Rs 24,000 crore man who built a multi-billion dollar empire shares one leadership advice from Steve Jobs which has stayed with him: ‘If something isn’t right, my first reaction isn’t to fix it…'

He is a seasoned entrepreneur who has been wildly successful at launching businesses since 16. Taking to LinkedIn, billionaire Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, one of the largest MNC capital conglomerates in the world, recently took to LinkedIn to share the one belief he had to unlearn in order to succeed in the world of business. He also shared one lesson he imbibed from the late Apple founder Steve Jobs.

Branson clarified that, while managing his dyslexia, he dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to begin publishing a magazine, Student. He referred to his experiences in business and daily life as his genuine classroom rather than a traditional academic background. He speculated that going to business school would have given him even more traditional beliefs that he would later have to challenge.

One of the most prevalent fallacies he came across was the idea that a successful leader must always have the right response.


According to Branson, his personal experience soon showed differently. He certainly did not have answers for every issue as a teenage businessman operating his nascent enterprise out of a church crypt.

Instead of pretending to know everything, he discovered that asking an insightful question could be far more valuable than attempting to provide an uncertain or poorly considered answer.

This insight became a key component of his leadership style. According to Branson, acknowledging that a leader does not have all the answers is not a sign of weakness. Stronger ideas and better conclusions can frequently result from being inquisitive, paying close attention, and posing pertinent questions.

He also spoke about how failing to deliver a public speech at University College London made him reflect on his strengths.

"I realised I might not be the person with the smooth and immediate answer, but I had other skills. Things like coming up with ideas, solving problems, bringing out the best in people, and then getting out of their way

My mum had always taught me to listen more than I speak, which helps me to ask the right questions. And so I stopped being afraid to ask them. I had a brilliant team of young, energetic people around me who all brought different skills to the table – why wouldn’t I lean on them? This approach to leadership has stuck with me all my life. At the end of the day, people would prefer you to pause rather than perform…” he wrote.

The business tycoon also shared a clip of Jobs sharing the philosophy which enabled him to lead Apple Inc. In the clip, the entrepreneur explained how when he sees something is not right, his first instinct is not to fix it but to build a team, a capable one geared up to perform milestones. He often asked himself the question, "What do I need to do so the person who is screwing up learns?"

According to a Forbes report, Branson’s net worth is a whopping $2.8 billion, or Rs 24,817 crore.