Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, a leading international investment group and one of the world 's most recognized brands. Virgin employs more than 50,000 people on over 50 countries around the world. Branson is conceived both a manager and a leader; but, it is his unique leadership style that distinguished them apart. Risk taker, caring, inspires people, innovative, passionate, persistent developer, energetic, and obsessed with making radical improvements on the status quo are just the few qualities that described his leadership skills. When Branson was interviewed by Adam Ross Gibson in 2011 and he was asked “What was the learned behavior that made him who he is?” He acknowledged that his parents taught him to have a genuine concern for people at his early age. His concerns for others believe to be his core values and beliefs as a leader. According to Branson, "Put your staff first, customers second, and shareholders third". His ability to inspire people so that they, like him could rise to the level of their dreams is a true testament that he cares. But Branson’s leadership skills didn’t really start to evolve until his late teens. He dropped out of school and decided to start his own magazine called Student. The magazine differed from most college magazine and newspaper. Due to his creativity and going back to his core beliefs which is focusing on the student and their interest, the magazine proved to be a success. It was such a success that he began to start taking risk by including an ordering system to buy music from a cheap price. This is when his creativity skills took on another aspect to create Virgin Records. His success continued which led to 400-company conglomerate today. It takes innovation and risk taking to build such a huge empire. But his passion shines through within every company he builds. He had to be passionate on his core values and beliefs. Otherwise, his leadership skills
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