Leadership and Management in Rainco: A Comparative Study

This document explores the leadership and management practices in Rainco, a manufacturing company. It discusses the characteristics of a leader and a manager, their roles, and the decision-making process in different situations. It also examines the link between situational leadership and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the concepts of contingency theory and system leadership. The document references Nisthar, W. (n.d.) for further information.

Contents
Assignment Brief (RQF)......................................................................................................................1
Acknowledgement.......................................................................................................................................7
List of Figures............................................................................................................................................9
Rainco.......................................................................................................................................................10
Vision of Rainco....................................................................................................................................10
Mission of Rainco..................................................................................................................................10
Leadership.................................................................................................................................................11
Leader....................................................................................................................................................11
Characteristics of a leader................................................................................................................11
Role of a leader.................................................................................................................................11
Management.........................................................................................................................................12
Manager................................................................................................................................................12
Characteristics of a manager............................................................................................................12
Role of a manager.............................................................................................................................12
Comparison of Leader and Manager....................................................................................................13
Decision making process of leader and manager in different situational context..................................14
Situation 1.............................................................................................................................................14
Situation 2.............................................................................................................................................14
Functions of manager in situation 2.................................................................................................15
Situational leadership...........................................................................................................................17
Link between situational leadership and situation 2.......................................................................17
Contingency theory...............................................................................................................................18
Link between contingency theory and situation 2...........................................................................18
System leadership..................................................................................................................................19
Steps taken under system leadership for situation 1...........................................................................19
Referencing...............................................................................................................................................20

List of Figures
Figure 1 Handing over Personal protective equipment' for the commander of Sri Lankan army..............17

Rainco
Rainco is an organization which is started in 1977 as an Umbrella company and today it’s a large
scale manufacturing company of fashion accessories, family care, baby care, rainwear and shoes.
Today it has around 1200 employees and they export their products to other countries such as
Maldives, Sweden, France and India (Nisthar, n.d.).
Vision of Rainco
“Reaching heights in creating passionate brands that enrich our life”
Mission of Rainco
“Rainco will create and deliver the highest value to our consumers, retailers, suppliers and
employees as the premier marketing and distribution company, responsibly and sustainably. We
will achieve leadership in sales, profit and value creation, by focusing on innovation in products,
services and technology and improve the lives of our employees, shareholders and the
communities we live in. Rainco will continue to shape and lead markets in the South Asian
region”.

Leadership
Motivating a group of people towards achieving of a common goal can be simply defined as
leadership In a business this can mean directing colleagues to achieve business needs(Ward,
2007).
Leader
Leader is the influencer of group of people to achieve the goals (Vtaide.com, 2019). Also a
leader can be known as a person who can see how the things should be improved and who can
make people moved towards a specific achievement (Morgan, 2020).
Characteristics of a leader
1. Knowledgeable
2. Integrity
3. Self-awareness
4. Strong influencer
5. Communicates effectively
6. Trustworthy
7. Empathetic
8. Gratitude
Role of a leader
 Leader represents a particular team, leader has a role of communicating team objectives
to the public (Managementstudyguide, 2015).
 Inspire the team members to achieve a specific goal (Ward, 2007).

Management
The process of planning, organizing, decision making, leading, and controlling resources of an
organization to achieve its objectives is known as Management (iedunote.com, n.d.). Simply this
can be known as coordination and administration of tasks to achieve a goal (www.indeed.com,
n.d.).
Manager
Manager is the person who is responsible for supervising and motivating employees of an
organization (yourdictionary, n.d.). A manager can be in charge of a department, group of people
or whole business. They exercise managerial functions daily (Nordqvist, 2016).
Characteristics of a manager
1. Knowledge
2. Leadership
3. Effective communication
4. Organization
5. Time management
6. Respect for Employees
7. Confidence
8. Reliability
9. Confidence
Role of a manager
 A manager is responsible of supervising a department or a group of people with a specific
organization (What Are the Main Responsibilities of Managers, n.d.).
 Motivating employees and monitoring them.
 Handling conflicts within the team
 Utilizing resources to achieve organizational goals

Comparison of Leader and Manager
Leader Manager
1. Influence the subordinates to achieve a
specific goal
1.Manage an entire organization or a section
2. Leader sets a direction to its team 2. Manager makes plans to achieve the
objectives.
3. Leader has followers under him 3.Manager has employees under him
4. Leader is focused on people 4.Manager is focused on process
5. Development of his team members is
the aim of a leader
5.Achieving organizational objectives it the
aim of a manager (Clarke, 2019)
6. May be less concern with interpersonal
issues
6.May be more concern with interpersonal
issues
7. A leader promote change 7.A manager react to the change
8. A leader align people 8.A manager organize people
9. Leader build relationships 9.Manager build systems and processes

Decision making process of leader and manager in different situational
context
Situation 1
Rainco was losing its market share due to cheap inferior imports from china, without reacting
from a tactical. Instead of reacting with a tactical campaign they started to study more about
customer needs and to introduce new product or to modify existing once. At this time they found
that most of the people did not like using nets when sleeping because they thought that nets are
warm, stuffy and quite flimsy therefore it prone to tearing. So they modified their nets to
overcome these problems (Sarva Colombo, n.d.).
At these situation managers of rainco has identified the most required product for customers out
of their organization and drawbacks of that particular product which demotivate the customer. So
then they had identified the situation of net and its drawbacks. In this situation managers wanted
to attract customers towards rainco by making a demand product, they were using this marketing
technique with rainco umbrellas. They wanted to make a trending product of their company such
as rainco umbrellas and they selected nets for that.
At this situation managers have planned to select a good product which can be marketed easily
and has identified its current drawbacks. As the organizing process they have introduced
techniques to overcome the drawbacks with nets, by organizing the available resources in the
organization. As the last function controlling they have introduced their new nets for the market
and keep tracking the sales before the modification and after.
Situation 2
Covid-19 pandemic is a recent situation which is faced by many organizations, they had to
change their business activities according health regulations. Most of the companies are
struggling in this period due to low sales and health restrictions, Rainco faced this situation too.
They had to limit their employee count due to health restrictions and take on their regular
business activities. Organizational culture was changed in this period by maintaining a distance
among others.
Ensuring the safety of the employees is a main responsibility of managers by this period and
employees were free to take holidays if they feel uncomfortable by this period. Organisation was
modified by the managers according to government instructions such as making a must to wear
masks inside, using hand sanitizers, maintaining the distance and arrangement of an isolation
room.

Functions of manager in situation 2
Planning
 Limiting the staff
 Following government and health instructions
 Making a must to wear mask inside the organization
 Measuring the body temperature before entering the premises
 Informing employees to use hand sanitizers
Organizing
 Ordering masks and sanitizers for organizational use
 Making available sanitizers in the organization
 Giving a free mask daily for each staff member with the premises.
 Recruiting a new employee to measure the body temperature at the entrance
 Preparing an isolation room
Controlling
 Confirming employees are not misusing the flexibility to get holidays.
 Providing leaves and salaries in a fairly manner
 Penalizing the employees who doesn’t follow health instructions
Under the government instruction they were able to continue the business activities, but
continuing the business with a less staff is the next problem faced by Rainco. As solution
managers decided to limit the productions and marketing activities at this period because even
the sales were reduced due to the pandemic.
By this period leaders of rainco, specially CEO,directors and shareholders were focused on doing
more social activities, even the managers joined this idea. Managers looked on this idea as
another way of marketing and raising the name Rainco. Later Rainco announced that they joined
the battle against covid-19 by donating Rs2.4 million worth personal protective equipment’s to
the National Operation Centre for prevention of covid-19 (CeylonToday, n.d.).

Below figure depicts handing over personal protective equipment’s for the commander of Sri
Lankan army, Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva. CEO of rainco Ahamed Aroos represents the
company in handing over the personal protective equipment’s,
Figure 1 Handing over Personal protective equipment' for the commander of Sri Lankan army
Not only managers, other employers and employees in organization with leadership skills played
a major role by this period by doing social activities to raise the name Rainco. During this period
leadership skills of many employees were identified, there were employees who followed rules
and regulations perfectly and ethically by becoming a role model for other employees.
Employers identified these types of employees at this period for future promotion and to assign
new tasks and responsibilities.
Situational leadership

Situational leadership is an adaptive leadership style for different situations. Here the leader
identifies the strengths of employees and assign them tasks according to the situation. Situational
leadership is not based on skills of the leader, he/she change the leadership style according to the
situation and according to the requirements of the organization (St. Thomas University Online,
2014).
Link between situational leadership and situation 2
Ensuring employee health
As mentioned above Rainco has followed many steps to ensure the health of employees. These
steps were taken suddenly as the covid-19 raises, so in this situation manager has followed the
situational leadership where they were focused on a situation which is not in their daily business
process. According to the situation top level management has given responsibilities to employers
to control this situation. In sudden situations like this, situational leadership is a common
leadership style used by most of the organizations.
Some steps taken by managers according to situational leadership,
 Changing organizational culture according to the situation such as maintaining distance
and wearing masks.
 Ordering sanitizers and making them available in the organization for organizational use.
 Assigning additional tasks to securities to check the body temperature of employees
before they enter the organization.
 Limiting the staff
Contingency theory

Contingency theory highlights that there is no one best way to lead an organization and it
depends on organizations environment and circumstances. And also this show that success of a
leader does not only depend on their abilities (Flinsch-Rodriguez, 2010).
Link between contingency theory and situation 2
As discussed above covid-19 is a sudden situation where managers or leaders haven’t
experienced before and they were not prepared for that early. So they tried many strategies by
this period without using one. At such a situation leaders or managers should follow more
practical strategies in correct time without wasting time to find one perfect way. As contingency
theory explain that there is no one best way to lead, in this situation leading strategies were differ
from leader to leader the way that they manage their responsibilities.
When using this theory practically managers or leaders should consider about the nature of
organization and its environment. As example products of rainco will be available for customers
by going under many channels such as retailers and wholesalers, if organization fail to ensure
healthiness in organization virus can be spread by these products. Also they should do some
extra activities to ensure the safety of their products by this period such as cleaning them with
sanitizers. So like this way of controlling the situation is can be depend on organizations
environment, scale, products they produce etc.

System leadership
This can be known as a set of skills that individual or an organization can used to support the
processes or to make decisions (World Economic Forum, n.d.). Here the strategies are commonly
used and pre-defined once. These types of leadership styles are not much effective in situations
such as covid-19. This leadership style can be used in situation one, loosing of marketing share.
Strategies used in situation one is more familiar with organizations unlike in situation 2.
Strategies that were used by managers to identify the drawbacks can be considered as system
leadership because those are set of strategies which can be used by organization instantly. This
leadership style is effective to make internal decisions of organizations, such as issues related
employees and resources of organization.
Steps taken under system leadership for situation 1
 Studying about competitors
 Identifying weaknesses of rainco products and bringing solutions for them
 Identifying the weaknesses of competitors
 Developing new marketing stratergies

Referencing
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