Leadership and Management Concepts

Leadership and Management Concepts 1
LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
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Leadership and Management Concepts 2
Leadership and Management Concepts: Tesco PLC
Introduction
Tesco is a British multimillion company founded by Jack Cohen 100 years ago. It is a
retail firm dealing with groceries and other general merchandise across Asia and Europe.
Over the years to the company has expanded its operations to include petrol stations,
supermarkets, hypermarkets, and convenient shops. As a result, Tesco has grown to become
one of the largest retailers by revenues, which amounts to £57,491 million as of the financial
year 2017/2018 (Tesco, 2018). Undeniably, it is the groceries market leader in the UK with
its market share in Ireland and Hungary being above 20%.
The management structure of the company is arranging in three layers in a hierarchal
manner. First in the hierarchy is the top level management. This comprises of executive board
which is led by the President of the company Dave Lewis. Other management leaders in this
level include the non-executive chairman, John Allan, the chief finance officer, nonexecutive
directors and the executive committee of 9 members. Second in the hierarchy of management
is the mediate level which is occupied by various vice presidents, managers, and their
assistants. Mainly they are responsible for running all the operations including HRM,
marketing, public relations, and financial management. At the base of the management
structure is the base level which hosts regional managers, store managers and all other
employees of the company (Tesco, n.d.).
Role of Managers and Leaders
The two terms are mostly confused to mean the same, but there is a significant
difference in terms of their roles in an organization. However, a manager is a person
responsible for administration and control of an organization based on its ethos and policies
while a leader is a person who commands or direct a group of people to achieve a vision
he/she has created in an organization (Lunenburg, 2011). For instance, Tesco has both
managers and leaders in its organizational structure.
Roles of managers
Managers are tasks with different duties which are categorized into informational,
interpersonal and decision roles. Under informational roles a manager is mandated with
liaising with the senior management, completing all administrative works, evaluating the
performance of employees and running the daily operations of the company. At Tesco,
managers are primarily the agents of communications liking the employees to the top level
management as well as overseeing the daily operations and implementation of company
policies. Under the interpersonal roles categories, managers are tasked with staffing, a
delegation of duties and motivation of employees to sustain a consistent performance and
production.
Finally, with the decision roles, managers are limited to what types of decisions they
can make. Ideally, managers can make administrative, and goal setting decisions in an
organisation. Although there are instances where they can make financial decisions for the
company, the top management comprising of a company’s leadership should consent the
decision before it is implemented (Lunenburg, 2011). Essentially, managers propose the way
forward in terms of operations and administration but may lack the authority to give the final
decision about the issue.

Leadership and Management Concepts 3
Roles of Leaders
In any organisation, the roles of a leader are at every level of the management.
However, leaders are primarily responsible for reconciling and integrating personal and
organizational goals. Secondly, a leader solicits support from the staff to achieve a common
goal of the organisation. Finally, as a leader, one is mandated with representing an
organisation and providing philosophical and directional guidance to their followers, i.e., the
employees of the company. At Tesco, there is no apparent difference between leaders and
managers as they both perform the same roles. However, the founder is considered the leader
since his visions are still being pursued by the management of the company (Zhao, 2014).
In essence, management and leadership are two distinct and intertwined concepts. For
instance, leadership is needed for effective management to existing (Lunenburg, 2011).
Notably, leadership is considered to be the potential to influence a group, i.e. employees to
accomplish organizational goals while management is merely the process of laying down the
structures and enforcement of policies to accomplish the set goal. Considering the origin,
leadership originates from the authority given by followers while management comes from
the acquisition of a managerial position (Lunenburg, 2011). Although a manager can be a
leader, not all leaders can be managers. Finally, management is seen as being a more stable
component of an organisation whereas leadership is temporary and depends on the duration
the project or program they are leading lasts. Generally, leadership can be described as being
an art while management remains to be a science that needs planning, logic, and tactics of
implementing policies and running operations (Stacey, 2012).
Roles of Leadership and Management in Organizational Situations
The roles of management and leadership sound simples, but anybody who has been in
any of the two knows that in reality, it is complicated. In different situations, the roles of
leadership, as well as the management, varies significantly. For instance, at Tesco, during a
crisis, the management moves to address it by implementing the adopted policies in the
organization. In the same context, leadership will not be tasked with addressing it but rather
creating a sense of understanding between the conflicting parties to avoid a relapse of the
same in the future. In this regard, leadership serves as a vehicle for mediation and guidance to
cool down the conflicting parties (Stacey, 2012).
Roles of Leadership
In leadership, the challenges are many and what worked today may not work
tomorrow. Therefore leaders have to be at the center of innovation and invention of new
strategies that can steer an organisation towards success. Primarily leadership has four
significant roles it plays in an organisation. First, leadership creates inspiration and trust
among followers. Whenever a company struggles to align its staff towards an organisation
goal, it is through leadership that such can easily be achieved. Although management too can
be used to achieve this milestone, trust issues might limit the chances of success (Metcalf &
Benn, 2012). Second, leadership creates a vision for everyone being led. In situations where a
company needs to focus on a long-term goal, it is only leadership that can influence the staff
to perceive the goal as achievable and worth trying to accomplish (Lunenburg, 2011).
Third, leadership is used to execute corporate strategies in organisations. For instance,
it is through the leadership of Dave Lewis that Tesco has been able to implement its
diversification strategy to cover nearly retailing of all merchandises in Asia and Europe.