What Richard Branson wants in His Managers
Branson ultimately practices what he preaches when it comes to the way he treats his people, as we've talked about recently here.
The other side of it is that he also expects it of his managers as well. He doesn't look primarily for anything related to schooling or grades or other meaningless trivia for management material; he looks for one thing only: how people are with 
handling other people.
Overall, there is no other criteria he looks at for managers. If they don't have that, they don't get promoted. Those that are looked at as management material must be good with people; they have to genuinely care about them. I'm not talking about those that just do that with people over them either. They must be like that with fellow workers or others underneath them if they're already in a management position.
Another quality he insists upon is, like himself, the person must be someone that gives out a lot of praise for their people, and look for things that people do to give praise for.
The other major thing is that he promotes from within. He's not impressed with someone with the letters MBA behind their name. A large amount of the people managing his businesses don't even go to college. He loves to have them learn on the job, where he knows what they really are like and can do, rather than someone who knows how to take tests.
This builds great morale within the company. This doesn't mean that workers are looked down upon for being schooled, it's just not a priority, or used as a measurement for promotion at the company.
His managers are good with people; that's the required ingredient. When you look at how many screwballs that have been put into management that don't know how to encourage and motivate people, it's surprising that more companies don't make this their way of doing business.
Other Richard Branson Resources:
Richard Branson's Virgin Success
Thoroughly postmodern billionaire
Richard Branson's latest adventure will take Virgin into space
Richard Branson - Life - Philanthropy - Money
Richard Branson, Business Personality
Richard Branson conquered the world. Now he wants to fly you to space.
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