Richard Branson Quotes

A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.

To be an effective leader, you have to have a manipulative streak - you have to figure out the people working for you and give each tasks that will take advantage of his strength.

A lot of entrepreneurs let ego get in the way. You've got to be the conductor. You can't play all the instruments yourself. You have to get others to work together.

You can't get it all done yourself. The best leaders are not afraid of picking people who are better than they are and who may one day replace them.

People and organizations don't grow much without delegation and completed staff work because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses.

A good leader should focus on making sure everyone is being given the tools to do their job, not just expecting - poof! - that they're going to produce great work.

When you want a thing done, 'Don't do it yourself' is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

I'm going from doing all of the work to having to delegate the work - which is almost harder for me than doing the work myself. I'm a lousy delegator, but I'm learning.

Effective management always means asking the right question.

I need to build my team around my weaknesses.

True leadership isn't about having an idea. It's about having an idea and recruiting other people to execute on this vision.

I think one of the keys to leadership is recognizing that everybody has gifts and talents. A good leader will learn how to harness those gifts toward the same goal.

If I have one skill as a manager, I can make things extremely clear.

I like being part of a big company's executive team. It's fun to stretch other parts of my brain, considering questions like, 'How should we think of acquisitions?' I get to be privy to things that would never come up at a small company.

Basically, a manager's job is to make other people more productive. What's one really good way to do that? Do the work that is getting in their way. Which means find out what kind of important work your developers dislike the most, and do it for them.

In managers, I look for people who can get things done through other people. The most important thing for a good manager is that the people on his team feel like he or she has integrity.

Like most entrepreneurs, getting motivated to work has never been a problem for me; focus comes through delegating tasks to the best people you can find.

For me, being able to engage with the details when necessary, when there's a challenge, when there's a particularly important pivot, yes, you have to do that. But in general, a leader needs to trust their commanders, needs to trust the team they've assembled, to actually execute in the right way.

I learned how important it is to lead and be decisive and to, in a way, empower other people to do their best.

The best thing you can do as a leader when people are pressed is get the obstacles out of their way.

I think I have learnt more about business from fighting than anything else - from any book, from any, like - fighting is an incredible megastore for doing business.

My idea of management is that what your job is as the boss is to find really good people and empower them and leave them alone.

If you have excellent people, then you have to give them the power.

The one thing I've known and I've learned from the best managers, it's to stay positive.

Being president isn't a solo position. You surround yourself with highly qualified people that are smarter about issues than you are. But that's not enough. You then have to listen to them.