The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership by Richard Branson Read Free Book Online

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    Along with all the top people from almost every company in the group, I attended a day-long review of the first cut of the research and as expected it was filled with some utterly fascinating takes on the inner workings of what makes Virgin tick. Before going into this session had anyone asked me (which they didn’t) what I would list as the top Virgin leadership attributes, I would likely have said, not necessarily in this order:
    •integrity
    •a sense of humour
    •an entrepreneurial spirit
    •they have to be ultra-gregarious
    •they should truly care about their people
    •be able to delegate work (and credit) where it’s due
    As it turns out I was almost spot on as the employee list, although longer, fell under the broad categories of:
    •they should embrace individuality
    •have an entrepreneurial spirit
    •empower their people
    •inspire trust
    •be ‘in it together’
    •be genuinely caring
    •be energisingly passionate
    •be accessibly informal
    The day was spent going through the wealth of employee-generated feedback that had built these categories and in the process I couldn’t help but notice that there was one common denominator that ran like a golden thread through every one of these headings, as you may have guessed based on the theme of this chapter. The key to almost every one of these leadership attributes was the vital importance of a leader’s ability to listen.
    Here are some direct quotes on listening that we received about our leaders in just a few of the companies. They are representative of recurrent themes that we were delighted to see ran through every business unit.
    From Virgin Mobile Australia:
    ‘He can have a conversation with you on a personal level but you can also challenge him and give your opinion without feeling like he isn’t listening or it’s a career-limiting move.’
    I especially like this one as I believe that good employee relations should stretch beyond purely work topics. You cannot fully understand colleagues if you don’t know anything about their life outside of the office. As described here, a broader relationship can make both sides more comfortable expressing their feelings openly and honestly.
    From Virgin Trains:
    ‘He obviously has interests to do with the shareholders and the financial side of things, but he also wants to hear what I have to say, wants to hear what the cleaners have to say. He wants to see the whole picture and he has all of our interests at heart.’
    This is great to hear as sometimes feedback from the most unlikely places can be the most valuable and I believe that, as the old saying goes, ‘God is in the details’ – details that often go unseen if only viewed from the corner office.
    From Virgin Media:
    ‘She’s out there, she’s on the ground, she listens, she acts on feedback.’
    More of the same – getting out and about and keeping an ear to the ground on a daily basis works wonders for any leader and the culture.
    From Virgin Active UK:
    ‘I don’t care if you’re the managing director or whoever, somebody that you feel you can talk to, I think embodies Virgin.’
    Rank simply isn’t part of the Virgin way of being. A hierarchy is always a huge obstacle to good workplace relationships, especially when elitist managers hide behind their desks and their titles. I go by plain old ‘Richard’ – Mr Branson was my dad!
    From Virgin Limited Edition:
    ‘He’s always fair. He always listens to suggestions. He’s always got time for you in anything really, if it’s eleven o’clock at night or whenever he’ll always listen, that’s important.’
    Getting around the company is important but only if you make the time to listen to your people. Lines like, ‘That sounds really interesting but I’m afraid I have to run to a meeting right now’ can do irreparable harm.
    LOCATION, LOCATION, INTIMIDATION
    In the research there were a group of attributes that were locked in with the importance of listening. One