Introduction to Virgin Airlines
Virgin Airlines is the second largest commercial airline in the United Kingdom. It has identified that the play a dynamic role in the tourism and hospitality business. Virgin Airlines ensures that they provide a cost effective and also at the same time an innovative service to its numerous clients (Finkle, 2011). To be more specific, Virgin Atlantic as an airline is also well-known to be one of the forerunners of in-flight entertainment. Adding to that, they have introduced a premium economy class services for their customers that cannot afford to travel on an upper class, however, still wants to benefit and enjoy some of the privileges of the upper-class clients (Francis et al. 2016). The CEO of Virgin Airlines is Shai Weiss and currently Richard Branson is the founder and the president of Virgin Atlantic. Under the leadership of Shai Weiss and Richard Branson, it has already been identified that the company tends to follow a hierarchal structure and it is well-structured, the supremacy is distinctly outlined and it has also been able to raise business productivity (Grant, 2005).
Leadership could be identified as formulating a specific vision or any specific direction for the employees to significantly follow (Grint & Smolovic, 2016). In alignment to that, a role of the leader is to effectively motivate the employees so that they could efficiently accomplish the targets and the goals placed by the company (Nawaz & Khan, 2016).
According to Bruijl (2018), Richard Branson has implemented specific leadership so that he could keep an eye out for talent and significantly open relevant opportunities for his follower. It could also be seen that it tends to create a work environment which is extensively positive. This has also enabled the employees to accomplish delegated tasks and fulfill responsibilities effectively. Apart from that, it could be seen that it helps in learning and listening to others and thought differently in order to inspire and direct his followers to success (Branson, 2020). Lastly, it has also been identified that the leaders tend to implement Laissez-Faire leadership in carrying out his leadership positions.
The history of management could be easily connected to the concept of leadership and the various aspects connected to the same. As a manager, it gets important for them to organize and monitor individuals so the purpose and the vision that the company hold should be met. Based on the research, it could be identified that Richard Branson has been implementing management in order to significantly handle all the business finances and budgets which were planned for resources. Apart from that, Richard Branson has been using great communication strategie, solved problems efficiently, motivated employees with rewards which have been the primary reason behind the success of Virgin Airlines.
The fact that needs to be highlighted is that. Richard Branson showed respect to every employee equally so that set goals were accomplished effortlessly and also at the same time efficiently by his employees (Muegge & Reid, 2018). As stated by Stogdill (1948), uniformity in the concept of leadership tend to provide positive result for the leaders who have been implementing the same. Therefore, the idea of relevant management could be easily connected to that of the effective leadership.
Leadership Theory and Its Application in Virgin Airlines
There are multiple challenges faced by the leaders of all the organizations around the world. The most important trait of a leader is to identify the issues and post that find relevant strategies to solve the problem. At some point in time, every leader will face certain issues in their career path. According to Tannenbaum & Schmidt (2017), it is the way in which a leader handles the issues defines them as the kind of leader they should be defined. To be specific, Branson launched Virgin Atlantic Airlines during the year 1984 so that they could enable the passengers with an improved flying experience. As a leader, he identified an immense opportunity but had little experience. However, it is also important to mention that the new venture almost failed before it got off the ground (Mimaroglu, 2022).
It could be seen that, all through the preliminary test flight of Virgin’s only plane, a rented Boeing 747, a flock of birds flew into an engine, and this caused extensive damage. Therefore, the company was not certified and also, they did not have any money for repairs without being certified (Mimaroglu, 2022) A leader who leads from the front should always be optimistic in their nature. Branson always believed in second chances and one more tries. Branson restructured his company and also pulled money from the other ventures and repaired the aircraft. Finally, the airline was a huge success in their venture.
According to Sadq (2016), it could be identified that Virgin Airline has multiple strengths connected to it. Based on the leadership that the company exhibit, Virgin Airlines has got a strong foundation and at the same time they have efficient services. Apart from that, Richard Branson has implemented excellent advertising and innovative branding. The company has already employed around 8000 people within the airline and they have been working in the organization quite efficiently. Based on this observation, it could be realized that the company has employed satisfactory employee engagement under the leadership of Richard Branson. According to Inceoglu et al., (2018), it has also been identified that employees are highly influenced based on the actions taken by the leader of the organization. Therefore, the actions taken by Richard Branson in relevance to Virgin Airlines have proved to be effective as this has created significant growth in employee engagement. These are the factors that could be identified as the major strength of the company. The concept of leadership could be connected to that of employee engagement based on the observation that their leaders bring out the best in the employees. Therefore, leadership could be identified as the most important strength of Virgin Atlantic.
As per the study conducted by Gemünden, Lehner & Kock, (2018), leading is the third step that is significantly completed by interacting, motivating, inspiring, and encouraging workers, so that they could significantly give a higher level of productivity. It could also be identified that; controlling is the ultimate purpose of management. In this aspect, the manager of the company plans and then carries out the functions (Moore, 2021). Lastly, it tends to evaluate the relevant results against the goals. Therefore, it could be realized that this are the important factors which contributes to the success of the company.
Management and Its Role in Virgin Airlines
Based on the observation made for Virgin Atlantic, there are several positive impacts that take place in relevance to the planning, organizing, leading, and then contributing to the same. Based on the planning implemented by Virgin Airlines, there is real-time collaboration between the air and the ground crews (Neis & Blackstun, 2016). There has been a constant two-way communication with the leadership teams through Live Chat and Video Conference. Apart from that, instant translation capabilities made it significantly easy for the employee to communicate. Employees who could not speak the same language could understand one another. Therefore, it could be seen that there has been improved culture based on the communication and collaboration (Carasco-Saul, Kim & Kim, 2015).
There are multiple aspects that have shown the company its ladder towards the success. Richard has implemented cost leadership as a major strategy to gain complete control of the market. Virgin Airlines tends to provide the top-notch quality of service to their customers at a very affordable range. This has given significant rise to the numbers of domestic passengers (Partner, 2022) Apart from that, another aspect that have given significant boost to the company’s success story is the staff benefits that they provide(Partner, 2022). Real time problem solving has proved to be another important aspect that has created significant changes in the team abilities and inclusion of collaboration to the system.
Based on all this relevant information, it could be realized the success of the company has only been possible with the implementation of sensible leadership by Richard Branson.
This part of the paper will talk about the major challenges that will pop-up in the upcoming five years in relevance to the Virgin Airlines. The very first point that could be identified is that due to the implementation of transformational leadership, relevant risk management system was lacking in the entire managerial concept of Virgin Airlines. Also, the product line was found to be significantly stretched upward. Such factors have also failed to avoid all the relevant operational model which over valued the short-term benefits and the business efficiency of the company. Lastly, it could be identified that the company has significantly ignored the relevance of organizational resilience. Therefore, the company will fail to afford the debt that was caused by the implementation of upward stretching.
Conclusion
On a concluding note, based on the discussion that has been presented in the paper, Virgin Airlines has been significantly successful in their venture based on the observation that the company has been amazing led by Richard Branson. All the claims that have been made in this paper are properly backed with relevant source of information which again will make this paper a credible source for further studies in this area of research.
References
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