Business Philosophy and Leadership Style of Richard Branson

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theory

Richard Branson firmly believes that self-confident is essential; moreover, leader also should receive advice and suggestion from your employees (Chakrabortty, 2011). No one leader can get success alone, employees are the main force to help leaders to get success. This requires employees have the right to express their own suggestions. From the leaders aspect, they should provide feasible channel for employees to express their thoughts.

Behavioral theory from Michigan is divided the leadership behavior into employee-center and job centered (Branson, 2014). The first one pays more attention to the role of employees and the second one pays more emphasis on the leader himself or herself. Richard always treats his employees as friends and partners, he is willing to receive suggestions from his subordinate and let his employees to undertake the risk in the process of operation. Therefore, Richard shows more tendency of employee-centered.

Ohio divide leadership theory into consideration type and initiating structure. The consideration type pays emphasis on employees’ social requirements; initiating structure pays attention to the work performance and goals realization. From the above analysis, the leadership style of Richard falls to the second one because he believes goal realization and production is crucial to the group development.

Leadership style can also be divided into autocratic, democratic or participate style. The first style refers to that leader tells his or her employees to follow his order and to carry out his strategy. The second and the third styles refers to leader is one part in the decision-making. They would join in the discussion with employees and provide more right for his or her employees. Richard Branson belongs to a typical democratic or participate style.

3.3 Situational theory

Hersey and Blanchard’s situational theory emphasizes that leaders should adapt their characteristics to his or her followers which is based on followers themselves. Richard Branson obviously shows the characteristics of participation which expresses close relationship with his employees. He would like to spend more time with his employees such as holding home parties, that would significantly improve employees’ work motivation and enthusiasm.

4. Comparison with other business leaders

Branson’s business philosophy and leadership style emphasizes on employee-cantered. He provide enough power for employees to operate their department with their own system, and is willing to get feedback and suggestions from his employees. Jack Ma is the president of Alibaba, and always emphasizes on innovation and equality. In order to shorten the distance with employees, his performance is always stunning in the annual meeting (Fannin, 2015). However, his approach is also different from Branson’s, because he still treats his employees as subordinate. Branson treats his employees as his friends and family members and always hold home party to celebrate which would significantly improve employees’ enthusiasm of work. In conclusion, hierarchy is not that obvious compared to that in Alibaba. Culture is an important factor that causes the difference between Virgin Group and Alibaba.

5 Conclusion

Richard Branson is a modern leader with a lot of personalities. He emphasizes the power of human resource and always put employees at the first place. His leadership style is employee-centred and democratic. He provides enough power to his employees to show their talents and freedom, to create a better Virgin Group.

References

Branson, R (2014). The Virgin Way: How to Listen, Learn, Laugh and Lead. Virgin Books.

Chakrabortty, A (2011). "Is Richard Branson all he’s cracked up to be?". The Guardian.

Dearlove, D. (2007) Business the Richard Branson Way, Capstone, Chichester, UK.

Fannin, R. (2015). How I did it: Jack Ma, Alibaba. com.

Grant, R. (2008) ‘The Virgin Group’, Contemporary Strategy Analysis

Shavinina, L. V. (2006). "Micro-social factors in the development of entrepreneurial giftedness: the case of Richard Branson". High Ability Studies.

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