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THIRD ASSIGNMENT
Name:
Mini-Case Study Richard Branson Shoots for the Moon
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Reg ID:
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2004086
Lecturer:
 Mini-case
Richard Branson Shoots for the Moon
The Virgin Group is the umbrella for a variety of business ventures ranging from air travel to
entertainment. With close to 200 companies in over 30 countries, it is one of the largest companies in the
world. At the head of this huge organization is Richard Branson. Branson founded Virgin over 30 years
ago and has built the organization from a small student magazine to the multibillion-dollar enterprise it is
today.
Branson is not your typical CEO. Branson’s dyslexia made school a struggle and sabotaged his
performance on standard IQ tests. His teachers and tests had no way of measuring his greatest strengths—
his uncanny knack for uncovering lucrative business ideas and his ability to energize the ambitions of
others so that they, like he, could rise to the level of their dreams.
Richard Branson’s true talents began to show themselves in his late teens. While a student at Stowe
School in England in 1968, Branson decided to start his own magazine, Student. Branson was inspired by
the student activism on his campus in the 1960s and decided to try something different. Student differed
from most college newspapers or magazines; it focused on the students and their interests. Branson sold
advertising to major corporations to support his magazine. He included articles by ministers of
Parliament, rock stars, intellectuals, and celebrities. Student grew to become a commercial success. In
1970 Branson saw an opportunity for Student to offer records cheaply by running ads for mail-order
delivery. The subscribers to Student flooded the magazine with so many orders that his spin-off discount
music venture proved more lucrative than the magazine subscriptions. Branson recruited the staff of
Student for his discount music business. He built a small recording studio and signed his first artist. Mike
Oldfield recorded “Tubular Bells” at Virgin in 1973; the album sold 5 million copies, and Virgin Records
and the Virgin brand name were born. Branson has gone on to start his own airline (Virgin Atlantic
Airlines was launched in 1984), build hotels (Virgin Hotels started in 1988), get into the personal finance
business (Virgin Direct Personal Finance Services was launched in 1995), and even enter the cola wars
(Virgin Cola was introduced in 1994). And those are just a few highlights of the Virgin Group—all this
while Branson has attempted to break world speed records for crossing the Atlantic Ocean by boat and by
hot air balloon. As you might guess, Branson’s approach is nontraditional—he has no giant corporate
office or staff and few if any board meetings. Instead he keeps each enterprise small and relies on his
skills of empowering people’s ideas to fuel success. When a flight attendant from Virgin Airlines
approached him with her vision of a wedding business, Richard told her to go do it. He even put on a
wedding dress himself to help launch the publicity. Virgin Brides was born. Branson relies heavily on the
creativity of his staff; he is more a supporter of new ideas than a creator of them. He encourages searches
for new business ideas everywhere he goes and even has a spot on the Virgin Web site called “Got a Big

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Idea?” In December 1999 Richard Branson was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Millennium New
Year’s Honours List for “services to entrepreneurship.” What’s next on Branson’s list? He recently
announced that Virgin was investing money in “trying to make sure that, in the not too distant future,
people from around the world will be able to go into space.” Not everyone is convinced that space
tourism can become a fully-fledged part of the travel industry, but with Branson behind the idea it just
might fly.

Answers
1) Would you classify Richard Branson as a manager or a leader? What qualities distinguish him as
one or the other? 

Answer: I believe that Mr. Richard Branson is a risk taker and has superb ideas and connects with the
public so he is a leader and may not be manager because managers directs the employees to reach the
organizational goal while the leaders coordinate and guides the employees to reach their goals. He does
not really manage people or the businesses as much as encourage others to pursue their own dreams.
According to the article he has no office and staff and not official responsibility so there are not any
people to directly manage. Mr. Branson leads by people by inspiration. His distinctive ability to choose
and support potential new business leaders and businesses is also another quality that shows he is a leader
and not just a manager. He participates in many different types of activities, all challenges for himself,
which in turn encourage others to take risks and reach for things they might think they cannot achieve. he
is also exciting, smart, and has a contagious dynamic personality.

2) As mentioned earlier in this chapter, followers are part of the leadership process. Describe the
relationship between Branson and his followers.

Answer: Branson is more of a motivator. He motivates his followers then allows them to take their ideas
and mount with them. He has a close relationship with his followers. He relies on his skills of
empowering people’s ideas to become successful. He keeps his businesses singular in many respects, He
encourages new ideas and is willing to listen and guide them to richness. Good leaders are those who
build teams and get results across a variety of situations and leaders are obviously open-minded who uses
his vast network and assets to empower people to go out and do what they want, to achieve their goals.
He let his employees to create ideas and listen to them actually allow his people and follower to build and
empowers them and funds them to achieve the shared goal.

3) Identify the myths of leadership development that Richard Branson’s success helps to disprove.

Answer: Leadership development manage to be philosophies that limit people’s perception of what is
needed for good leadership. Richard Branson is a great example of how these is just myths, a popular
unverifiable belief around something or someone. A popular legend is that leaders are born not made.
Branson help disproved this belief because, he was born with dyslexia, a disability in which would be a
delay for a leader. Because of his disability, he dropped out of school when he was 16 years old. And took
it upon himself so he has been a clear example that leaders are made as well. He has been so charismatic
and influential in his life and encourage many people to believe themselves and achieve their goals.

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 The End

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