Richard Branson Shoots for the Moon
Sir Richard Branson is considered both a manager and a leader; however, it is his leadership skills that he is best known for. He is the figurehead of his company, Virgin Group. Within this company he has many sub-companies, which he has built over the years based on ideas that present themselves from current companies he owns as well as partnering up with other companies.
As a leader, Sir Richard possesses unique leadership skills such as passion, courageousness, creativity, innovativeness, ambitious, a visionary, energetic, adaptability, and a risk taker just to name a few. In fact, Branson is his brand. He usually starts with an idea, whether it is his or a suggestion by one of his many talented team players or partners, and builds on it. In most cases it’s built to perfection.
His qualities started off when he was just a young man of 16 years of age. It was then that he started on the path of great leadership. The magazine Student; was born when he saw the potential of what students his age and older wanted to read. It was such a success that he began taking risk by including an ordering system to buy music at a cheap price. This is when is creativity skills took on another aspect to create Virgin Records. The story continues on and on with each new idea that he turns into another great and successful company.
His passion shines through within every new company he builds. If you are not passionate about what you believe in, then your leadership skills will idle. Sir Richard used these qualities that he had to entertain his clients, lead his staff, and know each of his businesses inside and out. Meaning that he had to know what type of business he was getting into as well as the competition out there.
Sir Richard has an enormous number of followers; of course, his employees are his followers as well as other outsiders. It is said that he will listen to any idea by any employee and if he thinks it has potential, he usually lets that person run with it. However, he is usually “hands on” until he feels that it is under control and allows the team to continue on. In doing this he allows his team to express and bounce their ideas to him and he will give you his upmost opinion on the matter. Without these followers, Sir Richard would not be where he is today. His followers all believe in him and the products that he pushes, including himself. For he has a non-traditional approach to everything he touches. You never know when or where you will bump into him because he likes to keep his hands into everything and that is what makes his followers follow him. They feel that he is on their level and not some big corporate CEO who sits behind a desk on a floor higher than the rest of the team.
Leadership development myths are known as being given to just a few people with rare abilities, being charismatic, holding the highest ranking position, being controlling