Management and Operations in McLaren Automotive

This document discusses the role of managers and leaders in the management of operations in McLaren Automotive. It explores different theories and models of leadership and their strengths and weaknesses. The document also provides insights into the implementation of change and conflict resolution in the organization.

Management and
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
Activity 1 .......................................................................................................................................1
LO 1 ................................................................................................................................................1
P1) ..........................................................................................................................................1
LO 2 ................................................................................................................................................3
P2) ..........................................................................................................................................3
P3) ..........................................................................................................................................5
Recommendations..................................................................................................................6
Activity 2.........................................................................................................................................7
This activity is covered in PPT. .............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Operational management is mainly associated with ensuring efficient business operations
and production of services and goods with optimum use of resources to meet and fulfil the
customers requirement in more better way. Thus, management of operations mainly includes
creation of better coordination and balance among various activities and employees of
organisation to ensure timely achievement of goals with highest level of efficiency (Bharara,
Sabitha and Bansal, 2017). The organisation opted for this assignment is McLaren Automotive
that is a famous British automotive manufactures the main production unit of which is based at
McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey. This assignment includes a description about
different characteristics and role of a leaders and manger together with examination of their role
in different situational contexts. Further, different theories and models of leadership are also
included in this report.
This presentation is based on management and operations which are essential for all
organisation to ensures efficiency and better control over various activities to have enhancement
in its productivity and profitability. The organisation selected for this presentation is McLaren
that is a British automotive manufactures and also associated with Formula one racing.
Following presentation includes a description about key approaches of operation management
and various role played by leaders and managers. Beside this value and importance of operations
management in attaining business objective together with assessment of factors present in
business environment is also made in this presentation.
Activity 1
LO 1
P1)
Mangers and leaders plays a crucial and most vital role in management of operation
through motivating employees and establishing a coordination among all activities and
operations that lead to enhancement in performance and productivity of firm with the help of
effective control and management (De Roover, 2017).
Introduction to chosen organisation
McLaren Automotive is a British automotive manufacturer that includes automotive
engineering and design and its main product is super-cars which are manufactured at an in house
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designated production facilities (McLaren, 2020). The main headquarter and production unit of
McLaren Automotive is at Surrey, UK and having its operation worldwide. Being a
manufacturing organisation many activities and process are performed by this organisation thus,
it is having functional based management structure where each activity is properly categorised in
various departments and functions to have better efficiency and communication within the
organisation.
Managers
A manager is an individual that is having expertise and efficient knowledge in its field
and have the responsibility of supervising and coordinating the activities and efforts of all
employees for achievement of organisational goal (What is a Manager? - Definition, Goals &
Responsibilities, 2020). The managers of McLaren automotive are responsible and plays a
crucial role in coordinating and keeping a balance in all activities of organisation to ensure
timely achievement of goals and targets (Whelan, Sarmiento and Sprenger, 2018).
Leaders
A leader is a person that is having the art of influencing and motivating a group of
individuals or person with the aim of directing their efforts towards achievement of an common
goal of task (He, Mak and Rong, 2019). The role played by landers of McLaren automotive
includes making effective relation and employee engagement with workforces trough
transformational leadership styles that includes use of perks and incentives to retain and maintain
best talents for a longer period to achieve organisational goal and objective. Use of both soft skill
like effective communication and hard skills like time management and knowledge of IT is made
by leaders of McLane automotive to motivate and guide its employees for achievement of better
performance.
Difference between Leadership and management
Basis Management Leadership
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Functions The main functions of management
includes overall planning and budget
formation, organising and coordinating
all activities together with effective
control on performance and efficiency
of employees to achieve desired goals.
The main function of leadership in
McLaren Automotive is to motivate
and provide a strategic direction to
employees to improve their
performance and efficiency (Jones
and Dwivedi, 2018).
Role and
responsibility
Management is responsible for
effectively delegating the role and
responsibility among various
employees and also monitor their
performance to have better check,
balance and coordination in their
efforts.
Leadership plays a crucial role in
communicating the vision and
objective set by mangers to
employees to align them with
organisational objective.
Skills Use of hard management skills like
specific technical knowledge and
training are made by McLaren
Automotive to effectively direct and
control its employees (Utne, Schjølberg
and Roe, 2019).
Use of various soft Leadership skills
like effective communication, time
management are made to built better
relation and commitment in
employees to effectively motivate
and guide them for better
performance.
Approach Use of systematic management
approach is made by mangers of
McLaren Automotive that facilitates
more practical and planned way to
coordinate and organise efforts of all
employees and activity (Kumar,
Mookerjee and Shubham, 2018).
Use of Transformational leadership
style is made by leaders of
McLaren Automotive and provide
regulars benefits and incentives to
motive employees.
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LO 2
P2)
Various crucial role are played by mangers and leaders in maintaining smooth flow of
operation through properly coordinating and motivating employees for achieving better
performance and efficiency level. An analysis of different roles played by managers and leaders
of McLaren Automotive in various organisation situation is provided below:
Implementation of change- It is necessary for every company to bring some timely
changes to cope with the needs of dynamic business environment and have better competitive
strength to achieve the level of organisational excellence and perfection. Implementation of
change is a complex as well as crucial activity that includes many task such as evolution of
reasons for changes, identifying all positive and negative implications of change, effect of
change on performance and efficiency of employees, communication of changes made, etc.
Thus, mangers and leaders have various role and responsibility for effective implementation of
changes (Lamba and Singh, 2017). Use of Hard management skills are made by mangers of
McLaren Automotive to provide effective knowledge and technical training to employees in
order to make them able and skilled for proper execution and implementation of change. Thus,
managers plays a crucial role in enhancing and developing skill and competencies of employee
to have better implementation of change. On the other side, use of transformational leadership
style is made by leaders of McLaren Automotive to motivate employees for effective
implementation of change through providing better perks and incentives on the basis of their
efficiency level. Beside this, leaders also plays a crucial role in communicating and transferring
all the required and need information about change with employees to make them understand
about implication and impact of changes and also provide proper guidance and direction to
employees for better execution of change (Song and Parola, 2015).
Conflict resolution- McLaren Automotive is a multinational organisation and employees
working in this organisation are from diversified culture and background that are having
different interest and vision thus, chances of conflicts and chaos are always there during its day
to day operations. Mangers of McLaren Automotive aim at properly delegating and defining role
and responsibility of all employees so that chances of confusion and chaos can be reduced.
Beside this use of scientific management theory is also made by mangers to have a more
practical and effective approach to properly organise and coordinate efforts of all and to have a
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mutual decision making policy to avoid and reduce the chances of conflicts (Mehra, 2018). The
leaders of McLaren Automotive is making use of situational leadership style so that they can
have a better insight in the current situation to properly understand and evaluate the reason of
conflicts so that best possible step can be taken to resolve that conflicts. Beside this, leaders also
conduct many cultural and team binding activity to facilitates team bonding, commitment and
better interaction among employees with the aim of improving workplace atmosphere to reduce
the chances of conflicts.
P3)
Use of various theories and models of leadership are made by McLaren Automotive to
motivate and guide its employees as per prevailing conditions and circumstances. An assessment
of strengths and weakness of these leadership approaches is provided below:
Situational leadership theory- this leadership style emphasis on the fact that there is no
one best leadership style that can yield effective results during all situation thus, a leadership
style needs to have a significant anoint of flexibility so that a best leadership style can be
selected as per the situation (Mehta, Mittra and Yadav, 2018).
Blanchard and Hersey Model- this model suggest that there is no single leadership style
that is better or superior than other therefore, a leaders must adjust its leadership style as per
requirements of its employees and their abilities. According to this model the managers of
McLaren can adopt following styles of leadership for better results on the basis of capabilities of
its employees:
Delegating style- it can be adopted by McLaren when their is low task and low
relationships and employees are highly mature which facilitates delegation of responsibility of
task decisions in group.
Participating style- this style can be adopted by McLaren at the time of low task and high
relationship style with shared decisions and ideas.
Selling style- it is best suitable at the time of high task and high relationship style that can
be used by McLaren for moderate skilled employees.
Telling style- this style is associated with high task and low relationship style that can be
adopted by McLaren for motivating and directing low maturity employees.
The advantages and disadvantage facilitated by McLaren automotive with use of situational
leadership style are as follows:
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Strengths Weakness
Use of situational leadership style facilitates a
high level of flexibility in leadership of
McLaren automotive that makes it easy for
leaders and mangers to easily modified and
make change in their ways and approaches for
effectively controlling and motivating
employees as per the needs of current situation.
Random changes in leadership styles and
modification in leadership theory makes it
complex and difficult for employees of
McLaren automotive to have proper
understanding thus, enhance chances of
conflicts and confusion in McLaren
automotive.
Contingency leadership style- it is a two fold style of leadership that not only depends
and emphasis on skills of leaders but also include an evaluation and deep analysis of current
situation (Solomon, 2018). Use of this leadership style can be made by McLaren automotive at
the time of implementation of change as it lead to better analysis of environmental factors that
emphasis and lead to modification in organisations.
Fiedler’s Contingency model- This leadership model suggest that the leadership style of
McLaren must matches and align with the prevailing situation in order to have more
effectiveness. There are three core element of this model which are explained below in context of
McLaren:
Leadership style- it is mainly depends on two dimension i.e. task oriented and human
relation oriented. The task oriented approach emphasis on perform ace and accomplishment of
task while human oriented approach emphasis on better workplace relation. Thus, this dimension
lead to timely completion of task and goals in McLaren together with better relation and bonding
at workplace.
Situational Variables- according to this dimension the managers of McLaren must
properly evaluate and analysis current situation and factors of environment before adopting any
leadership style.
Relation between styles and situations- it is the last element of Fiedler’s Contingency
model that brings a balance between leadership style and current situation that provides an
opportunity to leaders of McLaren to effectively influence and direct their subordinates through
selection of an appropriate leadership style.
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The strengths and weakness of this approach encountered by McLaren automotive are as
follows:
Strengths Weakness
The strength of this leadership style is that
various leadership and performance charts are
prepared by McLaren automotive that
facilitates a effective comparison between
current level of skills and required level as per
the prevailing situation thus, lead to better
planning and controlling as per current
scenario.
The success and effectiveness of contingent
leadership style is largely dependent on the
skills and performance of leaders thus does not
lead to better result if leaders is incompetent or
unskilled (Perakis, 2019).
System Leadership- the main aim of this leadership style is to enhance productivity and
lead to enhancement in performance of all employees which are working at different levels in the
organisation thus, use of system leadership style by McLaren automotive facilitates overall
improvement in performance and productivity of organisation (Prahlad and Pawar CommVault
Systems Inc, 2016). This leadership style is mainly based on an evaluation of human behaviours
and attitudes thus, provide a better and more practical and systematic away and approach to
guide and motivate employees to have better efficacy and productivity. The strengths and
weakness of system leadership style seen in workplace of McLaren automotive are as follows:
Strengths Weakness
System leadership style provide better
evaluation and understanding of human
behaviours, interests and nature of employees
thus, it become say for leaders of McLaren
automotive to properly guide and direct
employees on the basis of some mutual
decision and strategy.
It is diverticula to accurately analysis or
determine interest of all employee thus, lead to
demotivation and dissatisfaction in the
employees whose desires and interest are not
meet (Regnier and MacKenzie, 2018)).
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Recommendations
On the basis of evaluation of above information it can be determine that mangers and
leaders have a significant role and influence in motivating, directing and controlling employees
to achieve organisational goals and objective on time. Following recommendation can be made
for McLaren automotive to have future improvements:
 Use of democratic leadership style is recommended for McLaren automotive to have
better participation of employees in decision making process that facilitates higher level
of creativity and improvement in business operations.
 Timely analysis of performance and efficiency of employees is also recommended so that
better motivation and required training can be provided to employees of McLaren
automotive to have better performance in future.
Activity 2
This activity is covered in PPT.
CONCLUSION
With respect to above report it can be summarised that managers as well as leaders plays
a crucial and critical role in management of employees and other operational activity through
providing timely motivation and coordinating all activities and tasks of organisation.
Management make use of hard skills like technically training to heighten the capability and
performance of employees. Use of various approaches of leadership like system, situational and
contingent leadership styles are made to properly guide and direct employees as per the situation
and human behaviour and interest.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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business operations using data mining. In 2017 7th International Conference on Cloud
Computing, Data Science & Engineering-Confluence (pp. 512-518). IEEE.
De Roover, R., 2017. The Medici Bank: its organization, management, operations, and decline.
Pickle Partners Publishing.
He, L., Mak, H. Y. and Rong, Y., 2019. Operations management of vehicle sharing systems.
In Sharing Economy(pp. 461-484). Springer, Cham.
Jones, J. A. and Dwivedi, P., 2018, April. An Integrated Workflow Approach to Manage
Steamflood Operations. In SPE Western Regional Meeting. Society of Petroleum
Engineers.
Kumar, S., Mookerjee, V. and Shubham, A., 2018. Research in Operations Management and
Information Systems Interface. Production and Operations Management. 27(11).
pp.1893-1905.
Lamba, K. and Singh, S. P., 2017. Big data in operations and supply chain management: current
trends and future perspectives. Production Planning & Control. 28(11-12), pp.877-890.
Mehra, S., 2018. Using asset-based criterion to implement quality management philosophy in
service operations to enhance business performance. International Journal of Quality &
Reliability Management. 35(10). pp.2195-2211.
Mehta, G., Mittra, G. and Yadav, V. K., 2018, September. Application of IoT to optimize data
center operations. In 2018 International Conference on Computing, Power and
Communication Technologies (GUCON) (pp. 738-742). IEEE.
Perakis, G., 2019. Data Analytics in Operations Management: A Review. arXiv. Org.
Prahlad, A. and Pawar, R. S., CommVault Systems Inc, 2016. Systems and methods for
performing data management operations using snapshots. U.S. Patent 9,268,602.
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Regnier, E. D. and MacKenzie, C. A., 2018. The Hurricane Decision Simulator: A Tool for
Marine Forces in New Orleans to Practice Operations Management in Advance of a
Hurricane: Finalist–2017 M&SOM Practice-Based Research
Competition. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. 21(1). pp.103-120.
Solomon, E. D., 2018. Risk Management and Insurance Issues for Your UAS Operations: Are
You Prepared. RAIL. 1. p.111.
Song, D. W. and Parola, F., 2015. Strategising port logistics management and operations for
value creation in global supply chains.
Utne, I. B., Schjølberg, I. and Roe, E., 2019. High reliability management and control operator
risks in autonomous marine systems and operations. Ocean Engineering. 171. pp.399-
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Whelan, G., Sarmiento, R. and Sprenger, J., 2018. Universal-deterministic and probabilistic
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Online :
McLaren. 2020. [Online]. Available through: <http://www.cars.mclaren.com/>
What is a Manager? - Definition, Goals & Responsibilities. 2020.[Online]. Available through:
<https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-manager-definition-goals-
responsibilities.html>
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