Leadership Styles and Theories: A Case Study of Virgin Atlantic and Monarch Airlines

Leadership

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Organisation summary.....................................................................................................................4
Theme 1: Virgin Atlantic........................................................................................................4
Theme 2: Monarch Airline...................................................................................................10
Recommendation...........................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report develops an understanding for the role of leaders and their importance in
achieving the desired outcomes of the organisation. In this report two Airlines Company, Virgin
Atlantic and Monarch Airlines are taken into consideration and the leadership styles and theories
which are used their leaders are analysed. For this the application of styles and theories are
analysed along with their implication on the desired outcomes. On the basis of this report it is
analysed that the leaders of Virgin Atlantics efficiently adopted various styles and theories which
kept their employees motivated through and enabled them to incorporate changes within the
organisation. It leads to a successful organisation with better brand image and profitability as
they could achieve their desired outcomes with the support of their employees. But the rigidness
and inflexibility in the structure, styles of leadership and management policies has affected the
operations of the Monarch Airlines due to which they have to cease their operations. Also on the
basis of this identification recommendations are made for improving the areas where
improvement can be done by the management so that they can achieve the goals and objectives
and can enhance their profitability which are to emphasis on the customer services and training
and development to employees so that better services can be offered to the passengers.
INTRODUCTION
Leadership can be defined as an ability to influence the activities of a group of people and
individuals so that their efforts can be put towards setting goals and their achievement.
Leadership styles hereby motivate the employees of the organisation to work collectively with
the management of the organisation by delegation and empowerment (Anitha, 2016). Motivation
within the workforce subsequently is more valuable as it improves their productivity which
contributes to better output over a period of time. In this report the leadership style of two
companies Virgin Atlantics and Monarch Airlines are discussed which enabled the prior one to
achieve the desire outcome and later one to suffer with undesirable outcomes. In this report
various theory and style along with their application and implication will is discussed. This will
facilitate in analysing the reasons due to which one organisation becomes successful while other
failed in achieving their desired outcome. On the basis of such analysis various recommendations
will be made which can facilitate an organisation to improve their activities so that they can
bring efficient in their operations along with the justification to the recommendations.

Organisation summary
In this report the two organisations that is taken into consideration is Virgin Atlantic and
Monarch Airlines. An overview of both the organisation is given below along with the outcomes
of various styles of leadership that has been adopted within the organisation.
Virgin Atlantic Airlines Ltd is a British airlines company which is owned and managed by
the Virgin group and Singapore Airlines. They have been operation in various destinations such
as North America, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia. The airlines for their
operations use fleets of both Airbus and Boeing. With reference to the Virgin Atlantic, the style
of leadership that has been used by Richard Branson is so powerful and effective that enables the
organisation to achieve its goals efficiently and effectively. Their style of management, adoption
of various theories of culture within the organisation and leadership style influence the
motivation level and perception of the workforce. This makes the organisational successful and
efficient in achieving their goals and objectives. In addition to this the visionary, participative
and inspirational style of therefore considered to be crucial for giving good corporate reflection
and for becoming successful. The people oriented approach of the Richard Branson ultimately
increase the job satisfaction with the mixture of task oriented approach in which they allow room
to their employees to provide their suggestions. This leads to better organisational culture and
cooperative environment of the workplace so that goals can be achieved on time (Leadership at
Virgin Atlantic, 2019 ).
Monarch Airlines was a British Airlines and headquarter of the company was in
Birmingham. It came into existence in the year 1967 but ceased their operation in the 2017 as
they were facing huge losses and cold not tackle with level of competition. Along with they
faced issues of increased fuel prices, their low cost producer failed due to emergence of new
airlines such as easy-jet etc. The ineffective structure of the company and the leadership styles
leads to the failure of the company as they had rigid management, centralised authority and many
such reasons leads undesirable outcomes of the company (Martin, 2017).
Theme 1: Virgin Atlantic
The Virgin Atlantic has adopted various theories and model with the help of which they
can keep their employees highly motivated and kept their organisational culture comfortable for
their employees. The company has been always been engaged into various ventures and
identifying various viable business avenues which is facilitated by good leadership. For this it is