Understanding Leadership: Factors Affecting Leadership Styles and Qualities at McDonald's

This paper discusses the factors affecting leadership styles and qualities at McDonald's, using the Situational Leadership Model. It also includes a reflection on own leadership qualities and potential.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 1
ILM: Understanding Leadership

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 2
Table of Contents
Overview..........................................................................................................................................3
Section 1 Understand leadership styles...........................................................................................3
AC 1.1..........................................................................................................................................3
AC 1.2..........................................................................................................................................4
Section 2 Understand leadership qualities and review own leadership qualities and potential.......4
AC 2.1..........................................................................................................................................4
AC 2.2..........................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 3
Overview
In today’s working environment, leadership is the most important component that includes
mission and vision creation, objective accomplishments, self-awareness and the skills and
abilities to develop bonds and relationships among people in an organization (Fairholm, and
Fairholm, 2009). This paper provides the discussion about the factors, which affect the choice of
leadership behaviors and styles in workplace. Furthermore, it includes the reflection on own
leadership qualities and review leadership skills and potential. This report is prepared by
considering McDonalds Corporation and leadership styles of its managers and leaders.
McDonalds is a leading fast food restaurant that offers various products like hamburgers, cold
drinks, French fries etc.
Section 1 Understand leadership styles
AC 1.1
Nowadays, leadership is more significant than ever and when the companies have emphasized on
recognizing the leadership competencies as sources of gaining competitive advantage. There are
various factors, which can influence a leader’s choice of leadership style in workplace situations
such as; workplace environment, particular task or project, staff and their style of working and
their personal traits and qualities. According to the Situational Leadership Model, in most of the
workplace environment, no specific style is utilized on its own. An effective leader will change
the style with the changes in situation (Haji, 2018). The above written factors that determine the
leadership style are same whichever the leadership style like; democratic, autocratic,
transformational or Laissez-Faire.

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 4
At McDonalds, leadership style is determined by considering two major factors, i.e. task
behavior and relationship behavior. At its fast food outlets, the task behavior of leaders focuses
on collaboration and team work to provide the best food services to its customers. In this
situation, the company is using transformational leadership style to fulfill the needs and wants of
customers. Promoting team work and spirit assists McDonalds’ leaders to strengthen and
enhance the productivity of its workforce. To show relationship behavior towards employees,
McDonald’s managers assist the struggling people to attain the objective that motivates them to
go ahead. In this situation, the leaders adopt team leadership style so that they can inspire the
team towards organizational mission and vision. Moreover, some other factors are such as
organizational structure and culture of McDonalds (Hazee, Hashemi, & Suhaila, 2012). As the
company implements a hierarchical organizational structure, so leaders adopt consultative and
authoritative leadership style to manage all job roles in a clear hierarchy. The CEO of company
is passionate and charismatic leader. Thus, these are the different factors which affect the choice
of leadership style.

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 5
AC 1.2
Different styles of leadership have their positive and negative effects and the selection will
depend on the type of employees, which are available in the organization. In a company,
leadership style may have positive impact on group behavior and individuals, if they are adopted
appropriately in suitable situation. At McDonald’s, the above mentioned leadership styles have
positive impact on individual and group behavior. The use of transformational leadership is
enabling the employees to become more motivated and committed towards their job
responsibilities (McCleskey, 2014). Being a passionate and charismatic leader, the CEO of
McDonalds is popular for his enthusiasm towards leading company towards growth and success.
For instance, the managers at McDonald’s are leading the organization with the front counter
nature. The CEO is always aware about the operations and services, which are offered at
restaurants. It is very important that leadership style of leaders have positive impact on employee
and group behavior because eventually it will assist the organization in having various benefits.
The employees at McDonald’s are totally committed towards their duties so that they can
increase their customer base and its brand image (McDonald’s, 2018).
Apart from this, there are some negative effects of these leadership styles. In the workplace
environment, situational leadership can create confusion among employees and followers. It can
lead to inconsistency in behavior of a leader. Sometimes, employees may not understand that
what type of reaction to expect from leader, thus it creates uncertainty and fear in the workplace
environment. Leaders need to ensure that they do not change their personality. Moreover, the
adoption of charismatic leadership distracts the managers from their core business objective. In
this way, these leadership behaviors or styles have both positive and negative effects in group
and individual behavior (Haji, 2018).
Section 2 Understand leadership qualities and review own leadership
qualities and potential
AC 2.1
After gathering feedback from my line manager and teammates, I am able to understand the
effectiveness of my own leadership skills. In my organization, I am working as restaurant
supervisor and using my leadership skills for managing my team members. In addition to this, I
ensure that the mission statement and objectives of restaurant is attained. From the job

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 6
experience and by conducting questionnaire, I believe that I used my leadership skills on the
basis of situational leadership model (Renko, El Tarabishy, Carsrud, & Brännback, 2015). Apart
from this, main leadership style is coaching leadership style. However, I change this style or
behavior according to the changes in situation. For example, if any experienced and skilled
candidate joins my group, then I delegate them by providing freedom and instructions to perform
the job as they do not need any training or coaching. In addition to this, I use democratic
leadership style by providing the team members opportunities to give their innovative ideas in
the interest of their job and restaurant. I always believe that it is vital for a manager to become
master of not only but all the leadership styles and behaviors and they should know that when to
implement them rightly. These leadership skills are effective within the working practices and
culture of restaurant.
In the feedback, there were some suggestions from my team members and manager. They have
suggested me to adopt dominating leadership style to become authoritative. The team referred to
various leadership tasks like; motivation, conflict resolution and enhancing development
(Northouse, 2018). Thus, feedback from my teammates and line manager states that I use the
abilities and skills that derive from other leadership skills, which depend on environment and
situation.
AC 2.2
There are various ways, which can be used to enhance own leadership behavior and styles in the
organization. After analyzing the information in the assessment and questionnaire, I realized that
I am using effective skills for delivering leadership and coaching to my team members. But there
is a scope of improvement in delivering the speech and information to larger work force. I need
to overcome my nervousness and develop confidence, while talking with larger groups. To
enhance leadership behavior and skills, one foremost way would be practicing self-awareness
and self-knowledge. These are the major qualities, which are needed to work as a restaurant
supervisor and manager. For the development of these qualities, they should act on the feedback,
which they get from internal and external environment of organization.
From this feedback analysis, I learned that I should adopt all the behavior types of situational
leadership style effectively. There are four behavior types under situational leadership style, i.e.
directing, coaching, supporting and delegating.

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 7
Under directing type, I will clearly define the roles and responsibilities of my team members.
Coaching will provide the direction and social support to candidates towards their jobs (Raman,
& Rajan, 2012). I found out that it is very important to make the objectives clear and stick on the
principles. It will enhance the managers and leaders for enhancing the leadership behavior and
skills. Thus, these are the actions, which will enhance the leadership behavior and skills in
context of situational leadership model.

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES 8
References
Fairholm, M. and Fairholm, G. (2009). Understanding leadership perspectives. New York:
Springer.
Haji, J. (2018). Reinventing The Leadership Style. Retrieved from
http://www.gdnonline.com/Details/79727/Reinventing-the-leadership-style. (Accessed on
17 February 2018).
Hazee, Z.R., Hashemi, A.L. & Suhaila, E. (2012). Leadership Styles: A study of Managers in
Bahraini Organizations. International Journal of Science and Engineering Investigations,
1 (7), pp. 36-45.
McCleskey, J. (2014). Situational, Transformational, and Transactional Leadership and
Leadership Development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(2), pp.117-130.
McDonald’s. (2018). Corporate Leadership at McDonald's :: McDonald's. Retrieved from
http://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/about-us/leadership.html. (Accessed on 17
February 2018).
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. U.S. Sage publications.
Raman, L. & Rajan, J. (2012). Transformational Leadership Style And Knowledge Management
In The Private Sector Firms. Indian Journal of Commerce & Management Studies, 3 (3)
pp. 44-49.
Renko, M., El Tarabishy, A., Carsrud, A. L., & Brännback, M. (2015). Understanding and
measuring entrepreneurial leadership style. Journal of Small Business
Management, 53(1), 54-74.