Roles and Characteristics of a Leader and a Manager

Management and
Operations

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Describe and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager.1
M1. Examine and differentiate between the role of a leader and function of a manager through
variety of theories and concept...............................................................................................2
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................3
P2. Observe how role of a leader and the functions of a manager relate in different situational
context....................................................................................................................................3
P3. Use various theories and models of approaches of leadership.........................................4
M2. Observe strength and weaknesses to evaluate various approaches to situations inside
work environment...................................................................................................................5
D1. Significantly analyse and measure the various theories and approaches to leadership...6
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................6
P4. Discuss the important approaches to operational management and the key role that leaders
and mangers play....................................................................................................................6
P5. Discuss the benefits and values of operational management in achieving business
objectives................................................................................................................................8
M3. Discuss how leaders and managers can enhance the efficiencies of operational
management to achieve company’s objectives.......................................................................8
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................9
P6. Discuss the factors inside the business environment that impact upon operational
management and decision making by leaders and managers.................................................9
M4. Evaluate how various factors affects business environment.........................................10
D2. Significantly analyse applications of operational management and factors that impact on
company’s environment.......................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Operations management is defined as the process of planning, managing and controlling
all the activities related to the operations of the organisations, it is one of the essential process of
converting the raw material into the final product and services and offering customers the quality
in order to enhance their productivity and profitability. For this report soft company and its
production head Joan Pearson is taken into consideration. This report covers the derailed
description of difference between the role of leader and functions of the manger and also how
they are applied in different situational context and different theories and models of leadership
are also highlighted in this report. In addition to this the important approaches to operations
management with its importance and the various factors that impact the operational and
management decision making by leader also how these factors affect the business environment is
also highlighted in this report.
Task 1
P1. Describe and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager.
A manager and a leader plays an essential role in enhancing the performance of the
organisation (Chapman and Ellinger, 2019). The different roles and characteristics of a leader
and a manager in context to the Joan Pearson, head of the production department at the soft
company is discussed below:
Leader: A leader is a person who motivates and supervise his employees to work towards
achieving desired goals and objectives, he is person who influence his team members and allows
effective flow of communication between the management and its employees. The leadership is
one of the essential process of an organisation which enables the achieving targeted goals
effectively. In context to Soft Company, should ensure that there are skilled and qualified leaders
for leading their employees towards effective results.
Manager: The manger is the person who plans and manages the activities in the
organisation, he is someone who plan, manage, control and direct employees of the management,
he is also responsible for setting the policies in the organisation (Chen and Yang, 2018). In
context to Soft company, there should ensure that managers are highly skilled in order to manage
the company effectively.
1

The different role and functions of a leader and a manager, in context to the Soft Company are
discussed below:
Planning: It is one of the essential function of the manager, he is responsible to plan all
the activities in order to achieve targeted goals and objectives which will lead to the growth of
the company, whereas the role of the leader is implement those plan set by the manager and
communicate them to the employees so that they effectively work towards those goals.
Organising: The another function of the manager to organise and properly utilize the
resource in the organisation, also the function of the manger to arrange required resource.
Whereas the role of the leader is to allocate the resource effectively on the organisation and also
it’s the responsibility of the leader to motivate its employees to effectively work in order to
properly utilise the resource in the organisation.
Leading: Under this the function of the manager is to direct and lead its employees and
direct the activities that is to be performed by the employees, whereas the role of the leader is to
motivating its employees to effectively complete the task (Cook and Billig, 2017).
From the above discussion it can be concluded for software to effectively carry out their
activities and lead towards the growth, the leaders and the manager of the company especially
the Joan Pearson the head of production department needs to consider the following function
effectively in order to enhance their production activity and increase their performance. The
leaders and manager needs to carefully plan and implement the goals and objectives of the
organisation and should direct and motivate its employees so that the desired results can be
attained (Ferdows, 2018).
M1. Examine and differentiate between the role of a leader and function of a manager through
variety of theories and concept
Manager Leader
 The function of the manger is to plan
all the activities and set the
objectives of the organisation.
The essential role of the leader is to
implement the plan and objectives set by teh
manger.
 The function of the manager is to
communicate to the leader about the
policies of the organisation.
 The leader influence the employees
or the team members to work towards
achieving targeted objectives by
2