Roles and Characteristics of a Leader and a Manager in Operations Management

This document discusses the roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager in operations management. It explores the importance of operations management and how it is affected by the business environment. The document also examines how leaders and managers handle different situations and apply theories and models in operations management.

Management and
Operations

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
Part 1................................................................................................................................................2
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................2
Comparison of roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager..................................2
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................3
Examining the role of a leader and manager in different situations..................................3
Apply theories and models................................................................................................4
Part 2................................................................................................................................................5
Task 3.....................................................................................................................................5
Operations management approaches.................................................................................5
Importance of operations management..............................................................................6
Task 4.....................................................................................................................................7
Business environment affecting operational management................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Operations management is defined as the set of activities which are carried out by every
small and large organization. It’s set of operations includes the functions of the firm like
managing operations in production department, in human resource department, in finance
department, in information technology department or in research and development department. It
is considered as the calculative and logistic work in which the high skilled workforce is required
to carry out these operations in the firm (Al-Ali, Singh, Al-Nahyan and Sohal, 2017).
Organization chosen here is Pearson, it is one of the leading international publishing company
based in UK. It offers products and services like all types of books publications that are e
textbooks, rental books, academic books, online learning platforms, competitive exam books and
many more types. The following discussion is made on the roles of leaders and managers, how
they behave in different situations in the firm, evaluating theories and models, importance of
operations management approaches and business environment in context of Pearson.
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MAIN BODY
Part 1
Task 1
Comparison of roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager
Comparison on the basis of roles
Aim
Leader’s role in terms of setting their aim is to create vision for the company that what
can be the vision for which the employees can work for. It is mainly set by the top level
management. Whereas, Manager’s role in terms of setting their aim is to create goals for the
company that what can be the objectives for which the employees can work for (Al-Sa’di,
Abdallah and Dahiyat, 2017).
Risk management
Leader’s role in terms of risk management is to take risks and tackle them out with good
efficiency and lead the employees for better performance and preparing for risk taking. Whereas,
Manager’s role in terms of risk management is to control risks, they want to be on safer side
always so that they could bear any risks associated with the goals or the firm.
Guidance
Leader’s role in terms of guidance is to give coaching to their employees in order to
achieve better productivity from them with their job satisfaction as well. Whereas, Manager’s
role in terms of guidance is to direct their employees so that they can be well prepared in doing
their task assigned to achieve the goals of the company (Barata, Da Cunha and Stal, 2018).
Comparison on the basis of characteristics
Thinking process
Leader’s characteristic in terms of thinking process is to set the vision for the company
for long term in order to gain the more and more revenues to the firm with the employee
satisfaction. Whereas, Manager’s characteristic in terms of the thinking process is to set the goals
for the company for a short time period to accomplish that as soon as possible to gain the profit
out of that.
Subordinates
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Leader’s characteristic in terms of subordinates is that they consider their subordinates as
team mates so that employees could get more motivation to be the part of an organization.
Whereas, Manager’s characteristic in terms of subordinates is that they consider their
subordinates as employees so that they can be strict to them and can maintain the discipline in an
organization.
Building power
Leader’s characteristic in terms of building power is that they try to build and maintain
the relationships between the employers and the employees to bring harmony in an organization.
Whereas, Manager’s characteristic in terms of building power is that they build systems and
processes in order to track records of the working in an organization (Borkovskaya,
Bardenwerper and Roe, 2018).
Task 2
Examining the role of a leader and manager in different situations
Exhibition event book fair
This event is a situation of some change in an organization. If an event is to be organised
by the firm then they have to do proper planning from goal setting to the execution of an event. It
is organised because firm wants to represent their new books publishing by new authors with a
new ideas. They want to create awareness about their books with unique headlines and
storylines.
Leaders Role
Leader will guide their team mates about the situation. They will explain them that why
they are doing such event and how it can benefit the firm. Leader can adopt the democratic style
of leadership in terms of decision making because it is compulsory to operate in such a way that
an event can be successful so their team mates will decide accordingly that from where they
need to start and how to execute such event (Fernandes, Sampaio, Sameiro and Truong, 2017).
Managers Role
Manager will instruct the employees about what they have to do to execute such event for
the firm. Manager will adopt the managerial function of directing the employees. Manager will
simply direct the employees step by step that exactly what and how they have to work for the
event to be successful.
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Night shifts due to workload
This is considered a major change in an organization. Generally people resist any change
in the firm specially when it is based on time or salary. Organization is facing the heavy
workload in the company so they want their employees to work overtime at night with extra pay.
Therefore it is important to convince them in any way (Fontana and Musa, 2017).
Leaders Role
Leader will talk to their team mates about such workload in an organization and tries to
influence them to work overnight. Leader will adopt the bureaucratic style of leadership which
states that team mates needs to follow norms which are stated for the limited time period. Leader
will convince their teammates about that it is not a permanent change, just a few days they need
to adjust with timings and moreover they will get an extra pay as well. This is how the leader
will tackle the situation.
Managers Role
Manager will simply order their employees that they have to work overtime, they don't
have any other option. Manager will adopt the managerial function of controlling. They will
control the employees as much as they can so that they work according to the timings for some
period of time and make sure that they work for the same.
Apply theories and models
Situational Leadership
This is a style of leadership which states that in an organization there are situations which
vary from day to day activities either in a positive way or in an negative way. One consistent
leadership style cannot work for every situation, leaders needs to change their style as per the
situation requirement (Koohang, Paliszkiewicz and Goluchowski, 2017).
Systems Leadership
This style of leadership consist five stages. First is convene and commit which states that
leader will form a meeting and type of get together where leader will explain the task that they
have to pursue in coming time. Second is look and learn which states that leader will guide and
coach their team mates that how they can learn to perform such tasks and will also teach them to
do so. Third is engage and energize which states that leader will motivate, inspire , energize and
engage their team mates to perform the task by letting them know the important of the task that
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they have to do on time. Fourth is act with accountability which states that leader will explain
their teammates that it is a great responsibility on them and they have to accomplish this task
successfully at any cost with good potential. Fifth is review and revise states that leader will go
through the completed task thoroughly and will review it and give their team mates a feedback
about the task they completed. This is known as the systems leadership where every thing is
performed step by step in a systematic manner with a good guidance to their team mates (Kumar
and Sharma, 2017).
Contingency
This style is similar to the situational leadership. But it also states that it can be possible
that the leadership style that they adopting for a current situation may not work in future coming
situations so they need to prepare accordingly by taking care of both the situations. For example,
Some situations will demand democratic style and some will demand autocratic and some will
demand any other style, so it is important to change the style of the leadership according to the
current and coming situation in an organization.
Part 2
Task 3
Operations management approaches
Business process redesign
It is defined as the process where all the business processes are carried out by through
some effective and efficient steps to redesign the business process to improve the business
operations. These steps includes, setting clear goals, identifying and prioritising the the goals and
objectives which needs to be carried out first and which later on, capturing data process and
making the active routine for a working day, consistency in one workflow for a particular task,
engage and energise the people who controls such processes, capturing the information and start
executing such processes (Oláh, Sadaf, Máté and Popp, 2018).
Reconfigurable manufacturing systems
It is related to the information technology. This operation are carried out when sudden
and rapid change is required in an organization like change in hardware and software
components or any other networking requirements. Some of the approaches to identify and
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execute this are, overviewing the requirements, analysis of data models, management of
configuration and planning of resources. All these approaches and steps can successfully build
the rapid change need in an organization so that information technology can well be operated by
the human resources without any difficulty and it results in better operations management.
Importance of operations management
Quality of the product
It is the one of the function of operations management which ensures the quality of
product or service that are offered by the firm to their customers. Total quality management is
also a part of it which means that 100% purity in production of a product as promised to the
customers. This helps in gaining the customer satisfaction and loyalty by the customer and brand
can be received by the firm (Prajogo, Toy, Bhattacharya, Oke and Cheng, 2018).
Gaining productivity
It is also the function of the operations management that it is responsible for the gaining
of more and more productivity in a firm so that they can increase it’s sales and revenue
generations. Overall operations means overall productivity in a firm which includes the human
resource management, financial management, marketing management and many other which are
directly or indirectly related to the operations in the company.
Satisfaction of customers
Operations management main target is to satisfy their customers because it creates the
long term relationships with them and they bring out the loyalty to the firm which is very much
important for the growth and development of the firm. Because if in initial stages only, business
can earn satisfactions then later stages can be only profitable for them and easy to gain the
customer trust and loyalty from them (Reid and Sanders, 2019).
Reduction in operating cost
Operations management main target is to lowers the cost of production and increment of
prices so that firm can gain good revenue and sales generation. Reduction in operating cost is
one of the important criteria for the operations management because maximum utilization of
resources has mostly proven good for the company. That is why it is said that operations
managements beneficial for the firm because it reduces the cost of productions which ultimately
helps the firm in gaining the competitive advantage as well.
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Competitive advantage
Operation management has a function of market research and analysing the market to get
a deep knowledge about the competitors and competition in the marker which helps the firm in
tackle this competition to gain the competitive advantage for the company. It includes customer
surveys, questionnaires, online forums, feedback analysis and many more methods through
which market research can be carried out and would be able to identify the competitors in the
market. That is why operations management are considered as an important management
function as a whole in an organization (Saffar and Obeidat, 2020).
Task 4
Business environment affecting operational management
Internal Factors
Resource of finance and marketing
This is one of the internal factors of business environment which affects it’s operations
management. Because shortage or without resources, there can be impossible to carry out the
functions in an organization. Therefore, it important to take care of finance, marketing and any
other resources which are essential for the firm in order to improve the operations management.
Relation between employees
This is another factor of the internal business environment which affects the management
of the company. It is important that relationship between the employees and the employers must
be good without any conflict between then or any negativity. Because it’s directly impact the
operation of the business because employees are the ones who carry out the business activities.
Information technology
It is the most important factor that can majorly affect the business operations either in a
positive way or negative manner. Updating the technology in a firm can put positive impact on
the current operations of the business and using old versions of technology can negatively impact
the business operations. So it is important to be up to date in technical advancements (Sony,
2018).
External Factors
Customers
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It is one of the factor of external business environment which highly varies from time to
time and affects the internal system of the business. Customers demands changes from the
change in trend and society fashion. So accordingly, firm needs to change their products and
services which leads in the change in business operations as a whole (Urbański, Haque and Oino,
2019).
Suppliers
It is the another factor of external business environment which also varies from time to
time and affects the internal factors of the business. Suppliers changes their bargaining power to
supply the raw materials in terms of either prices or qualities. This affects the firm in controlling
it’s cost management so that they can earn profit out of changing demands of supplier as well.
Competitors
It is the most important factor of external business environment which affects the
business in their internal working operations. If there are competitors who are providing products
at low prices or their marketing strategies are unique and innovated then it can create highly
competitive external business environment which the firm has to tackle out by gaining the
competitive advantage out of such factors by upgrading their operations into more effective one
(Sriyakul, Singsa, Sutduean and Jermsittiparsert, 2019).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that operations management must be deeply analysed by a leader or a
manager because it consists vast information about each and every department in an organization
and how they must be executed and performed with the role of leader and manager. Moreover,
study about business environment in terms of operations management builds up the better
functioning in the firm which results in meeting of the objectives of the firm. Above report
covers all the roles and characteristics of leader and manager with how they can behave in
variety of situations by applying theories and models it and approaches to operations
management in terms of business environment are also covered.
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REFERENCES
Books and journal
Al-Ali, A.A., Singh, S.K., Al-Nahyan, M. and Sohal, A.S., 2017. Change management through
leadership: the mediating role of organizational culture. International Journal of
Organizational Analysis.
Al-Sa’di, A.F., Abdallah, A.B. and Dahiyat, S.E., 2017. The mediating role of product and
process innovations on the relationship between knowledge management and
operational performance in manufacturing companies in Jordan. Business Process
Management Journal.
Barata, J., Da Cunha, P.R. and Stal, J., 2018. Mobile supply chain management in the Industry
4.0 era. Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
Borkovskaya, V., Bardenwerper, W. and Roe, R., 2018, June. Interactive teaching of risk
management in the Russian construction industry. In IOP Conference Series:
Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 365, No. 6, p. 062030).
Fernandes, A.C., Sampaio, P., Sameiro, M. and Truong, H.Q., 2017. Supply chain management
and quality management integration. International Journal of quality & reliability
management.
Fontana, A. and Musa, S., 2017. The impact of entrepreneurial leadership on innovation
management and its measurement validation. International Journal of Innovation
Science.
Koohang, A., Paliszkiewicz, J. and Goluchowski, J., 2017. The impact of leadership on trust,
knowledge management, and organizational performance. Industrial Management &
Data Systems.
Kumar, V. and Sharma, R.R.K., 2017. Relating management problem-solving styles of leaders to
TQM focus: an empirical study. The TQM Journal.
Oláh, J., Sadaf, R., Máté, D. and Popp, J., 2018. The influence of the management success
factors of logistics service providers on firms’ competitiveness. Polish Journal of
Management Studies, 17.
Prajogo, D., Toy, J., Bhattacharya, A., Oke, A. and Cheng, T.C.E., 2018. The relationships
between information management, process management and operational
performance: Internal and external contexts. International Journal of Production
Economics, 199, pp.95-103.
Reid, R.D. and Sanders, N.R., 2019. Operations management: an integrated approach. John
Wiley & Sons.
Saffar, N. and Obeidat, A., 2020. The effect of total quality management practices on employee
performance: The moderating role of knowledge sharing. Management Science
Letters. 10(1). pp.77-90.
Sony, M., 2018. Industry 4.0 and lean management: a proposed integration model and research
propositions. Production & Manufacturing Research. 6(1). pp.416-432.
Sriyakul, T., Singsa, A., Sutduean, J. and Jermsittiparsert, K., 2019. Effect of Cultural Traits,
Leadership Styles and Commitment to Change on Supply Chain Operational
Excellence. Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience. 16(7). pp.2967-
2974.
Urbański, M., Haque, A.U. and Oino, I., 2019. The moderating role of risk management in
project planning and project success: evidence from construction businesses of
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Pakistan and the UK. Engineering Management in Production and Services. 11(1).
pp.23-35.
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