Leadership and Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Leadership and Change - Essay Example With the mail-order being a success, Branson used the money earned from this company to buy a record store and to leverage it into a chain (Branson, 2009). Over time, he has managed to add 360 acquisitions to Virgin Music Group including airlines, trains, books, healthcare, wines, comics, fitness clubs, financial services and space travel among others (Bowerman & Wart, 2011). One major reason behind the success of Virgin group of companies is Branson’s unique leadership, charisma and effective timing (Fox, 2004). These qualities have enabled him to anticipate, and manage change effectively in his business empire. Though he is remarkably reserved and shy in person (Fox, 2004), Branson has the ability to change failures to his advantage, which enables him to gain publicity (Fabrikant, 1997). This daring nature has being the motivation behind his successful empire. Implementation of change Branson’s effective implementation of change can be illustrated by Kotter’s e ight steps change model. As the virgin empire started to expand in 1990s, Virgin megastores, and Virgin Records were doing well (Grant, 2005). However, Virgin Atlantic was not doing well, and it needed huge investments in order to break from being a small time operator to medium sized carrier (Branson, 2002); which is in accordance with Kotter’s model that requires establishment of a sense of contingence to affect change (Sabri, Gupta & Beitler, 2007). According to Grant (2005), Branson’s ingenious ideas to wade through these circumstances were to float the company, and raise the required expansion capital via the city and shareholders. However, immediately after this decision, it became apparent to Branson that this decision was at odds with the kinds of risks shareholders were prepared to stand (Grant, 2005). Surprisingly, in creating a guiding coalition in accordance with Kotter’s change model, Branson decided to sell Virgin records, and bought back Virgin At lantic. It was through such strategic decisions that Virgin Atlantic has become a successful business empire today. Branson approach in his career is that of influence, and has the ability to create a common purpose among his followers; his approach is to make people achieve things that they did not know they had the ability to achieve (Daft, 2002). Therefore, Branson develops a vision and strategy to implement the specific changes, and communicates the same to his employees; these are among the steps in Kotter’s change model (Sabri, Gupta & Beitler, 2007). He establishes the change, creates the guiding principles, develops the vision and the strategies to lead to the required change, or to attain his goals. Usually, every organizational change has a range of consequences, and one of the consequences of floatation of Virgin Atlantic was change in internal environment, and an organizational culture in which employees have to thrive in (Cox, 2009). One of the remarkable cultura l changes under Branson was making employees to have decentralized chains of commands, in ensuring that they are not answerable to one leader. Empowering employees for action is one of the steps in Kotter’s change model (Sabri, Gupta & Beitler, 2007). Branson in his organizational culture ensured employees were answerable to shareholders (Grant, 2005). Grant further noted that Richard Branson’s principles and approach to handling change enables transitions to

History of Pyramids Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

History of Pyramids - Term Paper Example These structures very prominently reflect wealth and status of the Kings of that time. â€Å"Man fears time but the time fears pyramids†. [Arab saying]. The history of pyramids stretches 4000 years back. Around 3000 B.C, an era began which is normally called the dynastic era. An era in which the greatest kings ruled different parts of the world. Especially the history of Egypt tells that Kings were praised like they are being appointed by God. People wanted to keep the king’s dead body in some special safe and conditions because it was their belief that there king has not completely died and they have to keep it intact. â€Å"Believed to be gods, the royal family lived amid colossal palaces and temples built to honor them and their deified ancestors† (Hawaas). The word Mummy came from this practice of the people of that time. These structures were to provide a safe and strong shelter for the dead bodies of their kings. However this culture of building pyramids wa s definitely started by their kings. Pyramids are not the part of Egyptian civilization only. There are others also like Mesopotamian and Mayan. As described earlier, pyramids are so old that â€Å"from the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us†. (Bonaparte). ... e mounds.† More likely, Egyptian pyramids were modeled on a sacred, pointed stone called the benben.  The benben symbolized the rays of the sun; ancient texts claimed that pharaohs reached the heavens via sunbeams†. (National Geographic) For a long period, archeologists and historians presented their theories regarding pyramids that how and why are these structures built? This is a question that kept everyone in a state of severe confusion for a very long period of time. The information related to such confusing questions was provided by the pyramids itself. The inside of these pyramids is so well designed and managed by the ancient people that it provided loads of information and history of these structures. The concept or the culture of picture writing was introduced by Egyptians. They were really good at that and this mean of communication is very affective and understandable. The interior of Egyptian pyramids contains such picture writings on the walls describing th e happenings and other processing of those old Kingdoms. In such picture writings that were found, some were showing the construction of these pyramids. These embedded pictures were of labors and mechanism technique they used to build these structures. These were so clear that people got the idea and the mystery of process of creating the pyramids didn’t remain a mystery anymore. One of such writing which was commonly found on the inside walls of most of the pyramids was â€Å"HRAM† (haram). â€Å"This name (haram) signifies the holy place, the edifice consecrated in a particular manner, it may be some divinity, or some religious usage† (Silvestre De Sacy). From these wall prints, it was also concluded that the process of making these pyramids was not easy. In fact these projects were running on