Richard Branson Analysis Leader Critique

A Critique of the Leadership Style of Sir Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson makes an excellent example of an interesting leader to study. Branson's parents provided a relatively unique upbringing and raised him to be as independent as possible. For example, his mother was a stewardess for an airline and also a performer who would create challenging games for her children to play. She would do things like drop off a young Richard Branson in a field close to their hose and make him find his own way home. Another example is that she would tell him to ride his bike to the next town over and then find his way home again (Finkle, 2011). His parents also preached the values of free thought and encouraged him to make his own opinions about life but distilled the importance of hard work as a way to achieve personal goals.

Despite all of the interesting stories related to Branson's upbringing, he faced many individual challenges that made a normal life impossible. Branson was dyslexic, nearsighted, and unable to read at age eight and he eventually dropped out of school by the age of 16 (Finkle, 2011). Yet despite the problems he had in the classroom, Branson did excel in many other areas of life. Branson was great at competitive sports for example. Also, he worked hard to find creative ways to overcome his early challenges with dyslexia that have undoubtedly benefited him as an adult. Branson's instincts and intuitions are thought to be a result of this.

Branson's career in the business world began when he started with a student newspaper. The paper was able to grow its readership from merger resources to a customer base that consisted of roughly one hundred thousand readers. However, he made is name with the establishment of Virgin Records. Branson was able to book many of the top talents and quickly capture market share in the record industry. Many of his companies today also have Virgin in the names such as Virgin Airlines.

Branson is most famously known for his outlandish personality and his adventurous and flamboyant spirit. For example, he has sailed long distances in boats and hot air balloons to gain publicity for certain causes. One highly publicized event that he hosted was with amphibious vehicles. He often appears with models when he is promoting his companies or seen on the news. However, these tactics do not detract from his business career and for entrepreneurial activities the United Kingdom officially added "Sir" to his name making him honorary royalty for his service to their country.

Transformational Leadership

"Life is short; one has to make the most of it. Thus, do things that you like. If your work and your hobby are the same, you will work long hours because you are motivated." Richard Branson (Finkle, 2011)

The leadership model that seems to fit Sir Richard Branson the best is the transformational leadership model. Transformational leadership has been noted as one of the most popular models of leadership and has been correlated to organizational success and employee satisfaction. This style of a leader is known to encourage their teams to reach their full potential by setting challenging expectations which into turn leads to the team achieve higher performances (Bass, 1999). Transformational leaders are known to be well suited for times of organizational change because they can create and share a vision that helps employees overcome uncertainty and their natural resistance to change.

The definition of transformational leadership also allows for it encompass a moral component that can be the source of inspiration. A visionary leader can frame things in a way that allows employees to transform their personal goals into the broader organizational goals. If employees are inspired then they typically are willing to devote their full energy and resources into the organization. This seems to be an accurate portrayal of Richard Branson. Throughout his career he has been able to create and share his vision for companies and create a disruptive force in any industry he targets. This is built upon his abilities to be an effective communicator and inspire people to challenge the status quo.

The transformational leadership models defines a transformational leader in their ability to motivate followers to perform their best, sets challenging expectations, and is typically rewarded with higher performances from their employees. Bass defined transformational leadership as a leader's ability to push followers beyond their direct self-interests like what would be expected of a transactional leader (Bass, 1985). A transformational leader is said to be able to raise an employee's level of maturity, elevate his or her ideals, as well as his...

All of these descriptions seem to represent Branson's leadership style and one of his latest projects has been to "democratize access to space for the benefit of life on Earth" with Virgin Galactic (Virgin Galactic, N.d.).
There are four main components of transformational leadership that have been associated with transformational leadership. Idealized influence refers to a leader's skills to uphold an idealized perception from their subordinates. Branson has been known to build a sense of dedication in his organizations by most. However, some people are also turned-off by Branson's outlandish personality and egotism. Another component, inspirational motivation, reflects a leader's ability to communicate an inspiring organizational vision which displays enthusiasm, optimism, and commitment to goals. Virgin Galactic and its vision certainly embody all of these aspects.

Another component, intellectual stimulation, deals with a leader's ability to encourage followers to actively question assumptions and look for creative solutions to various organizational problems. Although Branson has many educational challenges, he relies on other tools and is always seeking creative solutions to organizational problems or industry problems. The final component is individualized attention which is how much time a leader can devote to each individual employee. Although Branson does spend a considerable amount of time with some employees, this is definitely his weakest component in the model. It was said he completely ignored Virgin Records while he was trying to build Virgin Airlines

Discussion

Sir Richard Branson's greatest leadership qualities are his charisma, ability to motivate, and his ability to communicate a vision. His companies have been a disruptive force in virtually every industry they operate in. Branson seems to be more of a visionary than transactional or managerial. His visions have inspired his companies to constantly innovate to build value. Branson has even developed various multi-media formats to communicate his vision with his companies so that he can deliver messages in new ways.

Being able to be inspirational and create a vision for a company does not necessarily guarantee success however. The leader must also be able to translate the vision into a reality. Branson has been known to work excessively long hours trying to find solutions to operating issues in Virgin Airlines. There are instances when being overly ambitious with a vision can also is counterproductive and this seems to have also been a challenge for Branson at serval points in his career. If the goals set out are seemingly impossible then this can create discontent and low morale in an organization which seems to have been the case at Virgin Airlines in many instances as possibly some of the other companies.

Richard Branson's leadership style is also portrayed as bold and radical as well. This image of him can create a source of tension between him and many potential investors or even customers which also serves as a drawback. Branson can be a polarizing figure and this can exclude many people from wanting to cooperate with him. For example, Virgin Airlines went public at one point in order to raise capital and was unable to meet its financial targets. Virgin Airlines actually later bought back much of the company in order to retain ownership and the airlines ability to raise capital has been questionable ever since.

Furthermore, Branson's leadership style is effective but not in every situation and he has been criticized continuously. However, it is difficult to tell how many of the criticism are directed at Branson because they don't like him personally or they have legitimate business criticisms. For the critics that have responded that he is over diversified, Branson responded in an interview (Blodget, 2014):

"It's interesting. When we started diversifying from student magazines to records, from records to airlines, there were big headlines saying, "Will Branson's balloon burst? He's stretching the brand too far." Fortunately, we ignored them. We built up what I would call a "Way of Life" brand, a brand that has overcome my frustrations in lots of different areas."

Branson preaches the importance of culture over strategy and not to take yourself too seriously which is embedded in his "Way of Life" brand.

Branson's own shortcomings are also known by him and he himself talks about them quiet openly. He states that he overcomes them with the "art of delegation" (Blodget, 2014):

"I learned very early on the art of delegation. The best bit of advice I think…