Developing Strategic Management and Leadership Assignment 2022

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Developing strategic management and leadership skills: A case study of Nestle
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Table of contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the company..........................................................................................................2
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................3
Link between strategic management and leadership..............................................................3
Strategic management of Nestle.........................................................................................3
Nestle leadership................................................................................................................3
Impact of strategic management on leadership in Nestlé...................................................4
Impact of management and leadership styles on strategic decisions.....................................6
Adaptation of different leadership styles to different situations............................................8
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................9
2.1 Impact of leadership theories on organizational strategy.................................................9
2.2 Creation of leadership strategy that supports organizational direction..........................10
Task 3.......................................................................................................................................13
3.1 Methods for reviewing current leadership requirements...............................................13
3.2 Plan for developing future situations, which require leadership....................................14
Task 4.......................................................................................................................................15
4.1 Plan for developing leadership skills for specific requirements....................................15
4.2 Usefulness of methods to plan the development of leadership skills.............................17
Conclusion................................................................................................................................18
References................................................................................................................................19
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................23

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Introduction
Strategic management is adopted by the companies and organizations to maintain
consistency in planning, monitoring, analysing and assessing whether the operations are in
alignment with the identified goals and objectives. Formulation and implementation of the
proposed strategies are the core activities, which governs the strategic management (Ansoff
et al. 2018). The tools and techniques adopted for strategic management are environmental
scanning, strategy formulation, implementation, evaluation and control. All these activities
are a complete cycle, governing the mechanisms of the operations. Leaders play a vital part in
strategic management, as they generate teamwork. Reliance on the pre-determined factors is
high in case of the managers for preparing the corporate minds (Noe et al. 2017). This
assignment, with the example of Nestle, establishes a comparative study between strategic
management and leadership.
Overview of the company
Nestle has achieved accolades and glory by emerging as the largest food processing
Swiss multinational company. It is a public company, operating under food and beverage
industry. It is enlisted in 64th rank in the Fortune Global 500. It trades as SIX: NESN. As a
matter of specification, the company mainly deals in products like baby foods, medical foods,
cereals, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee, tea, confectionary, dairy products, frozen
foods, pet foods and others (Nestle.com 2019). One of the interesting facts is that 29 of the
Nestle brands including Nespresso, Nescafe, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer, Vitel and
Maggi have achieved the annual revenue of CHF 1 billion. According to the annual reports of
2018, the annual revenue of Nestle was CHF 91.43 billion. The operating income was
calculated as CHF 13.75 billion. The net income was CHF 10.46 billion. The value of assets
and liabilities is CHF 137.01 billion and CHF 58.40 billion respectively. The major drive

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behind this is the skilled efforts of 308,000 employees working towards globalizing the
operations to more than 194 locations (Nestle.com 2019).
Task 1
Link between strategic management and leadership
Strategic management of Nestle
Aligning with the slogan, Nestle aims at enhancing the standards of living for the
clients and the customers. Achieving customer satisfaction is the cornerstone towards
achieving competitive edge than the contemporary brands. Mention can be made of Nutrition,
Health and wellness Strategy, which is focused on the creation of value through the
development of short and long term goals. Increased growth is one of the important aspects
of Nestlé’s business (Nestle.com 2019). For this, innovation is planned in the products and
services. Apart from this, innovation is also planned in the training programs for enhancing
the awareness of the staffs regarding the trends adopted by the contemporary brands for
achieving large scale customer satisfaction. Providing technological training is one of the
essential strategic approaches towards improvising on the design thinking skills and
capabilities of the staffs. This approach has been beneficial in terms of enhancing the
organizational efficiency. The focus here is to ensure that the employees get the resources as
per the requirements (Nestle.com 2019). Strategic approach in this direction enhances the
leadership skills, abilities and competencies of the managers.
Nestle leadership
The main aim at Nestle is adding value instead of delegating authority. Major drive
behind this is the perseverance, commitment and mutual understanding among the
employees. The employees are exposed to wide ranging assignments and projects, which
broaden their professional skills, abilities and competencies. This expansion is a simultaneous
projection towards accepting the changes and adjusting accordingly. In this process,

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rationality is maintained for ensuring that the ethics is preserved. Hill (2017) is of the view
that tactful approach is expressed by the managers for earning loyalty, dependence and trust
from the clients and customers. Conducting need analysis on the basis of the complex
situation is a planned and reasoned action of the managers towards transforming the thoughts
into action in a proper manner. Programs, seminars and lectures are organized for providing a
platform to the staffs for getting external exposure in terms of diversifying the scope and
arena of their capabilities. As the organizational structure is flat, therefore, it is ease for the
managers to monitor the performance of the staffs. This is in terms of the reports prepared by
the head of the departments. On the contrary, Lasserre (2017) states that this assessment
further is assistance for the managers to make estimates for enhancing the sales revenue and
profit margin.
Impact of strategic management on leadership in Nestlé
Strategic planning provides direction regarding efficient execution of the business
activities. In this scenario, visionary approach is needed, which is provided only by a leader.
In case of Nestle, strategic planning revolves around innovation and renovation of the
products, system and processes. Therefore, the leaders expose influential approach in taking a
cue from the already developed strategies. The benchmark and timelines act as a justification
for the efforts invested through motivation. One of the motives of the strategic planning is to
solve the problems (Morden 2016). This is possible only through the tactful approach of the
leaders. Consideration of the performance indices is ease for the managers of Nestle in terms
of detecting the risks, which might aggravate from the problems.
In order to maintain consistency in the market position, Nestle exposes strategic
approach. Leadership is the agent through which stability is achieved in the parameters of
communication and solving the crucial problems and issues. The major drive behind this is
the flexibility, which is crucial in terms of altering the workplace scenario through the

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maintenance of traditional and cultural values. Leaders guide the personnel for aligning the
operations according to the changes in the market. According to Morschett, Schramm-Klein
and Zentes (2015), their efforts need to be praised in terms of moulding the staffs towards the
organizational requirements.
Strategic management and leadership can be considered simply as planning and
execution. Leaders act as a medium between planning and executing through the application
of creative thinking. Resources and direction add value to the idea proposition of the leaders
of Nestle in terms of accomplishing the goals according to the requirements. Taking help
from the policies is assistance for the leaders to formulate plans regarding reaching to the
identified and specified benchmarks (Bergh et al. 2016).
As a matter of specification, collaboration of strategic management and leadership
results in the formation of ways in which companies like Nestle can achieve success.
Collaborative approach towards the formulation of strategies is beneficial in terms of creating
constructive plans. Choice of language and persuasive approach of the leaders creates a heavy
impact on the decisions of the stakeholders.
Leadership capability is enhanced through coaching, which is a central part of the
Leadership Framework of Nestle, Thailand. Here, the objective is to develop the skills,
capabilities and competencies of regional middle manager for facing the challenges in
globalizing the operations. The Senior Operations Manager indulges in meeting with the
Assistant managers to develop training programs (Nestle.com. 2019). Here, the staffs are
guided in terms of inspiring the customers, diversifying the thinking skills and judgmental
capabilities, dealing with the external influences and challenges along with innovation.
Evaluation of the performance adds value to the operations, enhancing the standards and
quality.