Business Leadership Analysis: Richard Branson Introduction

Richard Branson rose up from obscurity in England to become one of the most revered business leaders in the world. From a small record shop in London to an independent record label that signed revolutionary bands like The Sex Pistols and the Rolling Stones, Branson’s company Virgin became a brand dedicated to doing things differently. The inspiration for Branson, whether it was selling music or selling tickets on Virgin Airlines, was always to fulfill a need that the public had. The style of leadership that Branson thus personified was the servant leadership style: his aim from the beginning was to serve consumers by getting them what they wanted at a price and quality that they could not get anywhere else. The motivation for this essay is to see what lessons can be learned from Branson’s story that can be related to concepts in organizational behavior. This paper will discuss early leadership experiences of Branson, his personality, the values he has embodied and instilled in his company, the organizational culture of Virgin, decision making behaviors that he is famous for, the effectiveness of his style of leadership on his organization, how his ethics are reflected in his organization and decision making process, and the effects of his leadership on Virgin’s overall performance. In the conclusion, a discussion of what I have learned from Branson as a leader will be provided along with a discussion of whether I would have done anything differently had I been in his shoes.

Early Experiences

Early experiences taught Branson a lot. He dropped out of school to pursue a non-academic life—and his headmaster told him that he would either end up in jail or a millionaire (De Vries, 1998). Branson actually did both. His early record shop did well but Branson himself had not mastered the fine arts of income tax reporting—and he had to spend a night in prison after being charged with tax evasion (De Vries, 1998). Branson learned from the experience and upped his awareness of business law so that he would not repeat the same mistake. However, as far as ingenuity, he was just getting started. His headmaster had aptly perceived in Branson a fire burning that would drive Branson all the way to the top of the business world. That fire consisted of Branson’s own personal charisma and the willingness to do just about anything in order to promote himself and his brand (De Vries, 1998).

Branson would go on to establish the Virgin brand (the name came from his awareness of being a “virgin” when it came to running a business), which would become a major record label and an airline among many other businesses. Branson’s early lessons, both in business as a small record shop owner and as a student dropping out of school, taught him that in life all one needs is a little vision and a little motivation—and big things can happen. At the same time, it pays to know the rules and to observe all laws so as to not run afoul of The Law.

Personality

Branson’s force of personality was really what drove him to succeed in the business world. He also had a keen sense of what people wanted. His initial record shop was a response to the demand among young people for more affordable records. His Virgin record label was a response to young, alternative bands not getting signed by the major record labels because they were too outside the mainstream. Branson recognized talent when he saw it. His intuition and people skills were extraordinarily high—and that allowed him to sign some of the biggest names in rock music, including the Rolling Stones and The Sex Pistols (Entrepreneur, 2008). In terms of using his personality to grow his business and expand the Virgin brand name to a number of other businesses and industries, Branson knew that technical skills were not enough for a leader of an organization to be successful. Branson needed and possessed great interpersonal skills, which Robbins and Judge (2017) acknowledge are essential for optimal management of organizational behavior.

Branson understood intuitively that a leader must be able to develop strong relationships with followers in order to achieve organizational goals. Branson’s personality was such that he attracted the awe, respect, enthusiasm and admiration of those with whom he came into contact. His dynamic smile and willingness to let himself hang out there no matter how odd or preposterous...

As Ladkin (2008) points out, Branson engaged in impression management: the process of taking very specific steps to convey a very specific impression to others. For example, when Branson was trying to establish Virgin as a brand, he would perform little tricks to give important clients the impression that he was the “real deal,” so to speak: one trick he frequently used was to call important clients from a pay phone. He would call the operator and have the operator connect the call for him so that the client would get a call and hear, “I have Mr. Branson for you,” from the operator. The client would think that Branson had his own service and thus was a very successful label (Ladkin, 2008). Another trick he employed was to have someone in his office shout across the room when Branson was on the phone with a client—the team member would shout the name of an important person in the British government and that he was on the other line (Ladkin, 2008). Small tricks like this were part of Branson’s personality and his penchant for self-promotion. It was this penchant for tricks that his headmaster at school realized would either land the young man in jail or lead him on to be rich and famous.
Values

Branson’s values were best articulated when he stated that “customer service is everything in the end” (Gallo, 2013). Though he would engage in small tricks and self-promotion, he knew that the product and the service had to ultimately close the sale in the end. Unless the service was special, no consumer would stick around for long. For that reason, Branson focused on providing great customer service through his Virgin brand and industries.

He also knew that to please customers, a leader first had to please his own workers and employees. That is why he stated, “If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers and your customers will take care of your shareholders” (Entrepreneur, 2008). Serving others was the ultimate value in Branson’s eyes. One could employee little tricks to get their attention, but that was just a stunt—a marketing ploy. There had to be real substance behind what one was doing or else one would, as the headmaster rightly predicted, end up in jail. Branson avoided any substantial jail time because he did offer service—and he backed up his publicity stunts with real quality.

Branson was, in the end, a servant leader. Branson was able to achieve great things as a leader because he used the tools of servant leadership to engage others. He employed emotional and social intelligence to understand what consumers wanted and how he could support his teams and organizations to help get consumers what they desired. He knew the importance of making an impression and that clients wanted to work with others who were focused on being successful themselves. He knew that the company one keeps ends up dictating the company one makes. The essence of this kind of intelligence was in his ability to read people and environments. He saw the power that music was having on his generation and he found a way to get great music to consumers when business leaders showed no interest. When it came to starting an airline, he did so simply because he felt the airlines in existence already were not doing a good enough job getting flyers where they wanted to go on time (Zeveloff, 2011).

Branson had no interest in trying to exploit people are make a dollar in the same manner as myriad other faceless corporations that are all piggy-backing over one another, chasing after the same goal. Branson looked at the businesses caught up in the rat race and gets frustrated with the way they do business. They put profits before people. Branson’s goal was to put people before profits—and in doing that he has been able to achieve immense profits. But the goal was never to make a fortune. The goal, rather, was to serve others by doing for them what no one else would or could (Gallo, 2013).

Organizational Culture

Richard Branson has stated, “There’s no magic formula…