Relevance of Bransons Leadership Style in Todays United States - Case Study Example

? Running Head: SIR RICHARD BRANSON Sir Richard Branson – Case study There is something mystical about every leader. One will get a host of different and sometimes contradicting qualities while making a 360 degree observation into a leader’s life and his or her work. To compile all these attributes of different leaders into specific classes is really a daunting task for the researchers. Here, in this paper, we will discuss the life and works of legendary businessman Sir Richard Branson and try to classify him as a particular type of leader. Also, we will look at other attributes that if incorporated in his life, would zeal his future adventures, like space tourism. Leadership Styles The identification of a leader is an always lagging factor. Leadership is being proven by the future orientation of the leader. Here first of all we are going to focus on transactional leadership, authentic leadership, and transformational leadership. Then we will focus on the relationship between the leader and the members, and at last we will conclude this section by throwing some light on the global leadership. Transactional leadership is focused on the self-interest of the followers and thus motivates the followers to a particular goal. Here the leader is empowered with the formal authority to mould the followers. These leaders control, organize and plan for the short term. To run a successful transactional leadership style, it is highly required that all the process are well defined, and the goals and obstacles of the organization is clearly understood. This is good for the businesses which are well established. In such a structured environment, it is possible to push the followers to some defined goals. Though not very impressive like a hero, the transactional leaders are the foundation of any organization. Authentic Leadership is significantly different from the transactional leadership as the authentic leader has some personal fragrance. These leaders know and understand themselves. They have a very clear belief and value system. When they communicate with their subordinates, their belief and values are reflected. They are a clear blend of participative and directive nature. In gross, authentic leaders stimulate the followers to understand their strengths, create hope, reflect trust, show positive emotions even in the darkest hours, and raises optimism. Transformational leaders are a few steps ahead of an authentic leader. The words that describe them are visionary, inspiring, daring, and ethical. They can understand the future trends. They understand the possibilities with such changes. They can make their followers understand their visions and take the necessary step to mould the organizations. Thus transformational leadership creates synergy. These kinds of leaders are found in every level of the organizations. Even in the start ups, they are clearly visible. Thinking out of the box is a central theme for these people. These leaders do not waste time in blame game; rather focus on the core issues. They are a real inspiration to their followers. These are the people who are called charismatic leaders (Huang and Hsu, 2011, p. 870). Now let’s focus on the leader and follower relationship. It is important to know the interdependency and reciprocity between these two layers. The relationship between the leader and the followers grows with increasing transactions. From simple stranger phase, it grows into acquaintance phase and then transforms into mature partnership. Though the dynamics of leadership is well researched, the dynamics of followers is less understood as there is no such in depth research. There is a bias that leaders are the only movers and shakers. In reality, followers’ dynamics has also an effect on leadership style (Kean, 2011, p. 35). A real leader clearly understands the dynamics of the followers. With the globalization in process, there are numerous organizations that have presence across the globe. In leading such a global organization, the understanding of the interrelationship between societal culture, organizational culture, and leadership has become important. First of all, a leader needs to be accepted by the followers. A part form the organizational issues, there are cultural issues which needs to be reflected in a leader’s attitude in order to be accepted by multi-cultural followers. Leadership Style of Sir Richard Branson In this segment we will discuss about the leadership style of Sir Richard Branson. There is no doubt that he is a charismatic leader. He has been the most successful entrepreneur in the United Kingdom. According to our classification of management styles, he is truly a transformational leader. Successful entrepreneurship requires a high degree of practical intelligence coupled with creative abilities and business talent. Branson was born in 1950. He is the founder and owner of the Virgin group of companies. According to 2002 data, the Virgin group had 48 companies. These companies successfully function in various sectors like retail stores, air travel, financial services, books and music, and telecommunication; there is Virgin Music, Virgin Airways, Virgin Money, Virgin Hotels, Virgin Vision, etc. By 2002, Branson’s personal wealth is estimated to be at $3.2 billion. This makes him the sixth richest individual in the UK and the 170th richest person in the world. Besides being a successful businessman, Branson is also a successful adventurer. He broke a few world records in crossing the Atlantic both by the boat and in hot air ballooning (Shavinina, 2006, p.226.). The Virgin group’s philosophy, which originated from Branson’s leadership style itself, is centered on people who run such a diverse business universe. The philosophy is to find the best people, though Branson is not much worried about the industry specific expertise. He basically looks how a person deals with other. This particular style of selecting people is always the base for any group development. Since, Branson is himself a transformational leader; he wants his subordinates to respond from their core feelings. He wants to see his followers to get charged like him in challenging moments. Like an authentic leader, Branson considers all the stakeholders, but his priorities are quite different. While taking any decision, he considers his employees first, then the customers and the shareholders at last. His transformational nature is clear from his rule breaking attitude along with ‘change the world’ attitude (Shavinina, 2006, p.229.). His longer term commitment has been reflected in his the green initiatives. Like Bill Gates, he has combined the capitalism with philanthropy which is also known as ‘Gaia Capitalism’. He is one of the most active proponents of this new dimension of capitalism. In 2007, through ‘Virgin Earth Challenge’, Branson announced a $25 million price to encourage the research on removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. He has also pledged $3 billion over next 10 years to combat global warming (Boje and Smith, 2010, pp. 322-23). He is truly a leader of global nature. Relevance of Branson’s Leadership Style in Today’s United States There can be great debates among the researchers, whether Branson’s leadership style should or could be replicated in the US or not. From the micro-social factors point of view, researchers consider Branson as a gifted entrepreneur. They stress upon the fact that Branson was gifted with love, trust, intellectual freedom, and wealth from his parents and a good support from his friends (Shavinina, 2006, pp.227-29). Replicating such atmosphere is difficult. So, making a Branson like leader from the scratch is near impossible. But corporate America has to learn a lot from his ‘Gaia Capitalism’. This new version of capitalism can only revitalize the true American spirit which has been suppressed by the widely prevalent Transactional style of leadership. Leadership Styles that Branson should consider There is no doubt that Branson is a great transformational leader of our time. But some mix of transactional style would have improved the life span of his ventures. He lost money in launching a portable MP3 player and in delaying the sale of his retail outlets. Virgin cola was ousted severely by Coca Cola. These are all results of poor strategy and calculations. So, Branson should consider these aspects of modern management while taking decisions. Branson’s Space Tourism Company Branson’s space tourism venture comes under the brand name of ‘Virgin Galactic’. It’s a highly ambitious project from Branson. The Virgin Galactic website tells us about the global team working for this dream project. This space flight company is led by George T Whitesides who has served as Chief of Staff for NASA. Prior to NASA, he was the Executive Director of the National Space Society. Stephen Attenborough is the Commercial Director for Virgin Galactic. His responsibilities include laying the commercial foundations and framework for the organization, spearheading ongoing sales, business development marketing, PR, promotional and customer retention initiatives. Stephen has worked for Gartmore, an investment management company, as a relationship manager to maintain relations with company’s sophisticated institutional investors, high net worth clients, and prospecting clients. Jonathan Firth is the Operations & Project Director. He has earlier experience with Virgin Rail as a Project Manager. Steve Isakowitz is the chief technology officer. He earned his aerospace engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to Virgin Galactic, he has served as the Chief Financial Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy. There he was responsible for determining and prioritizing high pay-off technologies (Virgin Galactic website, 2012). Clearly, Branson knows how to build a world class team. Here, Branson has focused on the core competencies of the team, not just on the people management capabilities that he generally considers. Of course, this is a departure from his previous style. Logically speaking, we would have dreamt of similar teams if entrusted with such project. Learning from Branson Most of the youngsters of our age have leadership qualities. But this leadership is inconsistent in nature. A leadership called inconsistent when it is transformational but passive (Mullen et al. 2011, p.42). We want to transform the system in a positive manner, but our follow up is not good enough. The other remarkable attribute of Branson is his ‘never say no’ attitude. We need to learn from him how to take up challenges and how to recognize other’s qualities. Also, we need to improve upon the communication style within the group to make the venture successful. Conclusion Leaders are said to come in all shapes and sizes. Only the future can tell who the real leader is. Looking from the dimensionality aspect, number of dimensions has increased significantly from transactional leadership to authentic leadership to transformational leadership. A life like Branson’s is a great example for the youngsters like us to make our life bigger. So, we also have a lot of things to learn from this iconic figure. References Huang, C. and Hsu, P. (2011), PERCEPTIONS OF THE IMPACT OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP STYLE ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE THROUGH SUCCESSFUL ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING, SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 39(7), pp. 865-878 Kean, S. (2011), Understanding the relationship between followers and leaders, NURSING MANAGEMENT, 18(8), pp. 31-35 Shavinina L. V. (2006), Micro-social factors in the development of entrepreneurial giftedness: the case of Richard Branson, High Ability Studies, 17(2), pp. 225–235 Boje, D. and Smith, R. 2010, Re-storying and visualizing the changing entrepreneurial identities of Bill Gates and Richard Branson, Culture and Organization, 16(4), pp. 307–331 Mullen, J., Kelloway, E.K., and Michael Teed, 2011, Inconsistent style of leadership as a predictor of safety behavior, Work & Stress, 25(1), pp. 41_54 Virgin Galactic Website, (2012), retrieved on April 10, 2012 from: http://www.virgingalactic.com/our-team/ Read More