Sir Richard Branson an Innovative, creative and inspiring leader

1. SIR RICHARD BRANSON
BDHS 7013
LEADERSHIPAND ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
DR CAROLINE M. ACOSTA
Team Members
1. NagarajanS
2. Azahari M Shuid
3. Gopi Naidu

2.  Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson
 Born 18 July 1950, in England
 Virgin Group 400 companies
 Companies Revenue $ 25 billion
 55 000 employees

3. SIR RICHARD BRANSON

4. Sir Richard Branson had Dyslexia
made school struggle
Richard didn't breeze through school.
He left school at age of 15.

5. SIR RICHARD BRANSON

8. SIR RICHARD BRANSON

9. SIR RICHARD BRANSON
His insatiable desire to take on Coca Cola and
British Airways-the industry giants
Careful plan for aggressive competition::
make a lot of noise to irritate those gorillas, so that
they tried to swat back.
Then he waited for their mistakes

10. SIR RICHARD BRANSON
Tried out every mean to promote his
company
 Drive a tank down 5th Avenue in
N.Y city to introduce Virgin Cola
to the States
 Fly a hot air balloon across
Atlantic to promote his Virgin
Airlines
 Wear a wedding gown to
promote his new bride chains
 AND MANY MORE!

11. SIR RICHARD BRANSON
People - Oriented
‘PEOPLE’: includes Employees and
Customers
likes to refer to the Virgin staffs as a large extended family
 gives every new employee his telephone number &
encourages them to call him if they come up with any
bright ideas or complaints
For customers, he tries to keep them paying the lowest
price for their products as long as he can cover the cost and
earn ‘some’ profit
Believes in keeping faith with the staffs no matter in good
times or bad
 He shared the settlement from British Airways
equally with his staffs

12. SIR RICHARD BRANSON
• Failed to wrestle the UK’s lottery franchise
from Camelot
• But was dignified in defeat
• Looked into the positive side
• Immediate action:
• call the CEO of Camelot
• asked her not to feel sorry for him.. because
he still had a beautiful life!
• Within days, he announced his own non-profit
game.

13. Personal Characteristics of Leaders
Personal Characteristics
• Energy
• Physical stamina
Intelligence and Ability
• Intelligence, cognitive ability
• Knowledge
• Judgment, decisiveness
Personality
• Optimism
• Self-confidence
• Honesty and integrity
• Enthusiasm
• Charisma
• Desire to lead
• Independence
Social Characteristics
• Sociability, interpersonal skills
• Cooperativeness
• Ability to enlist cooperation
• Tact, diplomacy
Work-Related Characteristics
• Drive, desire to excel
• Responsibility in pursuit of goals
• Persistence against obstacles,
tenacity
Social background
• Education
• Mobility

17. Transformational Leadership
• “Master Motivator”
• Pushing employees into their limits
• Turning the self-interests of employees to
the sake of “Virgin”
• He believes: Enthusiasm is infectious!
• He is good at:
• Attempting the impossible
• To excite, arouse and inspire followers
• Giving trust and encouraging followers
Example: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
• He asked John, the marketing manager of Virgin, to place an ad in the London Evening
Standard. Tomorrow will be the deadline!
• ** He gave confident to John and said, “Do your best all the same as normal.”
• Result: John paid superhuman effort and spent entire day, did make the last edition of the
standard.

18. Empowerment Leadership Style
Definition: Intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy of people are
influenced by leadership behavior, job characteristics, etc .
 Transferring authority to subordinates
 “Virgin” Trademark, Situation: More than 400 companies
 Not feasible, hard to be boss of all of them
 Solution: Empowerment
 Branson  Backseat Leader
 “ I know when to get out the way and let people
get on with it.”
 = Want, X= don’t want
X  people follow him blindly
X  hired hands
  individual entrepreneurs

19. Charismatic Leadership
Charismatic leader
 A form of INFLUENCE
 Based on followers’ PERCEPTION
 Leader has exceptional QUALITIES
 Example: VIRGIN ATLANTIC
 Founded in 1984
 Branson’s vision
 Dangers behind?
 Extremely capital-intensive
 Likely Airline’s failure
 Aviation industry: political
 Branson: To be? Or not to be? That is the QUESTION!
 Branson: Go on!
 Think about:
 Risk: huge loss (Virgin)
 Personal failure: money, status!

20. Charismatic Leadership
What did Branson demonstrate?
 His……
 Courage - Vision
 Self-Confidence - Commitment
 Embrace to Changes
 Self confidence
 Think Rationally
 Embrace changes
Dreaming Impossible Dreams ; Challenge
Act in unconventional ways
 Branson’s decision making process:
 Rational
 Logical
 Realistic Assessment
 Minimize risk
 Balance between DREAM and REALITY

21. Inspirational Leadership
• Manage employees with “Tough Empathy”
• Empathize people
• Care about employees’ work
• An ADVANTAGE of Virgin: EMPLOYEES
• SUCCESS of Virgin: EMPLOYEES + MOTIVATION
 Branson’s concern:
Employees’cohesion + satisfaction
• Promote from within
• Assign Virgin’s bright people to
new companies
• Stretching, Developing
employees
• Provide opportunities!

22. Inspirational Leadership
• Party Hard!
• Throw a party…
• When morale is low…………..↓↓
• Letter (sealed with a kiss…?)
• Every month, Branson wrote personally
• Content:
• Heart-warming messages~~~
• Virgin’s plan~
• Branson Cares :
• Employees’ work
• Their Feeling, Satisfaction
Branson: an inspirational leader
Branson: an effective leader

23. He is a true LEADER
1) Employee Empowerment
2) Patiently listens to Employees’ ideas
3) Not a conventional business person
4) Energizes people towards higher
performance
5) Collaborating, Competing,
Compromising, Avoiding, Accommodating