Leadership and Management: A Comparative Analysis with Amazon Case Study

This assignment explores the distinct roles and functions of leaders and managers, highlighting their importance in achieving organizational goals. Using ASDA as an example, it analyzes different leadership styles and management functions. The assignment then delves into a case study of Amazon, examining key operations management approaches, the role of leaders and managers in its operations, and the impact of the business environment on decision-making.

Management and Operations

Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Task 1....................................................................................................................................................4
a) Definitions of a leader and manager..............................................................................................4
b) Comparison of the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers giving examples within
your organisation...............................................................................................................................4
c) Explanation of how the following apply in different situations.....................................................5
I. The roles of a leader...................................................................................................................5
II. The functions of a manager.......................................................................................................6
d) Explanation of how a manager you identified carry out his/her functions giving examples..........8
e) Application of at least 2 leadership models (which could include situational leadership, systems
leadership and contingency leadership) to explain how they are applied in the organisation by any
manager.............................................................................................................................................9
Task 2- Amazon case study.................................................................................................................11
a) Explain the key approaches to operations management..............................................................11
b) Explain the role of Amazons leaders and managers with regards to its operations management 12
c) Explain the importance and value of operations management in achieving Amazons business
objectives........................................................................................................................................12
d) Assess the factors within the business environment that impact upon Amazons;........................13
I. Operational Management and..................................................................................................13
II. Decision Making by its Leaders and Managers.......................................................................14
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................15
References...........................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
Leadership and management are two approaches that help the organisation in achieving the
objectives and goals. The main aim of these two terms is only to run the required processes of
the organisation in a way that could be helpful in achieving targets of the company. The
current assignment highlights the functions of these two terms and also explains about how
these terms work in the organisation.
The current assignment is divided in two parts. The first part of the assignment describes the
terms leaders and managers and also the roles and functions of these two. Along with this, the
roles of leaders and managers in the different situations of the organisation also would be
explained through the example of ASDA (a supermarket chain in UK). The two leadership
theories are also explained in this section. Second part of the assignment includes a case
study of Amazons where the key approaches of operation management would be described.
The roles of leaders and managers in Amazons and importance and value of the concept
operation management to Amazons also would be described.
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Task 1
a) Definitions of a leader and manager
Leader and manager are very important for the organisation especially in achieving the goal
of the company. Many people think that these two terms are same but in reality these are
quite different from each other. Here, the definition of leader and manager is explained.
Leader
The main task of leader in the company is to inspire, motivate and direct the followers so that
all of them could perform the task easily and effectively and the goal of the organisation
could be fulfilled. Here, the definition of leader:
A leader is a person that works for the betterment of the organisation and employees. He or
she inspires, motivates and directs the employees of the organisation so that their skills could
be enhanced and the task of the organisation could be performed effectively with these
enhanced skills (Stanley, 2016).
Manager
Managers also play a very important role in an organisation. The main motive of the
managers of the company is to perform all tasks in the effective manner so that the vision and
mission of the company could be achieved. Here, the definition of manager is explained:
A manager in an organisation is the person that manages all the tasks in a way so that all of
these could be fulfilled timely. For that purpose, he or she directs the employees, organises
the resources, coordinates with activities and also controls on the factors to achieve the
organisational goals and objective. Managers work only for the betterment of the
organisation.
b) Comparison of the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers giving examples
within your organisation
Here, the example of ASDA would be taken which is a supermarket chain in UK. The
company is operating at the various locations of London, Scotland etc. There are the various
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managers and leaders are working in ASDA which manages the activities and processes of
the company. Here, the comparison in the roles and characteristics of the leaders and
Managers of ASDA is explained below:
Managers Leaders
In ASDA, administration is the responsibility
of the managers. They manage all the things
in the organisation so that all tasks could be
performed effectively.
In ASDA, the leaders innovates the various
procedures and process that could help the
management in managing all the process and
activities.
Planning is the task of manager in ASDA as
they plan for the activities and then assigns
this to the employees. Then a proper
monitoring is done to accomplish the task
perfectly.
Leaders in ASDA create the paths for the
employees of the organisation so that they
could enhance the skills and could
accomplish the task correctly and effectively
(Siehl and Martin, 2014).
A proper maintenance of ASDA’s operations
is the responsibility of managers of the
company.
Rather than maintaining the operations, the
leaders of ASDA are more likely to develop
the innovative and better solutions.
Controlling is the functions of the manager in
the company. He makes the control on
employees, financial resources and external
factors so that the organisation goals could be
fulfilled.
Inspiration is the main characteristic of leader
as they do not control on the resources, they
just inspire them about how the work must be
performed.
The managers mainly focus on the short term
gaols where they try to achieve the
organisational goals defined by the top
management of the company (Geoffrion,
The leaders focus on the mission and vision
of the organisation and make their own
strategy so that these could be fulfilled easily.
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Dyer and Feinberg, 2012).
c) Explanation of how the following apply in different situations
I. The roles of a leader
The different roles are played by the leaders in the organisation such as innovator, guide,
motivator etc. the inspiration is the main characteristic that a leader have in its behaviour. The
leader never persuades the employees to follows then even the employees of the organisation
try to follow them so that they could achieve the personal and professional goals in their life.
There are no formal rights are mentioned for the leaders as the leaders are born not created. It
is the leadership of the leader that makes them different form the managers and other
employees of the company. While examining or explaining the roles of the leaders in an
organisation it could be said that the leader behaves in three manners (also known as
leadership styles) in an organisation which is totally based on the situation that the
organisation is facing. These are:
Autocratic: This is the leadership style where all the decisions are taken by the leaders only.
There was a situation in ASDA where the level of task orientation was low that created a gap
between the level of productivity and skills of the employees. Here, the leaders of the
company behaved in autocratic manner and took the decisions their own with their
experienced and knowledge (Hoff, 2015). No member or the employee was included in the
decisions making process. Then the leaders assigned the work and then monitored their work
done to achieve the organisational goals. The decisions making time was very short in this
period.
Participative: In ASDA when the product and services are given to the customers then the
involvement of all the employees is very important. Here, the leaders of the company behave
in this participative manner so that the opinion, views and ideas could be shared by all
employees or the team members of the company. By doing this, the employees of ASDA get
inspired and the confidence level of them also increased as they participate in the crucial
decision making of the organisation.
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Laiseez-Faire: sometimes the leaders of ASDA have to play the role as per this leadership.
Here, the decisions making are done by the employees or the team members of the company.
This is done when the leaders believes that his or her follower is more qualified or have more
experience than his own.
II. The functions of a manager
 In an organisation, some formal rights are clearly mentioned for the managers of the
company and they have to perform all these so that the objective and goal of the organisation
could be achieved. In ASDA too, there are certain kinds of functions that the managers of the
company play as per the situation facing by the organisation. The functions of managers in
ASDA are:
Planning: Planning is the main function of the managers in ASDA. The managers of the
company prepare the blueprint of the activities that are needed to be performed to achieve the
organisational goals and objectives. Then the managers of the company create the plan about
how and what activities would be executed by the employees of ASDA.
Figure 1: Functions of managers (Burke, 2016)
 Organising: Organising the resources of the company is also a function of the managers of
company. In ASDA it is the responsibility of the managers of the company to arrange the
resources of the company so that when they are needed the company could get them at right
time and right manner (Ireland and Hitt, 2016).
 Staffing: This is the main functions of the managers of ASDA as the company needs the
talented and skilled employees every time when it executes the plan, in this case, the
managers of the company seeks the required talent in their professional circle or market so
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that they could be arranged for the company. The various processes such as recruitment etc
are done for this purpose.
 Directing: Managers also directs the employees about how the tasks need to be performed to
achieve the organisational goals and objectives. Besides this, the directions in the
professional context are also provided to the employees by the managers of ASDA.
 Controlling: Controlling the factors and the process that could affect the operations and other
processes of the organisation is also the responsibility of managers. Basically the managers of
ASDA examine the factors involved in the internal and external environment that could
hinder the process of organisation and then try to rectify them.
d) Explanation of how a manager you identified carry out his/her functions giving
examples
The different theories are explained that explains the working of the managers in an
organisation. These theories explain the traits and the qualities that the managers need to
focus to perform a particular task. Out of all these theories, the management by objective
(MBO) is very famous. Basically, it is a personnel management technique that helps the
managers of the company in setting the goals and objective to accomplish a particular task.
This theory also explains how the managers need to work with other employees so that the
specific goals could be met. Below is the explanation of how the managers of ASDA carry
out their functions in the organisation to achieve the objectives.
Set Organisational Objectives: Here a proper study of the mission and vision statement of
ASDA is done by the managers of the company to set the organisational objective. At this
stage, the managers take the help of the top management of ASDA on how the objective are
set. For example: defining the sales target for sales team of ASDA.
Cascade Objectives to Employees: at this stage, the employees of the company are informed
about the set target and the responsibilities are divided among them so that the objective
could be fulfilled and the mission and vision of the company could be achieved.
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Figure 2: Management by Objective (Otley, 2016)
Monitor: After assigning the responsibilities, the managers of ASDA monitor the
performance of employees and make this confirmed that the employees are performing the
task effectively towards achieving the desired goals.
Evaluate Performance: Managers of ASDA also evaluate the performance of the employees
against the set standard so that this could be confirmed that the set objective could be
achieved.
Reward Performance: Rewarding the employees who performed well at the task also comes
under the responsibilities of managers.
e) Application of at least 2 leadership models (which could include situational
leadership, systems leadership and contingency leadership) to explain how they are
applied in the organisation by any manager.
Two leadership model and their application by the managers are explained below:
Situational Leadership Model
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Situational theories or the leadership model helps the leaders of the company to adopt the
changes that the organisation is facing. In the other words, the different situation or the
changes in the organisation could be handled easily by the leadership if the situation
leadership model is adopted by the company. This model was introduced by Paul Hersey and
Ken Blanchard. As per this model, the leader of the company must have the quality to adopt
the changes and he also needs to change the leadership styles if the situations are changed
(Sasser, Olsen and Wyckoff, 2017). This model also explains that the type of the leadership
also depends on the beliefs, personality and experiences of leaders. The flexibility of the
leadership too also depends on these factors.
Contingency leadership Model
The effectiveness of the leadership style is concerned with this leadership style. As per this
leadership model, the leadership style of a person could easily be identified by the situation in
which is working. The given situation can easily explain the leadership style of him. The
three factors that explain the contingency model are given below:
Positional Power: the productivity of the organisation could be increased if the leader of the
company has the power of rewarding and punishing the followers or employees.
Leader-Member Relation: the relationship of these two creates the acceptance that affects the
process of achieving the organisational goals.
Task Structure: the structure of task does not affect the leadership style of a leader.
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Task 2- Amazon case study
a) Explain the key approaches to operations management
The key approaches of operational management are described below:
1. Lean Production:
This is the approach of the operational management that focuses on remove the wastage
inside of the company. The main principles on which the lean production works are described
below:
- Specific value: the value of the product that the company is offering must be as per the
customers expectation and the products features.
- Identify the value stream: the organisation must know about the things that add value to the
product and also the ones that decrease the same.
- Create flow: there must be a flow in the process of the organisation till the product reaches to
the customers (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2017).
- Pull product through value stream: the product should be developed as per the demand from
the side of the customers.
- Seek perfection: the organisation needs to seek the perfection when it finds the things that
add value. Besides this, it also needs to focus on the process that creates wastage. This is the
only way that could achieve the perfection.
2. Six Sigma:
The main focus of this approach is to remove the defects from the manufacturing of the
product. The main causes that create the defects in the product are identified and modified in
this approach. With the help of the six sigma approach, the overall quality of the product is
improved and along with this the overall cost of the product is reduced.
The six sigma approach is used by the company amazons where it focuses on improving the
quality of the product that it is offering to the customers (Burke, 2016). Under this, only the
authorised and verified sellers of the company are able to sell the products to the customers
directly. By using this approach, the company Amazons is able to gain the customers
satisfaction.
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b) Explain the role of Amazons leaders and managers with regards to its operations
management
The leaders and managers of Amazons are able to adopt the concept of the operation
management in the processes which are being executed into the organisation. The company
also has registered itself at the e-commerce portals where the products are sold to the verified
vendor and seller. Under the concepts of the operation management, the leaders and
managers of Amazons use the lean production and six sigma approaches so that the defect in
the product could not be identified.
The main role of the leaders and managers of Amazons could be seen in developing the
strategies for the warehouse management etc (Here, the leader develops the strategies so that
the minimum distance could be covered when the product is retrieved from the warehouse of
the company) (Czarniawska and Wolff, 2011). The managers of Amazons also use other
concept of the operation management i.e. automation of the supply chain and management.
As per this concept, the suppliers of the company could get the information on the changing
trends and demand. Along with this, the seller also can set the supply of the products of the
company as per the trend and demand of the market.
c) Explain the importance and value of operations management in achieving Amazons
business objectives.
Using the concepts of the operation management is very important for the company Amazons
as this help the company in delivering the effective produces to the customers that increases
the customers satisfaction for the company. The different concept of operation management
is used by the company such as total quality management. With the help of this concept, the
company Amazons is able to get positioned into the mind of the customers. The concept of
total quality management focuses on the improved quality of the product and also removes
the defects if any. With the help of this, continuous improvement could be achieved in the
product and services of Amazons.
Another concept of the operation management that helps Amazons in achieving the
organisational goals and objective is process and capacity design (Chopra and Meindl, 2017).
This concept includes the techniques and strategies that make it possible for the company to
entertain high numbers of the customers at a time which is very important in today’s scenario
(era of e-commerce).
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The concepts of the operation management also provide an idea to Amazons about the usage
of the resources effectively. With the help of operational management, the company get to
know what resources could be used at which level so that the desired quality of the product
could be achieved such as lean production. As explained earlier that this help the company in
removing the wastage of the company that helps in improving the resources that could be
helpful in achieving the overall objective of the company. Like lean production, Just-In-time
is also the approach of operation management that helps the company in delivering the
product direct to the customers as per their needs and wants.
d) Assess the factors within the business environment that impact upon Amazons;
I. Operational Management and
The operation management is very important for the company Amazons as this helps the
company in producing the products effectively and also makes the service delivery process
smooth and effective. The studies show that the business environment of the company also
put a huge impact on the operation management. Here, the factors of the business
environment that impacts on the operation management of the company are described below:
Political factor: The political factors are related with the political environment of the country
in which the company is operating (Atkins and Financial Products Inc Pty, 2016). Basically,
the political factors are considered in the external business environment of the company and
they impact a lot on the environment and operations of the company. Amazons has to take the
decisions on the operational management after reviewing the political factors of the country.
Economic and social environment: the operational management of the company amazons is
also get affected by the economic and social environment. The economic and social
environment of the company includes the economic conditions of the country and also the
taste and preference of the society towards the products being offered by the company.
Impacts of the stakeholders: Stakeholders also comes in the business environment and also
have a great impact on the operation management of the company. As the stakeholders have
stakes in the company, then the company cannot take the decisions without the permission of
these stakeholders. Thus it could be said that interest of the stakeholders towards the strategy
of operation management play a very important role for the organisation.
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II. Decision Making by its Leaders and Managers
The factors involved in the business environment of Amazons affects the decisions making of
the leaders and managers of the company very much. The main factors that affect the
decision making are explained below:
PESTEL factors: PESTEL factors include the political, economical, social, technological,
environmental and legal factors. All these factors are involved in the business environment of
the company and put huge impacts on the decision making (Bass and Avolio, 2010). While
making the decisions, the managers and leaders of amazons have to be sure that the violation
of any of the rule mentioned in these are not being done by the company. If it does then the
company may have to face the consequences of these in the form of fine and charges.
New trends of the business environment: The surrounding environment of the company is
changing, in this way; the trends of the business environment also change. Here, the decision
making of the managers and leaders got affected as they have to change their decisions as per
the trends of the environment because this is the only way that could help the organisation in
surviving. The managers and leaders of Amazons are aware of the current trends of the
environment and in this way the company is doing well in the market.
Customer taste and preference: Due to the technologies and other factors, the customers are
being smarter and in this way, now they know what are the products and services that can
really fulfil their needs and wants (Brocato, 2013). Besides this, due to the increased
competitions into the market, the taste and preference of the customers also have changed.
All these factors also put a huge impact on the decision making of the managers and leaders
of Amazons as the company has to consider all these factors while making the decisions.
Substitute products: As described earlier that the competition in the industry has been
increased, so there are more chances to the launched of the substitute products. Here, the
managers and leaders of amazons has to be very informative about these substitute products
available into the market and has to change their policies and decisions so that the
competition into the market could be reduced to a level.
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Conclusion
It is concluded that the operation management brings the various concepts and the strategies
to the company that could help this in achieving the organisational goals and objectives. The
current assignment explains such concepts and strategies of the operation management which
are used by the managers and leaders of the company to achieve the success in the market.
The assignment also explains the importance, function and roles of the managers and leaders
in amazons so that a clear understanding could be provided. In short it could be said that the
term operational management is applied by the managers and leaders of the company to
improve the operations of the company into the market so that the competitive advantage
could be achieved.
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