{"id":431122,"date":"2020-11-26T13:33:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T18:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/?p=431122"},"modified":"2020-10-22T11:53:38","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T15:53:38","slug":"richard-branson-leadership-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/investing\/richard-branson-leadership-style","title":{"rendered":"Richard Branson Leadership Style"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every leader has a unique, personal style. Few people, however, stand out like Richard Branson, the adventurer, author, and founder of the Virgin Group.<\/p>\n<p>Trying to follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biography.com\/business-figure\/richard-branson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Richard Branson\u2019s leadership style<\/a> would exhaust most businesspersons, but he seems to have a wealth of energy that makes him one of the most exciting entrepreneurs in the world.<\/p>\n<p>While you almost certainly cannot duplicate Richard Branson\u2019s leadership style, you can learn from his approach to management.<\/p>\n<h2>What Type of Leader Is Richard Branson?<\/h2>\n<p>Richard Branson likes to emphasize that he never learned the rules of running a success business. It\u2019s not surprising, then, that he never learned to fit into a specific style of leadership. Instead, his leadership style comes from his personality and learning from his own mistakes. He constantly takes risks to see what works and what doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>While Branson doesn\u2019t fit into a specific category, his style does show characteristics of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Transformational leadership<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Visionary leadership<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Servant leadership<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Laissez-faire leadership<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Branson would likely laugh at any of these suggestions, but his decades of leadership speak for themselves.<\/p>\n<h2>Is Richard Branson a Laissez-Faire Leader?<\/h2>\n<p>In a way, Richard Branson is a laissez-faire leader because he believes in letting people learn from their mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>While he might set a project\u2019s goal and offer his team guidance, he expects them to do the work required to get there.<\/p>\n<p>He shares what he knows, but he also understands that people learn best from action.<\/p>\n<p>From his failures with Virgin Cola to his successes with Virgin Atlantic, Branson has embraced teams of experts and let them run the show as they see fit, which sometimes means letting them fail. Famously this came back to bite him during his infamous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wickersworld.co.uk\/the-ballooning-exploits-of-richard-branson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">balloon trip<\/a> that led to his partner, Per Lindstrand, jumping into the ocean and nearly drowning.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Extreme Stories: Richard Branson On The Balloon Adventure That Nearly Killed Him\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2HoSiyuroGo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Is Richard Branson a Transformational Leader?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Richard Branson is absolutely a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ijser.org\/researchpaper\/The-new-age-transformational-leader-Richard-Branson.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transformational leader<\/a>.<\/strong> He constantly sets lofty goals for his companies.<\/p>\n<p>He does, after all, own Virgin Galactic, a company that tries to make flights faster by leaving the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/widget\/charts\/SPCE\" width=\"720\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t expect everything to fall into place the first time, though. Instead, he coaches his executives, managers, and employees to become better, more effective people.<\/p>\n<p>He rewards people for excelling, but he also encourages people to turn their mistakes into learning opportunities. When someone does an excellent job, he praises them publicly to motivate others.<\/p>\n<p>By showing his appreciation for hard work, he keeps everyone focused on their tasks.<\/p>\n<p>Evidence of his leadership permeating a company can be seen by just about any Virgin Atlantic passenger, who is likely to have received a warm and welcoming customer experience when checking in or up in the skies.<\/p>\n<h2>Characteristics of Richard Branson Leadership Style<\/h2>\n<p>Some of the characteristics that define Richard Branson\u2019s leadership style include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Motivation that helps people people move forward<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Encouragement that gets managers and employees to reach for higher goals<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Learning by taking action and making mistakes<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Communicating with team members to gain insights and share ideas<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Autonomy that lets executives and managers pursue their interests without excessive oversight<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Balance that brings fun to life and work<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Richard Branson doesn\u2019t believe in dedicating his time to boring tasks. He believes that every day should bring joy. This perspective fuels his leadership style by making him an open-minded, social person willing to take risks.<\/p>\n<h2>Is Richard Branson a Servant Leader?<\/h2>\n<p>Richard Branson likes to help the people around him, but he isn\u2019t a servant leader.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he forms collaborations with people who can help him reach goals.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sir Richard Branson reveals space suit for private astronauts\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p68q5cFpxB4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Is Richard Branson a Visionary Leader?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Richard Branson is a leader with a vision. Many, many visions, actually. Virgin Group owns about 400 companies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Branson doesn\u2019t have all of the skills needed to make his visions come true. For example,<strong> he doesn\u2019t have engineering experience to build airplanes. He does, however, have a charismatic personality that gets other people excited about his ideas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In some ways, Branson is too flexible to fit into the visionary leader category. While he rolls with the punches better than most visionary leaders, he does have high expectations.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0 auto; border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/financhill.com\/widget\/stock-score\/SPCE\" width=\"720\" height=\"500\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Richard Branson Leadership Quotes<\/h2>\n<p><em>\u201cTo me, business isn\u2019t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It\u2019s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cAs much as you need a strong personality to build a business from scratch, you also must understand the art of delegation. I have to be good at helping people run the individual businesses, and I have to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<p><em>\u201cA passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren\u2019t proud of what you\u2019re doing, why should anybody else be?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I \u2013 if I\u2019m not interested in something, I don\u2019t grasp it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cI believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<p><em>\u201cFrom a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That\u2019s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cWell, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<p><em>\u201cYou get the idea. Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don\u2019t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it\u2019s because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over. It\u2019s the greatest thrill in the world and it runs away screaming at the first sight of bullet points.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cFor a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cA business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cWhat we are trying to do at Virgin is not to have one enormous company in one sector under one banner, but to have two hundred or even three hundred separate companies. Each company can stand on its own feet and, in that way, although we\u2019ve got a brand that links them, if we were to have another tragedy such as that of 11 September \u2013 which hurt the airline industry \u2013 it would not bring the whole group crashing down.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<p><em>\u201cThrough the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that\u2019s what a number of us are trying to do.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYou don\u2019t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cI wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn\u2019t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<p><em>\u201cI never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It\u2019s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cBusiness opportunities are like buses, there\u2019s always another one coming.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cWell, I think that there\u2019s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you\u2019re likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<p><em>\u201cYou get the idea. Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once. There are no rules. You don\u2019t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over, and it\u2019s because you fall over that you learn to save yourself from falling over. It\u2019s the greatest thrill in the world and it runs away screaming at the first sight of bullet points.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><em>\u201cSo I\u2019ve seen life as one long learning process. And if I see \u2013 you know, if I fly on somebody else\u2019s airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn\u2019t in \u2013 21 years ago, then I\u2019d think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I\u2019d like to fly on.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n<h2>Richard Branson Leadership Style<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.virgin.com\/branson-family\/richard-branson-blog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Richard Branson<\/a> has a unique leadership style that makes him unlike any other entrepreneur. He takes genuine joy in his work and loves challenging ideas.<\/p>\n<p>As a leader, he wants people to feel the same way, so he motivates them to become the best versions of themselves. According to his leadership philosophy, people will fail when they try new things.<\/p>\n<p>His perspective reframes these failures as learning opportunities that make individuals, teams, and businesses more successful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every leader has a unique, personal style. Few people, however, stand out like Richard Branson, the adventurer, author, and founder of the Virgin Group. Trying to follow Richard Branson\u2019s leadership style would exhaust most businesspersons, but he seems to have a wealth of energy that makes him one of the most exciting entrepreneurs in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/richard-branson-leadership-style.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9czeV-1O9A","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431122"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431128,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431122\/revisions\/431128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financhill.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}