Leadership Style and Decision Making

The assignment explores the role of leadership and management styles in influencing employee behavior. It analyzes data from various sources, including books and journals, to conclude that adopting strategies related to decision making and motivation is crucial for both employees and the company's best interest. The recommended leadership style provides full authority and accountability to employees, ensuring quick decision-making without delay.

Context of Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Summary of the Business.......................................................................................................1
Rationale for the Company.....................................................................................................2
Vision, Leadership Style, Management Style and Strategies Used by John Lewis...............2
Implementation of Democratic Leadership and Management Style and Implementation of
Strategies in John Lewis Partnership......................................................................................4
Recommendations..................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership can be defined as the quality and process which influences the behaviour of
another person in the way in which the leaders wants from them to. Leadership role is very
essential in the growth and development of an organisation. He organisation chosen for the
completion of this assignment is John Lewis Partnership. The following organisation was
founded in the year 1929 and is headquartered in London. The company is providing various
products and services to their customers such as clothing, watches, jewellery, giftwares,
cosmetics, furnitures and many more. The following assignment will start from providing an
overview and of the company and the reason why this company has been chosen for the
completion of this assignment. The assignment will also put light of the vision, leadership style
and management style of the company by providing suitable examples on their application. In
addition to this, the assignment will also focus on the implementation of those leadership style,
management style and strategies in the companies to get the best work from their employees. At
last some recommendation will be provided in order to make improvement in the current
leadership, management style and strategies of the company in order to get more effective results
from the work done by their employees. The website of the company is
www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk.
MAIN BODY
Summary of the Business
John Lewis Partnership was established in the year 1929 and is headquartered in London.
John Lewis Partnership is providing various products to their customers such as clothing,
watches, jewellery, cosmetics, furniture, beds, financial services and many more to their
customers. The net revenue of the company for the year 2018 was approx £10.2 billion (Bates
and Robb, 2016). In addition to this, the company has also employed around 83,000 employees
in their company. The company was first formed by John Lewis in the year 1864 in Oxford
Street London. In 1933, the business started acquiring other retail businesses in the country such
as Jessop & Son which was a step of the company towards expansion and this process continued
to grew up. The company is also providing a pension scheme to their employees and is also
covered by death in service insurance. In addition to this, the company is also providing to their
employees with a leave of six months on their completion of 25 years in the company.
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Rationale for the Company
The reason for the selection of a company for completing an assignment may differ from
person to person. The reason behind choosing this company is because of of the diverse products
and services in which the company is dealing (Tomlinson and Holmes, 2016). So it will be easy
and interesting to collect a more deep information about the products and services offered by the
company. In addition to this, the views of people on the services and products provided by the
company will also be easily known to get known with the satisfaction level of the customers
which they got from the consumption of the products and services of John Lewis.
Vision, Leadership Style, Management Style and Strategies Used by John Lewis
Vision
The Vision of the business is to make employees happy by providing them importance and
satisfying them from their job and be an example for others in employee ownership.
Leadership Style Adopted By John Lewis Partnership:
It is also an important decision to make choice of the best leadership style so that
employees can be best influenced in positive way and could get the good results from their work.
Leadership styles of the company also changes in different situation and is also becomes
essential for the leaders to identify the nature of employees and choosing the best leadership
style in accordance with the nature of their employees. John Lewis Partnership has chosen the
Democratic leadership style in order to get the best work from their employees and to best
motivate them (Dreyer and et. al., 2017). In accordance with this leadership style, the managers
of the company encourages the active involvement of their employees in the decision making
process, so that better decisions could be made in relation to the accomplishment of any task. It
also helps in increasing the motivation level of their employees and to increase their dedication
to work and to the company also. As employee engagement in the decision making process is
encourages so this will create a feeling of being important to the company. Due to this,
employees will participate whole heartedly in the decision working process and will also provide
their best to the company from their efficiency and dedication towards the work provided to
them (Tung, 2016).
Another reason behind adopting this leadership style is because of the reason removing
inequality from the company and employees. The active participation of employees will lead to
remove inequality not from the minds of employees but also from the organisation itself. This
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will enhance the level of contribution of employees towards their work and will also help in
creating a good relation in between the company and employees and also among the employees
itself. Due to these reasons this leadership style has been adopted by the company.
Management Style Adopted by John Lewis Partnership:
The management style adopted by John Lewis Partnership is also suitable and depending
upon the behaviour and nature of their employees (Feller and Schanz, 2017). The company is
making use of Democratic Management Style in its work so that the management could get good
suggestions from their employees. As from the name of this management style, it is clear that
these kind of leaders provide their employees with an opportunity to get engaged in the decision
making which means to say that the decision finalised is agreed upon the consent of all
employees and management. It is to save the interest of employees and also to keep their
motivation and engagement level high in the company's working process. The communication
process in this type of management style goes from both the managers down to employees and
from the employees up to the managers. This type of management style helps the company in
dealing situation where it has to make complex decisions by getting more opinions and options
to choose from (Meyer and Peng, 2016). However, in some cases this management style may
prove to be wrong to use as this management style leads to slow decision making process and
could be inefficient at sometimes. So it is important for the company to make choice of the best
management style in order to best influence their employees in positive way.
Various Strategies Adopted by John Lewis Partnership to Motivate their Employees:
Motivation and Rewards:
Motivation refers to those factors that creates desire and energy in people for maintaining
and improving their interest and commitment to job provided to them. It is important for every
organisation to make choice of proper method of motivating employees as motivation measures
also differs from person to person so the company first needs to analyse the way to motivate
employees and then to implement them. Rewards are also another from of increasing the
dedication and commitment of employees towards their job. The are provided to employees on
the basis of their performance given by them in completing their duties. The company provides
performance based rewards to their employees.
Decision Making:
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Another crucial factor that impacts upon the working of an organisation is the decision
making process which the company needs to take very carefully. The companies should make
use of step by step decision making process so that it will become easy for the company to
analyse their decisions from time to time. To make the decisions to be effective it is important
for the companies to collect relevant and sourced information so that company could make
choice of their decisions on some base of information (Lankoski, 2016). The company, in its
working has adopted step by step decision making process which increases the chances of
choosing the best alternative which satisfy the needs and requirements of the tasks the company
wants to complete. Further, the company is also encouraging the active involvement of their
employees in the decision making process to so that the consent of both management and
employees could be met.
Groups and Teams:
Formation of groups and teams in an organisation also plays an important and crucial role
in the success of an organisation. John Lewis Company is operating at global level so it is not
possible for a single individual of the company to take care of all the issues of the companies. In
cases such as when the company is leading some project than it will be essential for the company
to form groups or teams so that they collectively could make good decisions and make the
project successful. So groups and teams also plays an important role in ensuring the growth and
development of the organisation.
Implementation of Democratic Leadership and Management Style and Implementation of
Strategies in John Lewis Partnership
The democratic leadership style has been implemented in John Lewis Partnership Firm
by involving the employees in the decision making process of the company. For example, the
company is participating towards providing help to the health care services so the company can
interact with their employees regarding the best way to provide help to the health care services so
that they could make improvement in their services and help people in a better way (Lieder and
Rashid, 2016). The contribution provided by the employees towards decision making process
will help the company in creating brand image of the company. The company has achieved much
by making use of this leadership style because considering employees in decision making feel
them to be valued in the company.
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Democratic Management Style has been adopted by John Lewis Partnership. The
implementation of this leadership style can be done in case if the organisation is changing its
way of working. The company can discuss with their employees while making changes in their
way of working so the company could provide their employees with the benefit arising out of the
change and could also take their own suggestions so that any needed rectifications regarding the
decisions could be made. Further the company can also solve the queries and doubts of their
employees to motivate them for adapting change (Lubberink and et. al., 2017).
The company is providing their employees with the performance based incentives on
monthly basis as a means of keeping their motivation level high. The performance incentives
also helps in motivating other employees to perform well as the good performers are encourages
and appreciated in front of all employees of the company.
The involvement of employees in the decision making process is also crucial and
important. For example, the company is operating a marketing campaign through which it is
providing help the children in orphan homes so it can consult to their employees about the ways
by which the company can provide those needful child the best possible help and also ask for
their contribution.
In these types of campaigns, the formation of groups and teams will be helpful and
effective. As serving the society cannot be performed by any single individual. So it is important
for the company to formulate teams and groups so that they could know about their needs and
help that they need and the company could help them in the best possible way (Maylor,
Blackmon and Huemann, 2016).
Recommendations
After analysing the above data, it is recommended to John Lewis Partnership to adopt the
leadership style on the basis of situation in which the company is dealing. As there are chances
that less control over employees can lead to upcoming of leisure in them. So it is important to
provide them with full authority and accountability. Further, it is also recommended to the
company to make rectification in their decision making as there comes some situations in which
the company requires to make quick decision and employee involvement can be avoided as it
will cause delay in the decisions.
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CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been concluded that leadership and management styles
plays an important role in influencing the behaviour of employees. In addition to this, it is also
concluded that the adopting of strategies related to decision making, motivation are to be done by
doing proper analysis of the behaviour of employees so that the company can work in the best
interest of both the employees as well as of the company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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.
Dreyer, B. and et. al., 2017. Upsides and downsides of the sharing economy: Collaborative
consumption business models' stakeholder value impacts and their relationship to
context. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 125. pp.87-104.
Feller, A. and Schanz, D., 2017. The three hurdles of tax planning: How business context, aims
of tax planning, and tax manager power affect tax expense. Contemporary Accounting
Research. 34(1). pp.494-524.
Lankoski, L., 2016. Alternative conceptions of sustainability in a business context. Journal of
cleaner production. 139. pp.847-857.
Lieder, M. and Rashid, A., 2016. Towards circular economy implementation: a comprehensive
review in context of manufacturing industry. Journal of cleaner production. 115. pp.36-
51.
Lubberink, R. and et. al., 2017. Lessons for responsible innovation in the business context: A
systematic literature review of responsible, social and sustainable innovation practices.
Sustainability. 9(5). p.721.
Maylor, H., Blackmon, K. and Huemann, M., 2016. Researching business and management.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Meyer, K. E. and Peng, M. W., 2016. Theoretical foundations of emerging economy business
research. Journal of International Business Studies. 47(1). pp.3-22.
Tomlinson, M. and Holmes, L. eds., 2016. Graduate Employability in Context: Theory, Research
and Debate. Springer.
Tung, R. L., 2016. New perspectives on human resource management in a global context.
Journal of World Business. 51(1). pp.142-152.
Online
What is Leadership?. 2019. [Online]. Available Through: <https://stevenmsmith.com/what-is-
leadership/>.
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