Leadership and Management Styles in Tesco

This report analyzes the leadership and management styles in Tesco, the largest retailer in the UK. It explores the company's vision, history, and strategies for success. The report also provides recommendations for improving leadership and management practices in Tesco.

CONTEXT OF
BUSINESS 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 1
1. A brief history and summary of the business and the rationale for choice ............................1
2. Discuss the vision, leadership style and management practice and various strategies making
use of various theories ................................................................................................................2
3. Analyse how above strategies are achieved or implemented by Tesco giving specific
examples......................................................................................................................................4
4. Recommendations as an improvement (the proposed leadership style, management practice
and the various strategies that can be undertaken by Tesco) .....................................................5
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6

INTRODUCTION
Management and leadership are two important factors which are necessary for
performing tasks of the organization. Leadership is a term used for defining the ability of leaders
and managers to make other work according to their instructions (Dreyer, B and Et. Al., 2017).
Leaders assign goals and objectives to subordinates for meeting the demands and needs of the
organization. These are responsible for giving proper guidance to employees while
accomplishing the task and goals assigned to them. There are various leadership and
management styles used by organizations to achieve the goals and objectives in specified time
frame. They are autocratic, democratic, charismatic, laissez faire, task oriented, charismatic,
bureaucratic, etc. In this report, the company which is considered for analyzing different
leadership and management styles is Tesco. This is a retail firm of UK that was founded in the
year 1919 by Mr. Jack Cohen. This report describes vision of the company, history of the
organization and summary of business. At last of this report, different strategies used by Tesco
for running business successfully are explained.
1. A brief history and summary of the business and the rationale for choice
History
Tesco is company of retail sector that was founded in the year 1919 by Mr. jack Cohen.
The headquarters of this company are located in Welwyn Garden city, Hertfordshire, England,
United Kingdom. Jack Cohen was a grocery seller in London. This brand was first established
after a shipment of tea from T.E Stockwell. The first store of Tesco was opened in 1929. At
initial stage, Tesco was offering drinks and food products but gradually it expanded it's business
into several areas like mobile network, clothing, CD's, health insurance, DVD's, Games,
electronics, car, home insurance and finance services.
Summary
Tesco operates stores in UK under different banners including Superstone, Extra,
Express and Metro. Tesco ensures customer satisfaction and increase the number of customers.
Tesco is also found on London Stock Exchange. It has around £62.54 billion revenue in last year.
Tesco is the largest retailer of British and it is also world's largest retailing outlet. It has more
than 4500 locations in UK. It has a workforce of around 552004 employees. This company
focuses on motivating and supporting it's employees to work hard and achieve specified targets.
It has a well trained workforce and a huge customer base. Tesco has different levels in the
workplace such as customer assistant, department managers, logistics staff and warehouse staff.
Rationale of the study

Tesco is the largest retailer of UK and it is running its business successfully since many years in
different countries (Maylor, H., Blackmon, K. and Huemann, M., 2016). This company is chosen
for understanding the leadership and management theories that are used in TESCO’s workplace
which helps it in accomplishing goals and objectives within given time frame. Tesco’s
strategies for performing well in market is only because of leadership styles and management of
that place.
Discuss the vision, leadership style and management style or practice and different strategies for
making use of various theories
Vision of Tesco
Tesco is largest retailer of UK which has an objective of long term success. A vision of
any company is defined as a statement that describes the inspirational view of organization. The
vision of Tesco is to provide high quality products to its customer and became highly
competitive in market. It wants to have a huge amount of loyal and commited shareholders and
colleagues.
Leadership style and management practices followed in Tesco’s work place.
Tesco is a multinational UK retailer which is offering services in different countries. It follows
various leadership style and management practices within the organization for achievement
objectives and goal of the firm (Bates and Robb, 2016). These management practices and
leadership style are adopted by the organization for enhancing good flow of functions and
operations in the company. Different managers and leaders adopts different leadership styles to
be operated at work place. Leaders perform excellent while doing tasks of the organization and
influence their subordinates to perform like them. There are following kind of management
practices and leadership styles followed by multinational firms like Tesco. They are described
below.
Autocratic leadership and management style – These leaders do not involve subordinates and
workers in the decision making of the company. Autocratic leaders make unilateral decisions
which are made independently by the leader of the company. This kind of leadership is effective
when leaders have to make instant decision. This leadership demotivates employees as they are
not allowed to participates in decision making process.
Democratic leadership and management style- These leaders involve staff and workers for
making effective decision of the company. Final decision is given by top level management but it
includes opinions and suggestions of other employees working in the company. This kind of
leadership requires collective decision which are profitable for the organization.
Consultative leadership or management style- These leaders organize different kind of
discussions before making organizational decisions (Wang and Et. Al., 2016). Consultative

leaders involve whole staff while making decision for the company. This kind of leadership
provides loyal workers and help in building good relationship within the organization.
Persuasive leadership or management style-This kind of leadership is similar to autocratic
leadership or management style. Such leaders take persuasion of workers in the decision making.
These decisions include benefits of employees. This leadership is not effective when employees
do not support management of the company.
Laissez-faire leadership or management style- this leadership - In this leadership or
management, decisions are made by employees and management guides them throughout the
decision making process. Managers convert into mentors and this leadership style is generally
adopted in startups.
The management of Tesco has adopted democratic style of leadership which is also
known as participant leadership (Kew and Stredwick, 2016). Democratic leaders motivates
employees and hence they are able to provide good services and products to the customers. The
managers appoints leadership roles to individuals in the company and implement strategic
decisions.
There are different theories which are adopted by organisations for taking effective
decisions that will help company in making profits. Some of the leadership and management
theories are given below-
Contingency theory of leadership
This theory of leadership states that there is no single theory which can be used by
leaders in handling every business situation and making effective decisions. According to this
theory managerial situations depends upon various external and internal factors. The
Contingency theory was given by Fielder in the year 1964. There are three types of
organisational situation proposed by this theory such as leader-member relation, Task structure
and positional power. The leader-member relation describes relationship of leader and manager
in the organisation. Task structure is the way in which leaders assign tasks to subordinates.
Positional power is the power that leaders have over their workers or subordinates. This
leadership measures leadership style with least preferred co-worker scale(LPC scale). The
leaders having high score on this scale are known as relationship motivated leaders and leaders
who have low score are task motivated leaders. This theory helps in establishment of effective
leadership in the firm and broadening scope of leadership. In, Tesco this leadership theory is
applied for making strategies of taking effective decisions (Al-Ansaari, Bederr and Chen, 2015).
The mangers are able to handle business situations and take decisions which are beneficial in
increasing profits of the company.
Douglas McGregor's Theories X and Y

Tesco follows management theory which was proposed by Douglas McGregor in the year
1960. According to this theory there are two types of leaders in the organisation. Managers and
leaders follow different ways for motivating employees and guiding them to perform tasks. The
managers are classified into theory X and theory Y managers.
Theory Y leaders- The managers who comes under this category have optimistic opinion about
their employees. These leaders think that individuals working in the organisation are satisfied by
their work and they enjoy working in this company (Al-Ansaari, Bederr and Chen, 2015). This
increases trust and builds healthy relationship between leaders and their team members.
Theory X leaders- The leaders who comes under this category are those who thinks that their
workers or employees are not satisfied and they do not like working in workplace. These leaders
have pessimistic view of the workers. To overcome the problem of demotivated workers, these
leaders give rewards and incentive to motivate them and achieve goals and objectives of the
company in given time frame.
3. Analyse how above strategies are achieved or implemented by Tesco giving specific examples
The managers of stores of Tesco carry out weekly audits in order to identify and solve
problems of the organisation. Tesco also follows operational routine that includes delivering
good standards and better availability for the customers. The management style of Tesco is
democratic and this is why operating way of these managers is decentralised. The information is
passed from top level to lower level employees and every individual is free to give their opinions
and ideas for growth and development of the company. The Tesco management considers
employees as an asset of the organisation. Tesco provides motivation to its employees by
providing them rewards, safeguarding their future and paid holidays. Tesco is able to follow
democratic leadership because of flat organisational structure that allows staff members to
become part of organisation's success (Kew and Stredwick, 2016). The leadership and
management style in Tesco support company to grow and develop. The different roles that
leaders play in Tesco are finding best job for staff and support in accomplishing the job assigned
to them. In case of any religious requirements, illness or disability, management of Tesco tries to
have a strategic change. The high performance of Tesco management is important as it ensures
that customers are provided good service. The strategies of Tesco has given strong competitive
advantage and made the company grow in time of economic recessions.
4. Recommendations as an improvement (the proposed leadership style, management practice
and the various strategies that can be undertaken by Tesco)
According to the above report several recommendations are made for Tesco for enhancing the
leadership and management practice at workplace. Leadership and management practices are
important for continuing the long term success of company. Tesco can improve the management
process of their organisation, the leadership style of Tesco operates customer management where
issues of customers are heard and resolved. Tesco is a customer oriented organisation and it tries

to satisfy it's customers. The democratic style of leadership is followed by mangers of Tesco but
it is recommended for Tesco to use other kind of leadership style like autocratic for continuous
growth of the company. In autocratic style of leadership or management, leaders ensure that
employees are performing their task within given time frame.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been analysed that an effective leadership and management
in Tesco is the reason behind it's success. The management and leadership style of Tesco is
flexible and decentralised. Tesco focuses on developing long term strategies that helped in
growth of the company. Democratic style of leadership is adopted in Tesco which helps
company in leading the retail sector. Leaders and managers are responsible for motivating
employees to work hard and achieve their goals and objectives.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
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consumption business models' stakeholder value impacts and their relationship to
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Maylor, H., Blackmon, K. and Huemann, M., 2016. Researching business and management.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Bates, T. and Robb, A., 2016. Impacts of owner race and geographic context on access to small-
business financing. Economic Development Quarterly. 30(2). pp.159-170.
Wang, Y. S and Et. Al., 2016. A conceptual model for assessing blog-based learning system
success in the context of business education. The International Journal of Management
Education. 14(3). pp.379-387.
Kew, J. and Stredwick, J., 2016. Human Resource Management in a business context. Kogan
Page Publishers.
Al-Ansaari, Y., Bederr, H. and Chen, C., 2015. Strategic orientation and business performance:
An empirical study in the UAE context. Management Decision. 53(10). pp.2287-2302.