Leadership Styles at M&S

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Leadership
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Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
1.1 Leadership.........................................................................................................................2
1.2 Leadership Styles..............................................................................................................3
1.3 Organization culture..........................................................................................................4
2. Leadership and management styles at M&S............................................................................4
3. Discussion................................................................................................................................5
3.1 Leadership and Change Management...............................................................................5
4. Impact of leadership in the business of M&S..........................................................................6
5. Conclusion................................................................................................................................7
6. References................................................................................................................................9
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1. Introduction
This analysis is used to discuss various leadership styles which can be used in any organization.
The focus is to understand various concepts of leadership and how this helps the team members
of the company to work. In this research, Marks and Spencer, a British company and its
leadership styles are discussed. The reason for choosing this company is its global recognition
among customers. Moreover, M&S is also known for the sustainability of its product and ethical
approaches towards its suppliers. The company also has a significant role in contributions to
Corporate Social Responsibility in comparison to the other companies and NGO's. More
complex the infrastructure M&S gives, more simplicity it has within its organization. The
company fulfills the challenge of working as a single entity at both corporate and retail store
level. Thus, in order to manage the success of the organization, it is necessary to understand the
corporate leaders of the company and also review the company’s mission, values and vision
(Silva, 2016).
1.1 Leadership
The act of leading people in an organization is known as leadership. It is the leader who decides
the strategies of the company. They have the power to manipulate people and their way of
working. They play a very critical role in achieving the goals of the organization. Their main aim
is to help employees work in a way which leads to maximizing their profits and outcomes. They
have a strategy to do work which minimizes cost. Every leader has some strategies to do work
within an organization (Rosenbach and W.E., 2018). Based on their strategies and styles, there
exist different leadership theories. There can be many leaders, but there can be only a few good
leaders. It depends on the style of their work that they are classified into different categories.
Few leadership styles are discussed further (Harris et al. 2016).
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A leader is the one who has followers. Leaders have influencing power which helps them to gain
these followers, but in order to achieve it; they need to focus on their integrity. The focus of
leadership lies entirely on the capabilities of the leader (Jimenez et al. 2017).
1.2 Leadership Styles
The approach to providing direction to people in order to motivate them to achieve a common
goal by implementing plans is known as leadership style (Anderson et al. 2017).
1) Autocratic Leadership: this is a classical approach where managers have all the powers to
make decisions and strategies. Managers do not consult staff in this approach and the staff
is bound to follow their strategies and orders without intervention. This approach can be
referred to as a combination of punishments and rewards. In this style, managers force the
employees to do the work transparently and never ask their opinions. In this case, only
managers contribute to making decisions. It became difficult for managers to change their
ways which started with this kind of approach. This kind of leadership has unfortunate
consequences as employees are generally dissatisfied (Foote et al. 2018).
2) Bureaucratic Leadership: This type of leadership policy follows well-defined standards and
rules which has been already set. The focus of this style is to ensure accuracy and safety.
This type of leadership is adopted by companies where the work or work culture is
dangerous, and therefore employees are forced to follow a particular set of rules in order to
ensure safety. The best example of this leadership can be seen in construction companies
where people are bound to follow a particular standard of work every day.
3) Democratic Leadership: This can also be referred to as participative leadership as it
includes its subordinates in the process of making a decision. Although the final decision is
in the hands of the leaders only, this style is effective in increasing the motivation of the
employees and give fruitful results in the organization. Sometimes the leader knows only a
part of the problem and not the whole situation. This style of leadership helps to analyze the
situation with the help of discussion with subordinates and thus lead to a conclusion.
4) Laissez-faire: This is a kind of "hands-off" styles where the entire decision is in the hands
of staff and not the managers. The staff is given full right to determine solutions to
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