Richard Branson Essay

Words: 1474
Pages: 6

For the purposes of our assignment I will attempt to put Richard Branson in a sort of box that he would surely object to and would certainly pop out of like a jack-in-the- box.
The difficulty with attempting to analyze the leadership style of Branson is that everything that has been written about him prefaces his achievement with his larger than life personality. There's no denying that Branson is fun and passionate, but he's also very bright and very hardworking. I think that if Branson took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Profile he would discover that he is ENTP: an extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving human being. From his autobiography, Losing My Virginity it's clear that Branson is action oriented, enthusiastic and

In recent years he has been very vocal on the need to curb Global Warming and in 2006 he pledged $3 billion of profits from his transportation businesses to be invested in alternative sources of energy. For Branson, it's a win-win. The $3 billion investment in renewable energy could lead to a discovery by Virgin that could in turn become a product for them to bring to market. That could lead to future profits. Even if the investment turns up with nothing new for Virgin in terms of monetary gain, they would have done their part in trying to address the problem and raising awareness. Altruistic or not, his action is not bad business practice.
Understanding Branson's passion for his ventures as well as his spirit for adventure gives us some insight at how best to approach him as a leader. We know he keeps a notebook in his pocket at all times so how would you pitch an idea to him if you happened to meet him in an elevator. Let's say you have about 10 floors to convince him that your idea is the next big thing, it's the next Virgin Records. I think that you would have to bring a lot of energy to the conversation to appeal to his sense of adventure and his own, seemingly endless, level of excitement. My husband often tells me that I'm animated in my interactions with other people. I'm never aware that I'm being "animated" while I'm doing it, but I can imagine afterwards what he's talking about. I'm usually smiling if not laughing out loud and my hands