgin Company is well known for quality, innovation, fun to work and adventure despite the many facets to the group. The Virgin Company has thrived in the business world because of the attitude it has on the marketing strategies. His style of leadership believes that marketing can be done everywhere and anywhere by actually using less to advertize and market products.

However, Branson’s leadership puts the organizations interest first among other things even if it means making one looks like a fool (Lussier & Achua, 2010).This is done by not making people follow blindly rather giving them the liberty to reason and think and the freedom to create and chose what they want and need.

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Ways in which Richard Branson Motivates Employees

Organizing company events

Richard Bransonis likely to engage his employees by inviting them to take part in organization eventssuch as team building activities, along with giving them the opportunity to give back to the community. This allows the organization to give thanks to the customer and the workers by providing them with the opportunity to have fun for free. This sense of fun tends to unite the organization and motivate the employees to work as a team in order to achieve the business goals and mission (Henry, 2011).

This approach can work in different organizational setting  because team building tends to create cohesion and unity in the organization where by employees come together through different activities thus motivate them to achieve the organization goals and vision.

Giving employees the platform to air the views on issues or ideas that have been concepted by top management.

Richard Branson uses concepts such as management by walking around (MBWA)thus interacting with his employees at a personal level. This makes him aware of what and where his employees are not contented with thus working on the issues he has collected (Kelly, 2010). Employees’ discontentment would arise from poor working conditions, oppression from top management and poor facilities.

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In return if such issues would be looked into employees would be motivated since their leader creates a platform to address their grievances and makes it a concern of his own. Further MBWA creates approachability in that employees see the leader as a person not as a boss thus makes them free to tell you their issues and views.

This concept can also be used in different organization setting where employees morale are boosted and make them feel better about their jobs when they are heard by their managers. This motivates the employees on achieving the organizations goal and makes them more accountable to their duties (Lussier & Achua, 2010).

The effectiveness of Richard Branson’s ability to articulate and communicate his visions

Richard Branson uses his knowledge and skills on communication to effectively address his organization vision to his employees and stakeholders. Since communication is two-way traffic, Branson tends to communicate his vision to employees and stakeholders expecting them to give a feedback on the same but in a different way by actually attaining and achieving the organization vision, mission and goals.

The fact that Richard is goal oriented he is able to communicate his business goals to his staff and stakeholder effectively by actually using his communication skills to address his vision in a way that everyone in the organization would feel part and proud to be associated with the Branson business(Branson, 2011).

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Since communication is dynamic, Richard tends to embrace change as it comes thus come up with new technologies and methods to communicate his business vision to the employees. He further communicates and educates his employees on the new changes and how they could work as a team to achieve the business vision and goals.

Branson ability to communicate and articulate his organizational vision and goals comes from the fact that communication is inevitable and it’s the backbone of every organization success. The only way to address his business vision was through communication by using different media such as broadcast and print media. He further organizes workshops and meetings to his staff and stakeholders reminding them of the organization vision and mission (Henry, 2011).

Criteria to Evaluate Richard Branson Leadership Style

Finding from employees

I would use this criteria to assess Richard Branson leadership style by questioning or holding interviews with his employees in order for me as a manager to be able to evaluate his style of leadership and if it can work for me.  As an incoming manager I would draw my conclusion that he is a good leader who lived by example in everything he did. In other words he walked the talk and I would actually embrace that as a leader and follow his footsteps in the virgin group.

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Conducting a financial audit.

This criterion would enable me to evaluate Branson style of leadership by conducting a financial audit whereby I will be able to evaluate if his style of leadership is concurrent with his financial status. Whether there is a steady financial flow or a stagnant flow of finances. By doing so, I will be able to gauge if I can take part in his managerial team (Kelly, 2010).

This form of leadership would make me draw a conclusion on how Branson uses his financial resources and the effectiveness of his leadership style on the income generation of the organization. As a leader I would embrace this leadership style in the organization and use it to generate more income.

 Job analysis

This criterion would enable me to understand his leadership style, values and rules that help govern the Virgin organization group by comparing them with my own personal beliefs and values that I uphold thus enabling me to make a decision as to whether I would want to proceed with his form of leadership or bring about changes that would work better for me as the manager of Virgin group and the organization as a whole.

Since I will be the manager of the Virgin group, I will draw a conclusion that as a leader I am required to be opened minded and liberal in terms of values and beliefs and that every individual in the organization is considered.

Richard Branson as a global leader

I believe that Branson does not focus on hierarchical form of management rather he embraces nonhierarchical way of management. He believes every personnel in the organization have the capability of handling the organization tasks. This makes him a global leader in a way that his staff comes first followed by his customers and lastly the stakeholders. This form of management describes his company as a friendly organization where every person enjoys themselves(Henry, 2011).

Branson is also a global leader by the fact that he thinks and acts irregardless of the outcome. Branson develops important principles that really guide his success.  He believes in risk taking whether the idea is trending or not. This can be seen on how he could make a business run by the end of day after conceptualizing the idea in the morning for example the Virgin Atlantic Airline.

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Prediction of Richard Branson’s success in five years

Branson will continue to be a successful leader because his leadership styles are unique and by the fact that he embraces new innovations and technology makes him thrive as a business person. He not only uses business as a talent but he also seeks further education to enhance his management skills. His success does not depend solely on him but rather on his employees, stakeholders and customers ideas by accepting and embracing them (Lussier & Achua, 2010).He further takes advantage of his popularity to advertise and market his organization even to the potential customers thus creating awareness of its existence.

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