Leaders and managers must delegate tasks and use different approaches to encourage staff. Richard Branson is a great example of a person who combines all qualities to provide a better working environment and achieve commercial success. Branson does not create ideas; he encourages his staff to create them. Richard Branson is a leader with great management skills who rules the Virgin Group and encourages staff by implementing trustworthy and reliable relationships between himself and his followers.
Richard Branson is primarily a leader, who combines the qualities of a leader and manager, as he delegates tasks and encourages others to improve themselves and create something new. The Branson industry is inspired by others, so Richard Branson does his best to improve it by inspiring others. Branson does not only rule his staff; his primary strategy is to be friendly and use nontraditional approaches (Bruijl, 2018). However, leadership and management aim to rule the personnel and help them grow, Richard Branson is a leader. Richard Branson does not expect people to obey or follow him; he gives workers the freedom to think and create, which makes people want to follow and work with Branson. Lastly, Richard Branson does not create ideas on his own, but he leads people to achieve goals, which is the main difference between a leader and a manager. Thus, Richard Branson is a leader, who combines leader’s and manager’s qualities, which help him guide and inspire others, without demanding people to follow or obey him.
Branson’s relationships with followers are based on trust, loyalty, and respect, and Richard Branson encourages his followers to create ideas and develop them. The main difference between Branson and other leaders is his approach to communication with staff. Richard Branson does not think he is in charge of everything, so he allows personnel to develop and come up with new ideas. As was seen in the chapter, when a flight attendant came to Branson with the idea of creating a wedding business, Richard not only accepted this idea but also inspired her to pursue it, which resulted in creating Virgin Brides. Furthermore, Branson relies on his workers’ creativity, and even a spot on the Virgin Website called “Got a Big Idea?” was created. Hence, Richard Branson relies on, believes in, and encourages his followers to come up with creative ideas for new businesses, which bring him commercial success.
Richard Branson ruins myths about leaders, such as that leaders should generate ideas, be in charge of everything, and refrain from interacting with lower levels of the organization. Firstly, according to Branson (Bruijl, 2018), the leader’s main task is to make people talk and listen to each other, so he is involved in interactions at all levels in his organization. Secondly, Branson mostly did not invent anything, but he encouraged his staff to come up with creative ideas and allowed them to pursue them. Lastly, Branson relies on his workers and trusts them, so he does not need to be responsible for everything. Branson has a few workers and relies on his skills of empowering people’s ideas to achieve success. Therefore, Richard Branson proves that a leader does not need to be the most intelligent, control everything and communicate only on the top levels of organizations, but should inspire others and be pleasant and reliable.
To sum up, Richard Branson is mostly a leader with management skills who encourages staff by implementing a trustworthy and reliable environment where the leader is not in charge of everything. Branson uses a nontraditional approach, which helps him to develop the Virgin Group. However, his main power is the ability to inspire others to create ideas for new businesses, which makes him an extraordinary person.
References
Bruijl, G. H. T. (2018). Sir Richard Branson: A global leader with a difference. SSRN. Web.
