1. Introduction
The brand Virgin was started in the 70s as a music record company. Since then, Virgin has gone from strength to strength, developing from scratch, a group of companies in several sectors worth more than US$1 billion each which changed their focus from record retailing and music production industry to a much wider one based on media and entertainment, telecommunications, airlines, health, hospitality, food and beverages, and financial service businesses. By 2011, Virgin Group is reported to have 400 companies globally (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). The highly successful Virgin group has a strong branding power and has clearly ingrained vision and culture in their companies and members of staff; these lay the foundation towards excellent product and service (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). Over the years, Virgin has gained from strength to strength, though several challenging times such as the London stock market crash of 1987, dot.com bubble in 2000, global financial crisis in 2008 and other global political pressures (Pisano and Corsi, 2012).
What makes Virgin group so uniquely successful, even throughout the toughest times? One common denominator is its flamboyant owner- Sir Richard Branson. Branson started his first business, a magazine when he was sixteen, as a school dropout, and now, his net worth is US $4.6 billion (Schawbel, 2015). Branson, who was born in 1950, has won countless of honours and awards, such as honorary doctorates and was also knighted by Prince Charles in 1999 (Hughes et al., 2015). The flamboyant owner who has even attempted several world records and set some of them, now plans to bring his world-famous brand out of this world- literally with his spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic (Hughes et al., 2015)!
2. Personal attributes
Branson is often regarded as an unconventional leader with a dynamic character who has a colourful and energetic personality- He is known to wear his heart in his sleeve and is a well-known risk taker for both his personal and career lives (Hughes et al., 2015, Russell, 2012).
2.1 Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
Intelligence and leadership effectiveness are related as general intelligence is considered a strong predictor of performance in diverse settings (Baum et al., 2011). Accordingly, Hughes and his co-authors (2015) mentioned that Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence offers the most significant implications for leadership. Triarchic theory scrutinizes the leader’s complex mental capacity during problem solving processes (Hughes et al., 2015). Triarchic theory is made up of analytic, practical and creative intelligence (Hughes et al., 2015). Emotional intelligence is nowadays incorporated into modified triarchic theory (Singh, 2013) and will be covered here.
2.1.1 Analytic Intelligence
Branson never did well in school (he dropped out of school due to dyslexia) (Branson, 2012). He also has several failed attempts in businesses where almost half of his ventures have gone bust or is currently reporting financial losses (Russell, 2012, Pisano and Corsi, 2012). The writer personally feels that Branson lacks strong mental abilities as he is not known as a problem solver or a critical thinker which are hallmark features of the analytic intelligence (Hughes et al., 2015).
- Practical Intelligence
Practical intelligence is accumulated with situational experience and explicit knowledge of work in the field- these are skills that help to learn, grow and be used to solve everyday problems (Baum et al., 2011). Branson has a wide experience in practical knowledge, having started in business at 16 and learns quickly from his work and experiences to move on to new ventures (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). He makes up for his lack of analytic intelligence with strong practical intelligence.
- Creative Intelligence
In areas where he has failed as a analytic learner, Branson has consistently been able to be innovative and has found highly intelligent ways to swiftly start a business to fill the gaps in the consumer market (Niphadkar, 2015, Schawbel, 2015). Over the years, he has built a very creative empire, consistently finding loopholes in every market (Schawbel, 2015), and makes a flamboyant entry when promoting his businesses (Niphadkar, 2015). Here, Branson had discovered a crafty way to cover Virgin’s marketing costs by himself being marketing icon- the press loves to latch on his eccentric ways on their front page (Niphadkar, 2015).
- Emotional Intelligence
In fact, leadership is a social skill that makes people revere and follow is identified as emotional intelligence, as stated by Singh (2013). Hughes and workers (2015) mentioned that emotional intelligence is defined as “the degree to which thoughts, feelings and actions were aligned”. Branson has been seen as a strong character and is successful in making every failure and challenges into a success. Even through his disappointment of leaving school as a dropout, he did not let that deter his profound thirst to succeed, and started on his quest towards his global empire (Branson, 2012). Moreover, a leader with a high emotional intelligence would also be a good conflict manager to help to resolve issues within the organization (Singh, 2013).
Moreover, Singh (2013) introduced the term collegiality as a collaborative process that puts the onus of power to workers and other stakeholders in the organization in order for them to become an integral part of the leadership process. Emotional intelligence shared in a collegial environment could be the key to a successful group performance (Singh, 2013). Branson has to a certain extent shown collegiality in his management since 2005 by giving more responsibilities to his managers in order to concentrate more on his humanitarian work (Pisano and Corsi, 2012).
2.2 Charismatic trait
Branson’s high levels of self-confidence, energy, ambition and goal-driven traits point towards the charismatic leader (Hughes et al., 2015). He clearly communicates his goals and vision for his Virgin companies employees in order to maintain their enthusiasm and excitement, and loves to promote from within his own company (Schawbel, 2015). His staff are proud to be part of the Virgin family and are known to reject better paying jobs elsewhere to stay at Virgin (Niphadkar, 2015). His display of high levels of self-esteem and zest for life instantly builds trust in employees in his leadership to attain the Virgin goals and vision which is reminiscent of Bass’s theory of transformational leadership (reported by Hughes et al., 2015).
2.3 Leadership style
As a transformational leader, Branson’s good vision in identifying gaps in the business market (Schawbel, 2015) and impressive management skills, helps to make bonds with his employees easily which consequently helps in his ability to drive organizational change easily (Hughes et al., 2015). His employees are willing to work toward the accomplishment of Branson’s vision (Niphadkar, 2015) which is offering better prices, improved products, and great services (Branson, 2014).
Transformational leaders like Branson, are admired, respected and trusted by his colleagues, peers and industry specialists and are perceived to have extraordinary capabilities, persistence and determination to succeed even when times are tough (Bryman et al., 2011). Branson clearly communicates his vision, expectations and goals, and motivates his followers to be creative and intellectually stimulated (Niphadkar, 2015).
2.4 Five Factor Model
Branson’s transformational leadership could be explored further, using the Five Factor Model (FFM). FFM includes five dimensions, which are (1) openness to experience, (2) conscientiousness, (3) extraversion, (4) agreeableness, and lastly, (5) neuroticism (Hughes et al., 2015). These are broad and universal qualities that are related to behaviour at work.
2.4.1 Openness to experience
Branson is considered to be high in this category of FFM as he’s innovative, curious about opportunities, constantly open and seeking new information and experiences (Schawbel, 2015, Pisano and Corsi, 2012, Hughes et al., 2015). Similarly, leaders high in openness to experience are imaginative, broad-minded, and curious, while also having a knack for sourcing and identifying new opportunities for growth (Hughes et al., 2015). Hughes and colleagues (2015) have identified several findings from previous reports that openness to experience is an important step for business success and higher order organizational levels to facilitate growth and expansion in new sectors and overseas markets- something Virgin Group has achieved with great success over the decades (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). In fact, since he was young, the eccentric Branson loves freedom of movement, challenges he faces, and his adventurous and exciting extracurricular activities, while thriving on attention when promoting his Virgin brand (Niphadkar, 2015). Branson attributes his high level of activity as the factor that allows him to learn something new each day (Schawbel, 2015, Pisano and Corsi, 2012).
2.4.2 Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is related with the management behavior and approach to work, rather than leadership (Hughes et al., 2015). Hughes and collaborators (2015) identified that conscientious leaders follow plans accordingly, and are organized and goal oriented, which identifies with Branson’s behavior (Schawbel, 2015). However, conscientious leaders also prefer structure, and are risk aversive, uncreative, boring and dislike change; unlike Branson, who is bold, flamboyant, a huge risk taker and dislikes a rigid structure for his companies (Schawbel, 2015, Niphadkar, 2015). Previously, Branson claimed in an interview that “there are no rules to follow in business. I just work hard and, as I always have done, believe I can do it. Most of all, I try to have fun” (Schawbel, 2015). Therefore, Branson scores lower in this conscientious factor.
- Extraversion
Branson is known to have a high degree of extraversion as he is always excited about his next ventures in business and leisure, and how he makes that grand entry into the market- for example, during the launch of Virgin Atlantic, he appeared to his press conference dressed like “Biggles” in a brown leather aviator helmet, which ensured front page coverage on every newspaper and that ensured free advertisement for Virgin (Niphadkar, 2015). Hughes (2015) described those who are higher in extraversion as outgoing, competitive, decisive, outspoken, opinionated and self-confident. Branson’s strong social skills and his ability to successfully influence his employees to get positive results through his behavior (Singh, 2013, Niphadkar, 2015), clearly demonstrates that he scores highly in extraversion.
- Agreeableness
Branson is an individual with mid-level agreeableness in him. Hughes rates individuals who have high degree of agreeableness are concerned with how one gets along with others while at the same time, being charming, diplomatic, warm, empathetic, approachable and optimistic. Although Branson is warm, empathetic, cooperative, and helpful towards people who work with him and can read the emotional status of the organization, he is also a rebel who likes to take challenges seriously and is extremely expressive and ignores the reactions of his actions (Niphadkar, 2015).
- Neuroticism
Neuroticism relates to how individuals react to stress, change, failure or personal criticism, and Branson certainly scores low in this category as he has shown to be very stable, calm, is able to learn and move from past mistakes or failures as he is able to hide his emotions well (Hughes et al., 2015, Niphadkar, 2015). Branson has seen several challenges over the decades but he has shown that he rapidly moves onto his next opportunistic venture, always utilizing his experiences from his past mistakes. For example, in 1992, Branson sold all of his equity in the highly successful and profitable Virgin Records to EMI to clear the debts (of $400 million) and to keep Virgin Atlantic afloat (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). With the extra revenue raised from the sale of Virgin records, Branson embarked on several unsuccessful (small and new) ventures throughout the 90s such as Virgin Cola, Brides, motorcars, clothing, cosmetics, and another record label to further expand Virgin portfolio and global reach (Pisano and Corsi, 2012, Russell, 2012). Although several of these new ventures were unsuccessful, they proved to be valuable lessons for Branson in recognizing his past mistakes and built on a quick recovery (Russell, 2012) by identifying other key investment opportunities that has a strong fit with the brand’s core values (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). Following this, Branson launched several successful business interests in financial services (Virgin Direct & Virgin Money), health and fitness (Virgin Active), telecommunication (Virgin mobile) and transport (Virgin trains, Virgin Express and Virgin Blue) (Pisano and Corsi, 2012).
3. Controversies and future of Virgin
Although Branson’s Virgin Group has a sizeable control in several sectors, he does not own or control many of these companies (Pisano and Corsi, 2012). Branson has practically tried his business luck in almost every sector, and many of them however, are now either defunct or reporting yearly financial losses (Russell, 2012, Pisano and Corsi, 2012). Probably, Branson has to curtail his eccentric rule-breaking unconventional behaviour (Schawbel, 2015) from his business and invest in business research before pushing for more acquisitions. Branson could take a more pragmatic approach to his leadership which would fit better in the 21st century with the Authentic Leadership style.
3.1 Authentic leadership
The authentic leader involves two fundamental themes- 1) the idea of a ‘true moral self’ which the leader must become aware, and (2) a strong connection between ethics and morality (Avolio and Gardner, 2005).
An authentic leader regularly checks if his leadership program and operating practices are aligned with his true core values; these actions eventually serves high moral principles with regards to relationships, social responsibilities, and performance standards (Hughes et al., 2015). Perhaps, in true line of an authentic leader, as mentioned by Avolio and Gardner (2005), Branson could (1) help followers of Virgin find more meaning connection at work by enhancing self-awareness, (2) promoting his own transparency and openness towards his followers to further build trust and relationships, and (3) build more ethical climates within Virgin by adopting more inclusive structures and practices. Branson typically shows himself as a “very strong hero leader” without any weaknesses and is entirely emotionally exclusive (Schawbel, 2015). Branson could show his emotional weaknesses to build better trusting relationship with the followers as suggested by Hughes and workers (2015).
Since dawn of the millennium, Branson has shown his true compassionate self by being more involved with humanitarian efforts. For example, he has actively campaigned and contributed towards key environmental and social issues such as climate change, education, poverty, peace, justice and human rights (Burn-Callander, 2014). Perhaps by this way, Branson can portray as an authentic leader by reducing his high ego-centric behavior to reveal some of his emotional weaknesses to his followers.
4. Conclusion
Sir Richard Branson is an iconic and legendary figure within the global business arena. He has built a vast global empire that has also sustained several turmoils along the way. While pursuing his thirst for world domination in almost every business sector, Branson has earned himself widespread fame and respect, but has also attracted some critiques. In order for Virgin group to dominate in the subsequent decades, Branson should change from a transformational leadership to an authentic leadership with stronger emphasis on analytic and emotional intelligence while creating a collegial working environment for his businesses.
5. References
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