Introduction
Sir Richard Branson is one of the world’s most fascinating, triumphant, and enduring entrepreneurial business leaders of twenty first century. In the wake of uncertainty, global turmoil, and institutional volatility, his business model remains unshaken and forward marching. Evidence shows that Branson is a leader who knows where to direct his resources. This essay provides an overview of Richard Branson’s organisational leadership style.
Findings and Discussion
Richard Branson was born in Stowe in the United Kingdom in 1950. At the age of 16, he dropped out of school and started his first business venture a student magazine paper. In the 1970s, Branson started a mail-order business before he shifted to record labelling (Kets De Vries 1998). Two years later, the business expanded to the Virgin Records. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Virgin Records grew extensively and Branson established the Virgin Atlantic Airways. At the same time, he started the Virgin Record Label in the US (Kets De Vries 1998). He also established the Virgin Galactic. Today, the Virgin brand boasts of more than 200 diverse businesses (Kets De Vries 1998).
Richard Branson’s Business Philosophy
Organisational Theory (Classical and Human Relations Schools)
Richard Branson’s business philosophy is based on the human relations framework that is described by the organisational theory (Chang 2014). The school focuses on issues that pertain to communication, leadership, motivation, and group behaviour. It posits that managers should possess appropriate skills to enable them diagnose the causes of human behaviour, interpersonal communication, motivation, and leadership at the workplace (Chang 2014). Branson recognises the power of ensuring employee freedom and respect. He regards sovereignty as the stepping-stone of his success. He also adopts a democratic form of management where there are no established hierarchies. This phenomenal organisation underpins employee flexibility (Chang 2014). The overall result of this mode of organisation is employee motivation, innovation, and sustainable production. Nonetheless, Branson acknowledges the adverse effects bureaucratic management systems.
Perspectives of Organisational Structure (Mechanistic, Organic, and Contingency Approach)
Contingency theorists view organisations as either mechanistic or organic. A mechanistic organisation is greatly structured and decisions are typically made from a central authority. The organisational structure is characterised by narrow spans of control, formal procedures and practices, and specialisation of functions. On the other hand, organic organisation is characterised by a flat organisational structure with a wide span of control and relatively less formalised practices and procedures. There are low levels of specialisation, and decision-making is highly decentralised (Cameron & Green 2008).
Richard Branson business philosophy adopts the organic structure rather than mechanistic where the CEOs and managers at different business groups exercise autonomy in making decisions based on how they perceive particular business situations at hand. With this approach, Branson believes that giving such freedom just as they themselves enjoy at the top boosts will enable them to take on projects that other brands cannot (Cameron & Green 2008).
The premise of contingency approach is that organisations consist of not only tasks to be performed, but also people to perform them, both in the same environment. The tasks need to be carried out while people try to grow and develop. Contingency Theory tries to get the best fit between task, people and environment with an emphasis on the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation. Richard Branson’s Virgin group applies this approach too when by giving employees the opportunity to grow and develop themselves at work.
Richard Branson Leadership
Trait Theory
The trait theory asserts that people are born with qualities that are stable across time and situations, and which differentiate leaders from non-leaders (Brown 1999). Trait theorists believed that leadership was contingent to certain physical features and personality characteristics. Trait theorists posit that certain demographic variables such as age, gender, height, weight, and ethnicity are the underlying factors that determine leadership capabilities of people. According to Scully (2008), the difference between those of us who emerge as outstanding leaders and those of us who are always destined to follow is an undying drive for achievement, honesty, and integrity, and an ability to share and to motivate people towards common goals.
Such people have confidence in their own abilities as well as intelligence, business savvy, creativity, and an ability to adapt to ever-changing environments. Richard Branson is a participative leader and practices openness to experience and believes in honesty and daring Inspiration (Scully 2008).
His personality traits include self-confidence, trustworthiness, and high level of humility, authenticity, enthusiasm, optimism, and warmth. The limitation of the trait theory is that it tends to miss the point. In reality, there is little evidence to support the notion that leaders are born with special traits that non-leaders lack. Many characteristics for good leaders stem from social norms and culture. Richard Branson strengths lie in his great passion for work and the people. He is courageous, flexible, and adaptive, self-management, self-awareness, and a high degree of social awareness (Branson 2008).
Behavioural Theory
The behavioural theory of leadership is concerned with observable behaviour. According to behavioural theorists, one either acts like a leader or does not. In contrast with traits theory, it implies that if we can observe how leaders act, we can codify and measure this behaviour, find out ways to teach it, and help to develop future leaders (Branson 2008).
Two underlying behavioural structures characterise leadership in the organisation. There is an orientation towards interacting and relating to other persons and task. A characteristic of Richard Branson is his relationship with employees at the Virgin group. Key practices include employee centeredness, relationship with people, concern for people and task orientation such as concern for production and task cantered approaches to business. The major weakness of the behaviourist theory is that it is concerned only with observable behaviour and ignores frequently unobserved intentions. People’s thoughts and intentions cannot be observed through social cues, and these can be covered behind observable behaviour (Goffee & Jones 2006).
Situational Theory
The argument of this theory is that situations can either make or break leadership. A leader who confronts a critical situation at one point can be unfit to handle a different case at later time. The situational leadership model holds that most appropriate leadership style depends on the amount of emotional support followers require in conjunction with the level of readiness to do their jobs. Richard Branson is an opportunist (Cameron & Green 2008). His virgin group studies market needs and defines a strategic plan on how to organise his employees to create and fill market gaps. Therefore, he chooses the right people who fit well in implementing projects regarding the new opportunities and business contexts. Nevertheless, transformational leadership is only effective in times of transition or change. Therefore, its strength is limited to situations involving changes (Cameron & Green 2008).
Comparison with other Leaders
Comparing leadership styles of Richard Branson and Ted Turner has a charismatic leadership style. He is a non-conformist leader who focuses on originality of ideologies and the future. Considered a rebel in the business world, Tuner regularly extends his business into areas that he has no expertise. His ventures range from cable companies, sports franchises, ranching, and restaurant business. This situation is evidently his visionary leadership quality as he transforms old mental paradigms by creating strategies that mismatch with conformist reflection.
On the hand, Richard Branson is a transformational leader. His style of leadership creates a vision to guide change through inspiration. He executes the change with the commitment of the members of the group (Scully 2008). This form of leadership is concerned with improving the performance of followers individually to their fullest potential. Branson augments the motivation, morale, and performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms including connecting the follower’s sense of identity and self to the project and the collective identity of the organisation (Dauphinais & Price 1998).
Conclusion
Richard Branson continues to maintain a warm relationship with the employees and executives. Besides building his Multi-Virgin business from the scratch, Branson has proved himself by setting goals and achieving the target. The world leader works with the employees as friends who reflect his transformational leadership characteristics. In the wake of globalisation, Richard Branson’s transformational leadership model is relevant in contemporary business practices.
References
Branson, R 2008, Business Stripped Naked: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur, Virgin Books, London. Web.
Brown, A 1999, The Six Dimensions of Leadership, Random House, London. Web.
Cameron, E & Green, M 2008, Making Sense of Leadership: Exploring the Five Key Roles Used by Effective Leaders, Kogan Page, London. Web.
Chang, J 2014, Leadership: The Virgin Way, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing, Lake Dallas, TX. Web.
Dauphinais, W & Price, C 1998, Straight from the CEO: The Worldªs Top Business Leaders Reveal Ideas That Every Manager Can Use, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. Web.
Goffee, R & Jones, G 2006, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?: What It Takes To Be An Authentic Leader, Harvard Business Press, Havard. Web.
Kets De Vries, M 1998, Charisma in Action: The Transformational Abilities Of Virgin’s Richard Branson And Abb’d Percy Barnevik. Web.
Scully, S 2008, Transformational Leadership during Transformational Change: A Model for Change Leadership. Web.