Leadership Issues in David Jones Limited

This report discusses the leadership issues faced by David Jones Limited and provides alternative solutions to improve the situation. It covers topics such as leadership styles, change management, and recommendations for the company.

Major Ob Assessment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION...................................................................................................4
Leadership in David Jones Limited............................................................................................4
Issues in leadership ....................................................................................................................4
LITRATURE REVIEW...................................................................................................................5
EVOLUTION AND SOLUTION....................................................................................................7
Alternative solution to improve the situation .............................................................................7
RECOMMENDATION ..................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
This report will cover case study of David Jones Limited. it is Australian upmarket
departmental store, owned since the 2014 by the South African Retailer group known as
Woolworth Holding limited. This company was founded in 1838 and headquarter is in Australia
, New Zealand. There are more than 7200 employees who were working in this company
science 2014 and this company has 47 location (Gandolfi and Stone., 2018). David Jones was
founded by the David Jones, Welsh Merchant and the future politician, after he emigrated to the
Australia, and is the oldest continuously operating store in the world and it is still trading
under their original name. David Jones Limited company is making the revenue around 2.2
Australian dollar and their operating income is around 170 billion. The main competitor of this
company is larger, upmarket departmental store chain, who are giving them a competition in
the retail market.
In year 1980 A company name with Adelaide Steamship company acquired a substantial
interest on the David Jones, culminating in the complete takeover. The recession in the 4190
caused this company assets to be floated as David Jones Limited for the next two decades and
in 2014 they were finally overtake by the South African Retail group. In 2019 Woolworth
sold their company Iconic which also a big brand and announced the relocation of the David
Jones head quarter office to the Victoria.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Leadership in David Jones Limited
Organizational behavior is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction, and
control of human behavior in organizations. Organizational behavior is the study of both group
and individual performance and activity within an organization. While leadership issues are
issues which are created by the companies leaders and mangers which can affect the
performance of the company and the employees who are working for the company (Western.,
2019).
David Jones Limited is facing leadership issues in their company which is affecting
performance of the company, and they are getting pressure from the other companies. Leaders of
the David Jones Limited is having lack of leadership skills and knowledge of the lectureship
theories, so they are not able to control the different different situation at the workplace of the
David Jones Limited. It is important for the company to implement change management at
their workplace and ideas of the company should use appropriate leadership style which can
help them to lead the employees properly, and they can able to control the different different
situation at the workplace of David Jones Limited. It is necessary for the leaders of the David
Jones Limited to develop the skills which are needed to lead employees, so they can be
motivated and give their best in the tasks and help company to achieve success in their
business, so they can show their presence in the market where they are operating their business.
Issues in leadership
Lack of knowledge and skills are creating some issues for the employees and
performance of the company and some of them are -
Failure to communicate- Leaders of the David Jones Limited are not able to communicate
properly with the employees and it is necessary for the leaders to provide clear and proper
information to the employees related to thei9r work (Robertson., 2016). Lack of information
creates affect the employees work. It is one of the important skills of the leadership to create
trust among the employees and provide proper and clear information to the employees, so they
can understand what they have to do in their task.
Lack of clear vision- Leaders of the company make the vision for their team and motivate
their employees to make their visions into the reality but leaders of the David Jones Limited is

not having any vision and employees are not having proper idea that why they are working
and what they will get at the end of this year.
Lack of accountability
If you notice that the big things are not getting done and good ideas fall through the
cracks, you lack accountability. We all need scoreboards that track the results we want (Gandolfi
and Stone., 2018). Most CEOs know this, but putting this system into place requires self-
discipline and focus. Build the systems you need to support accountability and don’t get
distracted until they are a part of your operations.
Poor Execution
There are mail there reason which shows that the leaders of the company failed to
execute. First of all they don't own plan with the discipline , another thing they don't listen to
their employees and last they are not having right people to work for them. Same condition is
with the leader of the David Jones company. This shows that the David Jones company need
leadership change management in their company to improve their performance, and they can
gain competitive advantages with the appropriate leadership.
LITRATURE REVIEW
As per the view of (Yahaya and Ebrahim., 2016) leadership is the art of motivating
and influencing people which helps to maximize the effort of the others, so they can achieve
the set goals and objectives of the company. There are some leadership style which can be
useful for the ;ead5es of the company to improve their skills and lead employees effectively.
Democratic leadership style - This is one of t6he most common leadership style and effective
as well. In this leadership style leaders of the company make decision based on the input of
each team members Al through he or she makes the final call, each employee has an equal say
on the project direction. This leadership allow the lower level workers take participation in
the decision making process and leaders also give higher responsibilities to them, so they can
give their best and holed the higher positions in the future. Coach style leadership - This
leadership style is similar to the sport's coach, in this leadership style leaders give work to
their team as per their straight and make the strategies to achieve success in their work. A
leaders and mangers of this leadership style may help their employees to improve their
strength by giving them the different task where they can gain new skills. Employees get

proper guidance and leaders give them feedback for the improvement and tell their mistake so
next time they can improve more.
According to the (Gandolfi and Stone., 2017) Change management is the process of
implementing change in within the company to improve their performance. It is necessary for
the organization to implement change on time so can overcome from the issues and achieve
success in their business and gain profitability in their business. David Jones also need the
implement change in their organization to improve their leadership and performance of the
company in the market where they are operating their business. There are some models of the
change management which can be used by David Jones company and Lewin's Change
management Model is one of them. Company can use this model to implement the change
successfully, so they have to follow the steps. lewin”s Change management Model- The
Kurt Lewin develop the change management model which has three major steps- Unfreezing,
changing and refreezing. Unfreezing - before implementing the change in company it should
go thorough the Unfreezing stage. It is because many people create resistance in change. In
this stage companies superiors have to give clearly and idea that why company need the
change in their leadership so they can understand the importance and give their support to the
company for the change management (Anderson and Sun., 2017). Communication is the best
option in this stage where superiors of the company communicate face to face with the workers
of the company and make them u8ndeersant what are the benefits of the change in leadership
of the David Jones company, and they have to give them motivation and assurance to the
employees. Changing- Another stage is changing where change become real. In this stage
employees can be uncomfortable with the new leadership and it can take time for them to
understand the new task and strategies. During the change people begin to learn new
behaviour, process and the way of their thinking. It is necessary for them to get proper support
guidance and eduction, the easier it is to complete, and they can become familiar with the new
changes in the leadership style, and they can work with the leaders properly and effectively and
helps company to achieve goals and objectives. Refreezing - This is the final stage of this model
where The changes made to organizational processes, goals, structure, offerings or people are
accepted and refrozen as the new norm or status quo. Lewin found the refreezing step to be

especially important to ensure that people do not revert to their old ways of thinking or doing
prior to the implementation of the change.
EVOLUTION AND SOLUTION
Alternative solution to improve the situation
Every problem and issues have proper solution and leadership issues in the David
Jones company can be solved through using those solutions. Leaders of the company should
uses them to develop new skills and also help their organization to perform better in the
market. Here are some solution of the problem-
communicating with employees
Effective communication skills are important for every leader and it is necessary to the
leaders of the David Jones company to communicate with their employees and understand their
problems (Hussain And et.al., 2018). It will not only solve this issues but leader will also able
to create good understanding with the employees and workers can perform better in their task.
Time management
Times management is necessary for the leaders because it also can reflect in the team
who are working under them. If the leader will come on the times and do their task on the
times then it will motivate their other employees to do the same.
Confidence
It is necessary for the leader of David Jones company to have enough confidence s
because if they will be confident in front of their team then it will m motivate their
employees as well, and they will give their best in the task and help leader to achieve their task
goals which will improve the performance of the company and they will able to provide quality
product to their customers and services as well (Hidayat, Hariyati and Muhaeriwati., 2020).
Build trust among team
trust among the employees can be build if leaders of the David Jones company will be
concern about the problems which are faced by the employees under them. Leaders should
listen to the lower level as well so trust can be build.
RECOMMENDATION
Leadership issues in the David Jones company are big because leaders are superior of
the company who lead employees and help company to achieve success in their business. To
improve the leadership leader of the company should use the situational style leadership which

is one of the best leadership style, so they can lead with the problem as per the situation in the
company (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown., 2016). Leader have to develop all the skills of
the successful leader and they also have to learn every leadership style because this leadership
style allow leaders to change their leadership style according to the situation occur in the
company.
CONCLUSION
As per the report has been covers case study of David Jones company which was facing
the issues in their lectureship. This report has been aliased leadership issues and explained it
properly how it is affecting companies performance (Galli., 2018). It has been also concluded
Literature review in which report has been discussed leadership style like democratic
leadership style and coach style leadership and change management model - Lewin's Change
management Model. This report has been provided alternative solution which can helps David
Jones company to overcome from the issue. In the end of this report has been concluded
recommendation and suitable strategies which can be used to solve issues.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., 2018. Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal
of Management Research.18(4). pp.261-269.
Western, S., 2019. Leadership: A critical text. SAGE Publications Limited.
Robertson, J., 2016. Coaching leadership: Building educational leadership capacity through
partnership. New Zealand Council for Educational Research. PO Box 3237, Wellington
6140 New Zealand.
Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., 2018. Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal
of Management Research.18(4). pp.261-269.
Yahaya, R. and Ebrahim, F., 2016. Leadership styles and organizational commitment: literature
review. Journal of Management Development.
Gandolfi, F. and Stone, S., 2017. The emergence of leadership styles: A clarified
categorization. Revista De Management Comparat International.18(1). p.18.
Anderson, M. H. and Sun, P. Y., 2017. Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the need for a
new ‘full‐range’theory. International Journal of Management Reviews.19(1). pp.76-96.
Hussain, S.T. And et.al., 2018. Kurt Lewin's change model: A critical review of the role of
leadership and employee involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation &
Knowledge.3(3). pp.123-127.
Hidayat, A. T., Hariyati, R. T. S. H. S. and Muhaeriwati, T. M., 2020. Applicability of Lewin’s
Change Management Model for Optimization Management Function in Nursing
Delegation between Head Nurse and Team Leader: A Mini Project in Jakarta Military
Hospital. International Journal of Nursing and Health Services (IJNHS).3(4). pp.471-478.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K. G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations.69(1). pp.33-
60.
Galli, B. J., 2018. Change management models: A comparative analysis and concerns. IEEE
Engineering Management Review.46(3). pp.124-132.