Today I feel like judging somebody. Let’s pick Richard Branson. What is more fun than judging a flamboyant billionaire!
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is a self-made billionaire and the flamboyant founder of Virgin Group, which, according to Wikipedia, comprises of more than 400 companies including Virgin Blue airlines, Virgin Galactic Space travel, Virgin mobile and many others.
I have never met Richard in person, but I hear from those who have that he is a “Rockstar, without the band, with the entourage, without the attitude”. His book ‘Business Stripped bare,’ which, by the way, is a fantastic read, describes him as an iconic entrepreneur and a “Tie-loathing adventurer and thrill seeker, who believes in turning ideas into reality. Otherwise known as Dr Yes at @virgin!”
So how will we do it? We will grade Richard on each of the eight traits of Level 5 leaders on a scale from 1 (representing poor) to 10 representing (excellent). If Richard scores more than 90%, he is a level 5 leader. To correctly judge his score, we will search the popular media to locate instances where his behavior and actions aligned with the given trait or performed negatively on the given trait.
Personal Humility
Deflects attention
We will understandably have an uphill task justifying that Richard deflects attention considering the colorful personality that he is well known for. Richard is a celebrity by choice and he plays the part very well. He actively advocates that a leader should take every opportunity, and even drop everything, should a chance to talk to reporters or an interview with media comes up.
In fact, celebrity talent international has him available for appearances in advertisements as well as endorsements with prices ranging from $150k to $500k. His flamboyance ranges from appearing dressed up as an air-hostess with red lip color on to an Indian musician while doing a promotional event in Mumbai to appearing wearing only a cellphone in 2002 while promoting Virgin Mobile.
However, Richard’s overtures cannot be simply dismissed as a craving for media attention. We must consider that Virgin companies usually broach their way into new markets as “underdogs” with relatively slim marketing budgets. It helps if the CEO is ready to put his ego aside and get down to business to help promote the company in compelling ways which not only capture the attention of the media, but also provide a socially viral way for getting the word out about the product or service.
That said, why is deflecting attention so important? Because the enterprise must be protected at all costs. Even from its leaders. If a leader’s face becomes the inseparable face of the company’s brand, it will take just one instance of public disgrace to risk the image of the entire company. Remember what happened to Steve Wynn, the casino mogul? Steve built the Wynn empire. If you have stayed at the Wynn or Encore properties, you will feel the distinguished hospitality that Steve’s vision brings to their business. However, Steve had to resign in January 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Luckily, Steve’s face is not tied to the Wynn’s image as much as Branson’s image is tied to Virgin’s and Wynn the company thus far has not suffered too badly from association with Steve Wynn.
Richard’s score : 5 out of 10
Stands over charisma and Leads with inspiring standard
Richard has had his share of failures ranging from Virgin Vodka to Virgin Brides (wedding dress business) to the cosmetics business Virgin Vie among many others like Virgin cars, Virginware (lingerie). As BusinessInsider reports, when Virgin Vie failed, Virgin paid £8.8 million in ‘Brand Protection’ money to new management and wrote off £21million in loans as it made its way out the door.
Richard once said: “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming”. He did not let his professional ego keep him in the business. In each of his failures, Richard adopted the corporate standard of admitting failures with determination, cutting down his losses before they balloon and devour the parent enterprise. He took the failures in his stride and then gracefully moved on to lead his troops into the next venture.
Richard’s score: 9 out of 10
Grooms a successor
Richard, when asked for advice for new CEOs, said in a television interview: “Find your successor and teach that person everything you know. That way you can focus on the bigger things.”
The interviewer asked: ”But, wouldn’t finding and developing your successor be intimidating for some leaders”
Richard Said: “They are weak leaders”
In each line of business, Richard has a fully capable team of executives who can run the show without Richard’s presence. He gives them full autonomy to make business decision, although they check back with him for his business acumen. Virgin Blue had Brett Godfrey. Moreover, Richard has an Investment Advisory team consisting of Gordon McAllum, whom he whisked away from Mckinsey, among others. This team knows everything about the Virgin Global business and can take over in his absence.
Richard’s score: 9 out of 10
Gives credit to others
While Richard keeps the media lime-lights for himself, he is not too shy about giving credit where it is due. In his book ‘Business Stripped Bare,’ he gives plenty of credit to Brett Godfrey for the success of Virgin Blue. His credit wasn’t just in verbal terms. He made sure that if Virgin Blue succeeded, Brett would be compensated in monetary terms for his efforts. Brett made A$80m along the way and is among the richest Australians, due to Virgin Blue. In his book, ‘Losing my Virginity,’ Richard gives plenty of credit to his team acknowledging that Virgin’s success could not have happened without them.
As noted on kissmetrics.com, Richard once said: “A company is simply a group of people. And as a leader of people, you have to be a great listener, you have to be a great motivator, you have to be very good at praising and looking for the best in people. People are no different from flowers. If you water flowers, they flourish. If you praise people, they flourish. That’s a critical attribute of a leader.”
Richard’s score: 9 out of 10
Professional Will
A performance catalyst
Few Leaders in the world push their team to be the best like Richard does. This is unarguably, one of Richard’s finest trait. A collection of his quotes aggregated on kissmetrics.com lists the various ways in which Richard advises and pushes people to Dream big and be the best.
Richard says in his book ‘Losing my virginity,’ “Because I sometimes think in life you’ve got to dream big by setting yourself seemingly impossible challenges. You then have to catch up with them. You can make what people believe is impossible possible if you set big enough targets. Flying from New York to Australia in, say, two hours. Can we do it in our lifetimes? I’m determined to try. If you don’t dream, nothing happens. And we like to dream big.”
Richard’s score: 10 out of 10
Builds for the long term
Virgin Blue was launched on August 31, 2000 with A$10 million. Virgin Blue introduced one-way fares from Brisbane to Sydney for under A$100 while Qantas-Ansett, the mega duopoly, were charging A$150. With such aggressive pricing and operational excellence, Virgin Blue started taking market share away from the old duopoly.
In June 2001, Singapore airlines, which had a stake in New Zealand air, which in turn had a stake in Ansett, made an unsolicited take over offer for A$250 million to Virgin Blue to make them go away.
Per his account in his book: ‘Business Stripped Bare’, Richard Branson chose against the short term 25 times gain in favor of building a better airline and bringing better value to Australian customers. By December 2003, Virgin Blue’s market cap on the ASX was A$2.3 billion, providing employment to over 4200 people.
Richard’s score: 10 out of 10
Does whatever it takes
Richard does everything possible, both personally and professionally, to ensure the long term success of the Virgin group. With slim marketing budgets, Richard regularly puts aside his personal status and throws himself in front of the media dressed as whatever to save marketing expenses for a new venture.
Also, as previously noted, Richard postponed 25x return in a year on his investment in Virgin Blue to focus on the longer term and build a bigger, stronger and better company. This part is definitely easier said than done.
Also, Richard eats the humble pie regularly by accepting failures in ventures, when it gets harder to win, in the interest of conserving resources for the longer term.
Richard’s score: 9 out of 10
Takes blame for poor results
Branson launched Virgin Cola in 1994. A number of factors went wrong and the venture did not do well. However, whenever he talked about Virgin cola Richard accepted this failure as simply his own failure and did not resort to assigning the blame to economic factors or his team. He said:
“That business taught me not to underestimate the power of the world’s leading soft drink makers. I’ll never again make the mistake of thinking that all large, dominant companies are sleepy!”
Richard’s score: 8/10
Final Analysis
Richard scored 69 out of 80, which is approximately 86%. While there might be some subjectivity in our analysis, we can reasonably state that Richard comes pretty close to being a Level 5 leader. We must, however, regard that Richard is an exceptional leader and probably ranks better than most Level 4 leaders, but, because of the flamboyance aspect, falls short of a Level 5 leader.