Introduction
Leadership encompasses a collective and collaborative process focused on relationships and network (Kezar , Carducci, & McGavin, 2011). This paper is presents a detailed exploration of leadership in organizations drawing inferences from Virgin Atlantic’s president’s leadership skills. The subsequent part presents an evaluation of the leadership style adopted by Sir. Richard Branson-the president of Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Later, the organizational structure and cultural framework of Virgin Atlantic is also presented. In due course, a discussion on the leadership skills practiced by Sir. Richard Branson is presented followed by discussions on additional leadership skills. The paper concludes with a presentation on challenges of diversity in the workplace presenting strategies that can be employed to address diversity problems.
Leadership style of Virgin Atlantic’s CEO
Virgin Atlantic is a British airline that has its head office in Crawler, West Sussex in Great Britain. Richard Branson owns 51% of the airline with Delta Airlines having a stake of 49% in the company. For this reason Richard Branson is the chief executive of the company (Parker, 2013). Analysis the leadership style employed by Richard Branson; it is immediately obvious that he is committed to making substantive investments in people above anything else.
Richard Branson in an interview with The Daily Telegraph compares his leadership to Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs. Whereas he notes that Steve’s approach to business management is different from his own, he acknowledges that the different leadership styles are not limited to a certain formula. Good leadership he explains boils down to three main elements. First, belief in oneself as a leader, secondly, belief in people (employees, customers and shareholders) and thirdly, the leader must believe in their ideas as well as those of others that concur (Branson, 2014).
Branson prides himself in the leadership skills he adopted that is focused on delegation of responsibilities to junior and support staff. By doing this, he notes people, particularly his employees the chance to develop their own leadership skills. Unlike Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Branson is not an autocratic leader who has to get involved in every move made by the company. Instead, he has invested in people by matching their qualifications with responsibilities through delegation. By doing this, he has created a corporate culture that is a result oriented driven by a dedicated highly responsible staff. Richard Branson’s philosophy is concerned with people; in this philosophy he places employees first, then customers second and thirdly investors, in the end everyone in contented (Branson, 2014).
Richard Branson’s leadership is one of moderation in attempts to strike a balance between exemplary leadership and the need to empower the staff members. According to Branson, ultimately leadership boils down to its people since nobody can be successful in isolation. Therefore, Branson’s leadership approach is based on first identifying great people to lead and then delegating management duties to them to give them a sense of responsibility and leadership at their individual capacities (Preston, 2013).
Organizational Structure and Culture
Virgin Atlantic conducts operations in several countries in the world having its offices located in the continents of Africa, America, Asia, Europe and South America. Virgin Atlantic has offices in all these continents, in locations where it operates. However, its main office is located in Crawler, West Sussexnest to the Gatwick Airport. The company is run by a board of directors who oversee the operations of the company that has employed over 9000 staff members the world over. This framework defines the top leadership and staff relations hence the organizational structure adopted by Virgin Atlantic. The leadership at Virgin Atlantic is based on its organizational culture which places emphasis on informal relations between the management (Dudovskiy, 2012).
According to Kezar, Carducci & McGavin (2011) leadership encompasses a collective and collaborative process focused on relationships and networks. Based on this there is no definition of right or wrong leadership styles as this depends on the strategies and goals that the leadership attempts to achieve. Virgin Atlantic’s culture is based on low power distance structure in which subordinates can directly have access to the top leadership. This includes subordinates talking directly to the CEO Richard Branson. This culture develops a communication mechanism that takes into consideration the need for feedback. It achieves this so effortlessly due to the relaxed hierarchical protocols adopted in most organizations which discourage the development of effective communication between management and subordinates (Dudovskiy, 2012).
This involvement gives employees a feel of importance and relevance to the company because they deem their contributions to the success of the organization to be appreciated. Hence communication that is feedback oriented is the sole most effective corporate culture that the CEO of Virgin Atlantic Sir. Richard Branson has employed in motivating his workforce (Dudovskiy, 2012).
Leadership Qualities of Virgin Atlantic’s President
Richard Branson communicates certain traits that can be categorized as leadership skills. These skills are inferred from the management strategies that he has adopted in running the company. The first leadership skill that he portrays is charisma. The mere mention of the name of the company ‘Virgin Atlantic’ the owner’s name Richard Branson is not far from memory. In essence, Sir. Branson has made his brand by making his company synonymous with himself i.e. Virgin Atlantic is Richard Branson and Richard Branson is Virgin Atlantic (Dudovskiy, 2012). In doing this, he has managed to ensure that he sells his company as a brand ambassador. For this reason Branson notes that his success is the success of the company and vice-versa (Branson, 2014).
The Second most notable skill that Sir. Richard Branson employs in the management of Virgin Atlantic is Transformational Leadership. Branson emphasis on breaking down of the traditional hierarchical arrangements that characterize most multinational corporations makes the staff and management enjoy a warm relationship (Dudovskiy, 2012).
Further, this breakdown of hierarchical protocols has been proven to reduce the formal tone of communication between management and its subordinates. The effect of this has been that junior employees take advantage of the open door policy to directly communicate with the management and CEO himself. Through this the company has improved on its feedback during the communication at the end resulting in changes that have helped the company appreciate in value (Dudovskiy, 2012).
Branson also adopts delegation as a key tool of empowering employees to perform at their duties. In this regard, the CEO has developed a management strategy that encourages employees to take charge and act on behalf of top officials in the organization. Through this approach employees have been able to develop their own leadership skills in their capacities. Ultimately, Branson motivates his staff to become leaders in their own right and him a leader of leaders. The resultant effect is an efficient and effective staff that can handle concerns and issues about the company without necessarily requiring assistance from above (Dudovskiy, 2012).
Other Leadership Qualities
Leadership is crucial in the development of staff competence; here are other leadership skills that can be employed in management of an enterprise in assertion to Richard Branson’s skills stated above.
Good managers must be cognizant of the input that individual employees and groups contribute to the success of the company. Thus, it is necessary that the company adopt measures to recognize excellence in performance of employees and follow these with appropriate rewards. Principally, a reward system is tailored to encourage workers to improve on their performance or to maintain exceptional performance in their duties. One way that management can motivate hard work of their staff is by helping staff meet their needs as prescribed by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs theory (Dudovskiy, 2012).
Secondly, managers should be persons of character by upholding high standards of honesty. This is because subordinates more often than not look up to the CEO for leadership. In essence, the employees would most likely emulate the leadership in their duties. Therefore, as a manager emphasis should be placed on individual character by focusing on giving staff members examples of the values you stand for. This is effective only if such values are practiced by a leader which he uses to infect his staff to emulate (Prive, 2012).
Closely twined with giving rewards to employees in order to motivate them to work better, good leaders should as well have the ability to inspire their employees to set individual goals and objectives that are in tandem with the general ones of the organization. The management should ensure that employees feel like direct contributors to the success of the business. This the management does by communicating to the employees that they are central to the accomplishments of the company. An inspired workforce ultimately produces a motivated workforce that delivers on the set goals and objectives of individual workers and the improvement of the general performance of the organization (Prive, 2012).
Great leaders are flexible; businesses in the current financial times are being faced by challenges right left and center that call for creativity and intuition to effectively counter. Thus, a good leader is one who is not rigid with regard to management style in place. From the time to time, the management may require to make tough choices on concessions that break away from normal managerial practice. However, this may prove necessary for the success of the company. Principally, a great leader is flexible in handling issues in their capacity as mangers (Prive, 2012).
The Challenges of Diversity in Organizational leadership
The challenges that workers face in an organizational setting are related to discrimination meted on workers by their co-workers. Awang, Shafie, & Pearl (n.d) observe that discrimination in the workplace is more often exercised on minority groups, women, and homosexuals. However, the discrimination is not limited to the aforementioned entities only since discrimination varies from organization to another based on the composition of employees in the company.Similar sentiments are herald by Jabbour et al. (2011) where they note that the discrimination in Brazilian organizations is driven by coworkers who discriminate against their fellows.
Consequently, differences between employees at the workplace are the main factor that fuels discrimination. An organizational culture that is conscious of the discrimination that sprouts at work should essentially develop strategies to mitigate these challenges. The addressing of diversity challenges is key for the organizations’ success because employees’ performance improves from their commitment to their work and satisfaction of the job (Patrick & Kumar, 2012).
Business Strategies for Mitigating Diversity challenges
The management of the organization in recognition of the challenges that are eminent in the organization with respect to discrimination should adopt appropriate measures to address this. One way of doing this is by ensuring that the top management i.e. the president of the organization supports policies to address diversity related discrimination in the firm (Jabbour, Gordono, Henrique, Martinez, & Battiatelle, 2011). Such exemplary leadership is instrumental in ensuring that employees adopt traits from their leader. Hence, the leadership must respect diversity in the organization so as to make employees gain respect for it as well (Prive, 2012).
Notably, in recent times organization managers have consistently adopted structural principles that form the foundation for network perspectives aimed at addressing the issue of discrimination on the basis of diversity at the workplace. These principles focus on bridging the gap that makes employees seclude themselves or others secluding them. In this framework, the management aims to improve the culture of inclusiveness practice in the organization. Managers place emphasis on team work stressing the need for inclusiveness and working as a unit to realize the goals of the organization. To achieve this company heads emphasize the importance of having an open mind because the job requires them to come out of their comfort zone to incorporate the knowledge and skills of others in addressing issues pertinent to the organization (Patrick & Kumar, 2012).
Conclusion
Organizational leadership plays a crucial role in charting the direction that the organization would take in leading it to success. Whereas, it has been established that there is no one particular leadership styles that can be set as a reference for appropriate leadership, there are basic principles and traits of leadership that are common. The discussion has presented an analysis of the leadership style adopted by the president of Virgin Atlantic Sir. Richard Branson. The analysis reveals that Sir. Branson is a transformational and charismatic leader who places emphasis on people relationships that produce successful outcomes. From the discussion, it is apparent that the communication system adopted by Virgin Atlantic is one that breaks the hierarchical barrier between employees and their supervisors. As a result Sir. Richard Branson has been able to better manage the company due to the efficient feedback received from junior staff.
Secondly, the paper has presented other leadership qualities that produce successful results apart from the ones practiced by Sir. Richard Branson. Essentially, these leadership qualities observe that good leaders are principled, flexible, inspiring and conscious of employees’ exceptional performance by awarding such performance. The paper has also discussed issues related to diversity in the workplace with respect to challenges that the diversity present at the work place. To a great extent the literature shows that the diversity drives discrimination against minority groups. Further, such discrimination is exercised on employees by their fellows.
The discussion is a comprehensive analysis of the topic on leadership addressing pertinent issues about leadership that in the end determine the success rate of the organization. Information presented herein proves useful in ensuring that leaders develop skills that can be productive and reflective of performance of the organization to ensure success.
References
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Dudovskiy, J. (2012, 10 12). Virgin Atlantic Airelines: employee motivation, leadership and organizational culture. Retrieved from Research Mehodology : http://research-methodology.net/virgin-atlantic-airlines-employee-motivation-leadership-and-organisational-culture/
Jabbour, C. J., Gordono, F. S., Henrique, J., Martinez, J. C., & Battiatelle, R. A. (2011). Diversity Manangement: Challenges, benefits, and the role of human Resource Management in Brazilian Organizations. Equality, Diversity & Inclusion: An International Journal, 58-74.
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Parker, A. (2013, May 16). Virgin Atlantic Chief Vows Return to Profit. Retrieved 2 28, 2014, from Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/home/europe
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Preston, J. (2013). Richard Branson How to be a real Leader. Entreprenuer. Retrieved February 28, 2014, from http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/richard-branson-how-be-real-leader
Prive, T. (2012, 12 19). Top 10 Qualities That Make A Great Leader. Forbes. Retrieved 2 28, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/12/19/top-10-qualities-that-make-a-great-leader/
