Leadership in Business

The purpose of this paper is to gain knowledge of the style, capabilities and skills of the leader within a company. For this purpose, the entity that has been selected is Virgin Atlantic which is an airline company having its headquarters in Crawley, England, United Kingdom. The leader of this internationally renowned firm is Richard Branson who is a famous entrepreneur popular for his self-motivated nature (Griggs and Howarth, 2018). The paper contains a discussion on leadership qualities and capabilities, leadership style and individual leadership. Lastly, it is seen how the entity could shift from a control paradigm to empowerment.

1. Discussion

A leader is the key to the effective execution of operations within an entity as per the current business situation and trends prevailing in the marketplace. You can also take help from services like Business Assignment Help. In this regard, leadership can be said to be the potential possessed by an individual within a company to exercise positive or negative influence on others. Through this, a leader seeks to align the behaviour and performance of employees with the long-term corporate goal (Bassell, Lambert and Friedman, 2019). They are the ones who create a vision for the entity and thereby induce other by motivating them to deliver their best performance for timely accomplishment of goal. A leader can persuade other individuals to even carry out a task against their will. It is upon a leader whether they want to use their authority positively or negatively to accomplish the corporate vision. In this regard, a discussion is given below illustrating the example of Richard Branson as a leader of Virgin Atlantic.

1.1 Leadership qualities and capabilities

Leadership traits of Richard Branson

Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group. He is an excellent leader who possesses immense drive and zeal to align the operations of the company with the changing business environment. Across the global periphery, this leader is renowned for his rule-breaking approach towards leadership which motivates every staff member to exercise their innovative skills and thereby give their contribute to adding value to the airlines (Rosenbach, 2018). In this regard, the leadership qualities as well as personal characteristics which are displayed by Richard Branson at the premises of Virgin Atlantic are discussed as follows:-

• Creative thinking: One of the most apparent qualities of this great leader is that he possesses the capability to think differently (What Makes Richard Branson a Great Leader?, 2019). Just like him, he motivates the workforce also to operate in the same style by leveraging their creativity and innovation.
• Eye for Talent: Yet another apparent quality of Richard Branson that is exhibited by him is that he has always had an eye upon individuals in whom he finds a unique talent or skill. He further claims that it is important for leaders to hire those candidates who possess the potential to serve as a cultural fit for a business entity (9 leadership skills from Sir Richard Branson, 2019).
• Teamworking: Richard Branson has been a leader who is keen on emphasizing collaborative working to derive positive results for the organisation. The application of the same within the confines of Virgin Atlantic has led to the attainment of a leading market position by the company in the last some time. The soaring revenues as well as profits of the organization over the last 10 years are proof of the same.

Capabilities for building relationships and establishing trust

There are several characteristics, traits, skills and competencies which must be present within a leader so as to ensure that the leader would be able to build relationships as well as establish trust. In this regard, one of the key characteristics is honesty as this is what is cherished the most by subordinates for trusting the leader. Further, another trait that is important for employees of an organisation is integrity within leadership (Strielkowski and Chigisheva, 2018). Apart from this, an effective leader needs to have excellent communication skills to discuss with staff members before making any key decision for the entity. Delegation and empowerment are also required to be exhibited by leaders so that they can keep the personnel happy and motivated at all times. This inflates the productivity of staff members, thereby enhancing the scope for the timely accomplishment of corporate goals and objectives. All of these skills are significant for a leader as they together aid in the development of effective leadership which possesses the capability to influence the behavioural pattern of employees positively. Worry not get assignment help online.

Capabilities out of the above displayed by Richard Branson

As already discussed above, several traits must be present within a leader so as to instil a sense of loyalty and trust among individuals. In this regard, Richard Branson is a leader who exhibits majority of the skills, qualities and characteristics mentioned above as he believes that gaining trust of employees is necessary to make use of the authority linked with leadership (Becker, 2018). In this regard, it has been analysed that although the respective leader can interact non-hesitantly, he does not hold effective communication skills which acts as a constraint concerning Virgin Atlantic at times, thereby hampering overall organisational productivity.

1.2 Leadership Style

Leadership styles suiting the workplace

Leadership style is determined as an approach and framework to identify how leader provide direction to people and motivate them towards achieving organisational objectives. Within the confines of Virgin Atlantic, a leader can make use of the following leadership styles to motivate their workforce:-

Authoritarian leadership style- In this leadership style, leader dictates certain procedures and policies to its subordinates and decide the goals which are about to be achieved and controls and directs all the activities without any kind of meaningful participation of subordinates. Such leader has the control over team, and leaves low autonomy within the team. The authoritarian leader has a vision in mind which enables to motivate team members in an effective manner to accomplish a task and they are required to perform a task under close supervision of leader (Macdonald, Burke and Stewart, 2018).

Transformational Leadership- In this style of leadership, leaders helps encourage, inspiring and motivate workers to innovate and change which will help them to grow and become successful for the future growth of an organisation (Bassell and Lambert, 2018). A transformational leader motivates and inspires its workforce without micromanaging as they have faith in their workers to take authority over the decisions in their respective job roles. In this approach, leader gives workers room to become more creative and look towards the future and then find solution to old problems.

Transformational leadership- it will give workers a chance to express their views and opinions. On the other hand, authoritarian leadership is ruled out as it controls workers and do not allow their participation in decision-making process. This would hamper their creativity and instil a sense of negativity within them (Ensign and et. al., 2019). By applying a transformational leadership style, Richard Branson would be able to make sure that workers feel good to be a part of the respective airlines company. It encourages the workforce to come up with innovative solutions that can provide assistance to the concerned business in achieving its corporate goals and objectives. get Examples of Assignments Now

Strengths and weakness of the chosen style

Transformational leadership is an effective leadership style that holds several strengths which would provide aid to Richard Branson in several ways. First of all, this leadership is focussed upon retention of employees through the charisma held by leaders in this style. This implies that the application of this leadership would aid the respective leader in lowering down the turnover cost. Further, the transformational style is best suited to implement changes within the premise effectively. Through this, Virgin Atlantic would be able to adapt itself to the changes taking place within the business environment. The strength of chosen leadership is that it inflates the productivity levels of employees giving them the leverage to work as per organisational requirements by introducing positive changes. On the contrary, there are certain weaknesses of this style also that need to be taken into account by the company to ensure that the drawbacks do not overpower the benefits of this style for Richard Branson. In this relation, the biggest weakness of this style is that may hold negative outcomes for the concerned airlines organisation (Madry, 2020). Further, communication is the key in transformational leadership style wqithout which it would fail to deliver positive outcomes.

It can be said on the basis of above stances that it transformational leadership style is effective for Richard Branson if its weaknesses are timely considered by Virgin Atlantic. It would provide aid to the leader in managing oneself and building healthy relations with others so as to motivate them effectively. When the workforce receives timely motivation, it tends to deliver positive outcomes, thereby inflating the scope for timely realisation of corporate goals.

1.3 Individual Leadership

Reflection on own leadership capabilities and selection of leadership style

As being a leader in the respective airline company, I will give preference to transformational leadership as the core style which I will also incorporate in my regular based business work. It can be said that I own numerous of leadership capability belonging to transformational leadership style which will work as the supportive factor for me to execute my job role in the organisation. This will also support in attaining organisational work in rightful manner (Muegge and Reid, 2018). The main capabilities owed by me belonging to this leadership style includes ability of taking right decisions, making difficult decisions, self management, adaptability, communication etc. All of these capabilities are considered as the main one in all leadership capabilities as it helps me out in understanding the work of company also executing them in the same manner that will be fruitful for all. With reference to my own capabilities it can be said that I am good in taking rightful decision as my vision in business context is very strong which helps me enhancing my business growth in right direction. On the contrary, while talking about my own weakness associated with this skill, it can be said that I am not that much good in communication skill which directly affect my motivating and inspiring skills. As being a leader, it is essential for me to have good communication skills so that I can easily motivate existing workforce towards their respective goals as well as organisational goals. But, lack of this skill made me feel ineffective in this skill as I am not able to motivate them in their low time that directly hampers their performance in negative.

Capability to develop to become a better leader

As per the all stated leadership capabilities, it can be said that it is essential for me to develop communication leadership capability in order to improve my own as well as organisational performance. In order to develop this capability rightfully it is essential for me to indulge into maximum number of interaction session so that I will get opportunity to develop this skill of mine in rightful manner. Along with this, it is also required by me to communicate to my superiors and other management staff about my core weakness associated with this skill. These will also support me in improvising their command over this skill as I am knowing all weak sections. In addition to this, it can be later said development of communication capability will also help me out in enhancing myself management as well as relationship building capabilities too. This is because, effective communication will allow me to convey my messages to all associated people in rightful and influential manner. This helps me out in developing my relationship with them as they perceive overall information in my expected manner only. I addition to this, it will also allow me to influence them to work according to my vision. On the other hand, it can later be said that strong communication skill will allow me to express my vision to my colleagues in right manner that will directly support me in managing effective self management work as there are less number of confusions due to strong communication skills.

1.4 Empowerment

The shift of the company from a paradigm of Control to an Empowerment paradigm

Virgin Atlantic could 'shift' from a paradigm of Control to an Empowerment paradigm owing to the realisation by Richard Branson that control paradigm restricts the creativity of employees and leads to occurrence of resistance from them. Thus, it became necessary for the leader to shift the entity to empowerment paradigm which emphasized upon engagement of employees in key decisions and practices of company. In this regard, it has been analysed that after reporting a loss for 2 straight years, Virgin Atlantic is intending to return to profitability in the year 2021 (Virgin Atlantic targets profit in 2021 after second annual loss, 2019). For this, the shift of paradigm is necessary and thus, the leadership proposed to execute the same in a timely manner so as to attain the objective stipulated by Richard Branson by the end of 2021.

Implementation of shift along with reaction of employees to change

The respective airline company will implement above shift by enhancing employee engagement and influencing employees within every decision making in the company. It can be said that employee engagement is the best way that will help this company incorporate above explained shift. This will also result in the higher boost up within the performance of the company in rightful manner. Along with this, it has also been seen that there are probable chances that employees might react in both the positive as well as negative manner towards organisation. There are probable chances that empowerment paradigm might develop conflicts among employees as they interact a lot because of employee engagement which might develop chance of conflict of interest among them. Apart from this, these employees might also react positively because they are getting chances to express their views with one another. This encourages a lot which also influences their performance effectively.

Improving leadership ability for change management effectively in group & corporation

For effectual management of alteration within the group as well as the corporation, Richard Branson prefers to improve its communication skills in rightful manner as it allows him to influence its employees towards working in the same direction. It can be said that improvement in communication skill will directly help the respective entrepreneur in the effective incorporation of the empowerment paradigm within the company. This is effectively done by influencing interest of employees towards organisation as well as its objectives in rightful manner. This will also influence their performance and also supports them in effectively attaining organisational objective.

CONCLUSION

Based on the above discussion, it can be said that effective leadership is the key to aligning the behavioural pattern of employees in a manner such that they work collaboratively for the accomplishment of corporate goals and objectives. In addition to this, it has been analysed that innovation, creativity, observation, and different thinking are some of the traits that must be present within a leader to ensure that the leadership yields desired outcomes as per organisational requirements. Apart from this, it is inferred that the transformational leadership style is suitable to be adopted by a leader as it helps an entity in effectively executing the change and inflating the productivity of employees to ensure timely realisation of the goal.

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