ADMS 2511 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Green Fund
1 May 2018
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ADMS 2511 Lecture 7 Notes – Undercover Leaders
Introduction
• Not all leaders are heroes, but many have exhibited courageous behaviour.
• CEO Richard Branson may or may not be a hero, but when he launches his latest
attempt to set the world record for an around-the-world balloon flight or sloop sailing,
he exhibits the same courageous behaviour when he is leading conglomerate Virgin
Group.
• Virgin Group now includes more than 400 companies, including Virgin Galactic, a space
tourism company, and Virgin Fuels, whose goal is to revolutionize the industry by
providing sustainable fuels for automobiles and aircraft.
• Same leader, same heroic behaviour—in work and in life.
• Are we really to believe that Richard Branson and other courageous leaders are just like
everyone else?
• The W Network television show Undercover Boss Canada features a leader working
undercover in his or her own company to find out how the organization really works.
• Here, we consider the ethical leadership lessons it might offer.
• Executives from Mexx Canada, Calgary Transit, Sodexo Canada, and Mr. Lube have been
featured on the show.
• Typically, the executive works undercover for a week.
• Then the employees with whom and under whom the leader has worked are summoned
to company headquarters and rewarded, or punished, for their actions.
• In one episode, Andy Clark, the founder and CEO of Edmonton-based Clark Builders,
strapped on a tool belt for the first time in 30 years and added a moustache to work
beside his employees.
• He wondered if, at 62 years old, he could keep up.
• He made a lot of rookie errors, but when he heard about the wife of one of his
employees who was quite sick, he called a doctor friend to see if he could help with her
cancer and offered to pay the full medical cost for treatment.
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