I love me some Richard Branson.

He was here in Miami a few weeks ago at this Formula E race (that’s an electric Formula One car race). What a guy.

It could be that I admire his business acumen. It could be that I admire his life advice. It could simply be that he’s surrounded by incredibly attractive women every time I see him. Or it could be a combination of all of the above.

Richard Branson is incredibly generous with his business advice. He’s written a number of books, and he makes himself available to teach business leaders.

I was reading an article by a guy who attended a workshop where Richard spoke (Richard and I vacation in the British Virgin Islands, so I feel like we’re on a first-name basis now). David Jaffa, the guy who went to the workshop, summarized Richard’s top three tips from their weekend together.

My favorite piece of David’s article is this:

Richard believes all CEOs should find someone better than them to run their business so they can think about the future. The ideal candidate is a people-person; someone who genuinely likes people, is good at listening and acts on their listening, is good at praising people and almost never criticizes people.

There’s quite a lot of advice packed in those two sentences.

Which Person Are You?

I couldn’t agree with Branson more. You need to be out thinking about the future. You need to be creating the vision. You need to hire and nurture the person who executes on that vision.

You can’t do it all. You can’t manage the day-to-day while thinking about the future. At least, you can’t do it if you want the future to look like your vision. There just isn’t time to do it all.

More importantly, look at those qualities Branson articulates for the person you pick to run the business. Branson describes someone who is the polar opposite of many of us running our businesses.

Take me for example. I’m definitely not what Branson describes.

Let’s break it out:

• Likes people? A few.
• Good at listening? If I can stop talking.
• Acts on the listening? Hard for me to know since I rarely stop talking.
• Good at praising people? Nope.
• Almost never criticizes people? Almost never, except sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes at night, and then occasionally in between.

I’m most definitely not the person Richard Branson thinks should be running my business.

Branson nails it. He has it right. He describes the kind of person who makes an organization sing, dance, and grow. Those of us like me who don’t have those qualities need to get out of the way and make room for those who do. We can take our cranky old selves and go think about the future. We need to get out of the way and let the business grow under better leadership.

Are you thinking about the future? Or are you bogged down in the day-to-day? Are you the right person to run your company? Do you need someone else to run the company while you go off and think about the future?