Richard Branson

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Richard Branson

• Group One
• Chan Yin Mui, Angel
• Chong Kar Yee, Lucy
• Wong Ka Pik, Venus
• Wu Yi Hua, Eva
• Yeung Chui Ying, Tracy

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Outline of Presentation

• Profile of Richard Branson
• Profile of Virgin Group
• Richard Branson's leadership style/approach
• Situational circumstances contribute to Bransons
  success
• Comments on Richard Branson

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Profile of Richard Branson

• Job Chairman, Virgin Group
• Age51
• Marital Status Married, with 2 children
• 2001 Ranking 52

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Profile of Richard Branson his Virgin
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Profile of Richard Branson

• 1950 Grew up in a traditional family and received
  education at Stowe School
• 1970 Founded Virgin as a mail order record
  retailer. Later in this year, a record shop
  opened in London
• 1992 Virgin Music Group---sold to Thorn EMI in a
  1 billion US deal
• 1992 Starting of the Megastore
• 1984 Started the Virgin Atlantic Airways
• 2001 Received 2 knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II

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Impression of Branson

• Enviably successful!
• Rich! Extremely Rich!
• Fun-loving
• Flamboyant

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Virgin Key Businesses

• 1. Virgin Travel Group Limited
• (Includes Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays)
• established in 1984
• big fleet with 26 Boeing 747s and Airbuses
• Revenues 1.6 billion
• Profits 151 million

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Virgin Key Businesses

• 2. Virgin Entertainment
• (Includes Megastore and Virgin Cinema)
• Revenues 1.3 billion
• Profits 81 million

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Virgin Key Businesses

• 3. Virgin Rail
• (Includes Cross country and West Coast)
• Revenues 671 million
• Profits 22.9 million

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Attributes-Risk-seeking Innovative

• Risk Seeking
• Evidence His insatiable desire to take on Coca
  Cola and British Airways-the industry giants
• Careful plan for aggressive competition
• make a lot of noise to irritate those gorillas,so
  that they tried to swat back.
• Then he waited for their mistakes

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2) Attributes of Richard Branson
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Attributes-Risk-seeking Innovative

• Innovative
• Evidence tried out every mean to promote his
  company
• Example
• 1) Drive a tank down 5th Avenue in N.Y city to
  introduce Virgin Cola to the States

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Attributes-Risk-seeking Innovative

• 2)Fly a hot air balloon across Atlantic to
  promote his Virgin Airlines
• 3)Wear a wedding gown to promote his new bride
  chains
• AND MANY MORE!

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Attributes-People-Oriented

• His belief PEOPLE COME FIRST
• PEOPLE includes Employees and Customers
• likes to refer to the Virgin staffs as a large
  extended family
• e.g. gives every new employee his telephone
  number encourages them to call him if they come
  up with any bright ideas or complaints

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Attributes-People-oriented

• For customers, he tries to keep them paying the
  lowest price for their products as long as he can
  cover the cost and earn some profit
• Believes in keeping faith with the staffs
• no matter in good times or bad
• E.g.He shared the settlement from British Airways
  equally with his staffs

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Attributes-Determined Optimistic

• Failed to wrestle the UKs lottery franchise from
  Camelot
• But was dignified in defeat
• Looked into the positive side

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Attributes-Determined Optimistic

• Immediate action
• call the CEO of Camelot
• asked her not to feel sorry for him
• ?because he still had a beautiful life!
• Within days, he announced his own non-profit
  game.

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3) Richard Bransons Leadership Style
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A) Transformational Leadership

• Master Motivator
• Pushing employees into their limits
• Turning the self-interests of employees to the
  sake of Virgin

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A) Transformational Leadership

• He believes Enthusiasm is infectious!
• He is good at
• Attempting the impossible
• To excite, arouse and inspire followers
• Giving trust and encouraging followers

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A) Transformational Leadership

• Example MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
• He asked John, the marketing manager of Virgin,
  to place an ad in the London Evening Standard.
  Tomorrow will be the deadline!
• He gave confident to John and said, Do your
  best all the same as normal.
• Result John paid superhuman effort and spent
  entire day, did make the last edition of the
  standard.

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B) Empowerment Leadership Style

• Definition
• Intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy of
  people are influenced by leadership behavior, job
  characteristics, etc .
• Transferring authority to subordinates

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B) Empowerment Leadership Style

• Virgin Trademark
• Situation
• More than 200 companies
• Not feasible, hard to be boss of all of them
• Solution
• ?Empowerment

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B) Empowerment Leadership Style

• Branson ? Backseat Leader
• I know when to get out the way and let people
  get on with it.
• Want, X dont want
• X ? people follow him blindly
• X ? hired hands
• ? individual entrepreneurs

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B) Empowerment Leadership Style

• Advantages of this style
• Virgin staffs ?
• regard works are meaningful
• develop self-determination and self-efficacy
  because they have a significant impact on works.

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C) Charismatic Leadership

• Attribution Theory
• Charismatic leader
• A form of INFLUENCE
• Based on followers PERCEPTION
• Leader has exceptional QUALIUTIES

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ExampleVIRGIN ATLANTIC

• Founded in 1984
• Bransons vision
• Dangers behind?
• Extremely capital-intensive
• Laker Airlines failure
• Aviation industry political

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ExampleVIRGIN ATLANTIC

• Branson To be? Or not to be?
• That is the QUESTION!
• Branson Go on!
• Think about
• Risk huge loss (Virgin)
• Personal failure money, status!

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ExampleVIRGIN ATLANTIC

• What did Branson demonstrate?
• His
• Courage - Vision
• Self-Confidence - Commitment
• Embrace to Changes
• Dreaming Impossible Dreams Challenge
• Act in unconventional ways

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ExampleVIRGIN ATLANTIC

• Bransons decision making process
• Rational
• Logical
• Realistic Assessment
• Minimize risk
• Balance between DREAM and REALITY

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ExampleVIRGIN ATLANTIC

• Branson Charismatic leader?
• Courage Self-confidence
• Commitment Think Rationally
• Embrace changes
• Charismatic leader
• Vision, Confidence, Courage
• bearing substantial risk
• Minimize risk, at the same time

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Therefore

• Richard Branson
• Charismatic Leader
• Effective Leader

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D) Inspirational Leadership

• Manage employees with Tough Empathy
• Empathize people
• Care about employees work

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Bransons Philosophy

• An ADVANTAGE of Virgin
• EMPLOYEES
• SUCCESS of Virgin
• EMPLOYEES MOTIVATION
• ? Bransons concern
• Employees cohesion satisfaction

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Examples?

• Promote from within
• Assign Virgins bright people to new companies
• Stretching, Developing employees
• Provide opportunities!

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More Examples?

• Party Hard!
• Throw a party
• When morale is low..??
• Letter (sealed with a kiss?)
• Every month, Branson wrote personally
• Content
• Heart-warming messages
• Virgins plan

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Branson Cares!

• Employees work
• Their Feeling, Satisfaction
• Branson an inspirational leader
• Branson an effective leader

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4) Our Stand PointRichard Branson comes up with
a great success !!!
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Argument for Bransons success

• 1) High-high leader
• Both task and relations-oriented
• Tasks Clear objectives and goals for all Virgin
  Brand ? Customization
• Relations treats everyone equally support
• Example He writes birthday card to staffs to
  praise their effort of saving virgins reputation.

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Argument for Bransons success

• 2) Innovative and unique leadership style
• Richard Branson
• ? likes creative and innovative ideas
  
• encourages his subordinates to look beyond the
  differences in each sector
• Adopts diversification strategy
• Sectors where he had set up ? never the same
  again

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Argument for Bransons success

• Our team impressed by his adventure-liked Style.
• He likes daunting challenge, he views impossible
  as just another business opportunities.
• ? Vision