Leadership Theories and Richard Branson as an Authentic Leader

This presentation discusses the two major leadership theories, authentic leadership theory and trait leadership theory, and highlights Richard Branson as an authentic leader. It also includes personal reflection on leadership traits and skills.

LEADERSHIP &
LEADING

TABLE OF CONTENT
 Introduction
 Leadership Theories
 Richard Branson an authentic leader
 Reflection
 Conclusion
 References

INTRODUCTION
 Leadership is an art of giving directions to an individual or
team in order to achieve a specific objective with the help of
motivating them to achieve success.
 This presentation will highlight the leadership theories which
help leaders to become successful in their working.
 Apart from this, the study will also illustrate the personal
reflection over the leadership traits and skills.

LEADERSHIP THEORIES
 In order to become a great leader, they must encourage their followers in order to
take necessary actions through which they become successful in each and every
aspect of their work. To become a successful leader, it is necessary to cultivate
and learn new skills which are highly effectual in nature. There are two major
leadership theories such as authentic leadership theory and trait leadership theory.
According to the authentic leadership theory the leaders are seen as genuine and
real in their working styles. The theory had been created by Bill George in his
book namely Authentic Leadership which was published in year 2003.
 Another theory refers to Trait theory of leadership according to which the leaders
have inborn and innate qualities or characteristics to lead someone. These
qualities might include physical, personality, intelligence factors and so on. In
context of traits, it has been evaluated that within this theory, the leader are able to
provide high level of efforts, ambition, energy and initiative.

CONTD.
 They provide an intense desire to lead others in order to reach
goals, highly trustworthy and reliable, capable of doing good
judgements, having complete knowledge of industry, well-
adjusted and greatly flexible or creative in nature. This theory
has pleasing and able to provide detailed understanding of the
leader element in the complete leadership procedure. It can be
applied by leaders at all levels.

RICHARD BRANSON AN AUTHENTIC
LEADER
 According to the authentic leadership style, Richard Branson has
been considered as one of the well-known Authentic leader who
deals in various sectors within the UK. Branson founded his first
magazine when he was of 16 years and owns his own airlines, radio
stations, record labels, hotels and many other businesses as well.
The business person has their interest in more than 60 businesses.
 Richard Branson excels at articulation and show more interest into
everything which has been greatly attracted their followers towards
themselves. Various kind of challenges and encouragement has been
given by the leader to their followers in order to create a dynamic
environment which motivates them to always work hard for the
fulfilment of their tasks in most effectual manner.

CONTD.
 As Richard is an authentic leader, hence believes in letting
people learn from their mistakes and set project goals and offer
appropriate guidance to their team members and expects them
to do work which is required to get them in order to achieve
success. These type of leaders always believe in sharing what
they have and also understands that people learn best from
their actions. Although, it has been evaluated that due to
putting moral standards into consideration, sometimes the
situation of controversy occurs within the establishment
because the employees and managers may have dissimilar
ethical values and beliefs as compared to the leader and this
might lead to contradicting objectives within the
establishment.

REFLECTION
 From the module which had been taught by my tutor, I was able to understand the
concept of effective leadership along with their different styles and theories. The
information helped me a lot in order to enhance my level of understanding towards
this specific concept. Before, getting appropriate knowledge regarding the topic
related to leadership I had identified that I was not an effective leader because of my
reserve nature. But with the help of various activities that had been performed by me
which had been conducted by my teacher, I am able to understand the concept and
find that I am also capable to lead group of people in most successful manner. My
this kind of skill has been enhanced by participating into various team management
activities that had been performed by me after getting the lessons over the topics
related to leadership.

CONCLUSION
 From the above complete presentation, it had been evaluated that leadership is a
primary and most significant management function which helps an individual or
leader in order to direct company resources in order to improve its efficiency and
towards the achievement of their goals.
 Among all the leadership theories, authentic leadership and trait leadership theory
is the best which has been discussed within the above report.
 Apart from this, an example of authentic leader also has been taken in order to
illustrate the concept in detail. Moreover, personal reflection also takes place at
the end of the demonstration.

REFERENCES
 Offermann, L.R. and Coats, M.R., 2018. Implicit theories of leadership: Stability
and change over two decades. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(4), pp.513-522.
 Asrar-ul-Haq, M. and Anwar, S., 2018. The many faces of leadership: Proposing
research agenda through a review of literature. Future Business Journal, 4(2),
pp.179-188.
 Adnan, S.N.S.M. and Valliappan, R., 2019. Communicating shared vision and
leadership styles towards enhancing performance. International Journal of
Productivity and Performance Management.
 Schedlitzki, D. and Edwards, G., 2021. Studying leadership: Traditional and
critical approaches. Sage.
 Peters, S.C., 2018. Defining social work leadership: a theoretical and conceptual
review and analysis. Journal of Social Work Practice, 32(1), pp.31-44.