Management and Operations - Sample Assignment

In this report leadership and management pdf we will analyze the management and leadership of Mainstreet Trading Company.  Operation management  will play an important role in the working of business organization. We will be discussed functions of leadership and management and all the benefits of TQM so that employees will easily understand the need of using TQM into workplace. Quality control will help in reducing the safety risks, conserves resources, keeps the cost in line and also preserves the reputation of company. Further, The Functions of Leadership and Management also concluded that operation management of Mainstreet Ltd should use TQM and lean production approach. 

Management and Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1 & LO 3....................................................................................................................................1
Definition of the role of management and leadership ................................................................1
Leadership and Management function........................................................................................1
Analysis of management by objectives.......................................................................................2
Management role.........................................................................................................................4
Leadership traits theory...............................................................................................................4
Hard and soft skills......................................................................................................................5
Three transformation process in operation management............................................................5
Describing the term Quality and four cost of quality..................................................................6
TQM............................................................................................................................................6
Just in time approach and waste reduction .................................................................................7
Three methods manager can adjust in capacity management.....................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................8
LO 2 & LO 4....................................................................................................................................8
1. Introduction to chosen business organization.........................................................................8
2. An explanation of Operations department including role in operations.................................8
3. Background of management team in this department.............................................................9
4. Strengths and weaknesses of the management and leadership approaches............................9
5. Three specific roles and duties of management in the organization.....................................10
6. One real occasion with different theories and models of management approaches..............11
7. Theory of leadership style as applied to the manager on this occasion................................11
8. Discuss the type of transformation process is common in the chosen company..................12
9. Discuss the impact of two adjustments for Capacity Management on the organization.......12
10. Two operational recommendations to management for future improvements...................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Operations Management plays an important role in the working of business organization.
This acts as the key strengths of the company. In order to conduct the report, Mainstreet Trading
Company is being chosen and it is a bookshop and cafe. The report will discuss roles of leaders
and managers and their functions will be differentiated using the J. Kotte theory. The report will
also explain various theories and approaches such as Total Quality Management, Just-In-Time,
etc. Background of management team will be discussed and strengths and weaknesses of
manager and leadership approaches. Leadership theory will be evaluated and type of
transformation process will be discussed with examples. Further in the report operational
recommendations will be provided to the management for bringing future improvements.
LO 1 & LO 3
Definition of the role of management and leadership
Leadership: Leader is the person who influence entire group of people in order to
achieve the goals of a company and leadership is the action of leading a group of people.
Therefore, through leadership, leaders mainly motivate their employees in order to increase the
productivity so that it will directly increase production level of a firm (Bush, Bell and
Middlewood, 2019).
Management:Manager is the person who are expert in their field, and they are the
support system of the employees. Manager work within the business and also work together in
order to achieve the goals of a business and management is the process of dealing and controlling
things and people.
Leadership and Management function
According to Kotter, leadership and management are two different things such that there
are three main function of leader such that:
 Establish direction:They set the direction, create vision and set strategies for the future
of a business.
 Aligning people: The leader of Mainstreet Trading communicate the goals and seek
commitment to the employees so that they can proceed with defined direction.
 Motivate and inspire the people: Another function in which leaders inspire and
empower the subordinate to move with the defined direction, further, they also energize
1

the employees so that they can increase their production level (Leadership and
management by J.Kotter, 2018).
Apart from this, J. Kottler also states some traits of leadership such as focus on the
change, creates vision, communicate and earns the commitment and also motivate as well as
inspire their employees. While on the other side, the central function of management is to
provide the order and consistency to an organization so that they help to achieve the goals of a
firm. The function of management by J. Kotter are:
 Planning: Manager mainly establish he agendas and also assign the duties as well as
resources to the leaders or employees.
 Organizing and staffing: Manager also set rules and procedures and make changes in
organizing structure. Through effective recruitment system, they also make job placement
in the vacant position (Shin and et.al., 2015).
 Controlling and problem solving: In order to solve the problem of employees, manager
also generate creative solution and develop incentives to retain the employees into
business.
Analysis of management by objectives
According to P. Drucker Management by objectives is a performance management
approach which define specific objectives of that a management should convey to the employees
and also decide how to achieve every objective. This leads to increase motivation and job
satisfaction. This MBO process is based upon five steps such that:
2

Review organizational goal: It is the starting point of management objectives and if the
firm did not set the objective then it will not carry out the next step. Therefore, the objective stem
from mission and vision of the firm.
Set objective: It means that the set objectives must met the criteria of SMART criteria.
For Mainstreet Trading Ltd, the objectives is to increases sales up to 25% in next 2 years. As per
MOB, objectives should be clearly recognizable at all level and all the employees must know
their own responsibilities (Islami, Mulolli and Mustafa, 2018).
Monitor progress: Each goal must be properly monitored by the management in weekly
or monthly basis such that they if manager create the clear path with sufficient evaluation
methods will help in growth and development of business.
3
Illustration 1: MBO process
(Source: MBO process, 2018)

Give rewards: in order to improve the performance, manager should provide reward to
their employees so that they increase their productivity and also help to meet the objective
(Morden, 2017).
Management role
Henry Mintzberg categorize all the managerial roles into three sub categories which are
as mention below:
 Interpersonal roles: in this, manager of the firm are mainly interact with the employees
with an aim of achieve the goal. For example, Mainstreet trading Ltd wants to establish
new online store for the customer (Antonakis and Day, 2017). At that time, manager has
to make direct connection with the employees and as a Figurehead, he has to carry out all
the duties and explain the roles of every employee and in his leading role, they motivate
the staff and also foster the positive environment as well.
 Informational roles: It is the next role in which manager must generate or share
knowledge to others in order to achieve the organization goal. For example, In this role,
manager of Mainstreet Trading Ltd, should perform his role as a monitor, in which they
research, locating and gather whole information and convey it to the team members.
 Decisional Roles: It is the last role in which manager are responsible for the decision-
making in which the manager act as an entrepreneur where manager act as a designer,
encourage of innovation and change. For example, to start online business, manager of
Mainstreet Trading Ltd may also act as a Disturbance handler in which they take
corrective action so that organization may not take any difficulties.
Leadership traits theory
The Trait model of leadership is based upon the different characteristic of leaders and the
theory states that the leaders are born and also posses the bet qualities and traits which are better
suited for the leadership. These are traits are: intelligence, self- confidence and integrity and
determination. The two style of leadership are as mention below:
Democratic leadership style: In this style, leaders of the company mainly consult with
the subordinate and then formulate the plans and policies. Such that by adopting this style,
company's leader are easily encourage the employees to participate in decision-making. For
example, the leader of Mainstreet Trading Ltd, have to minimize the problem of short staff then
4

they can opt this style in order to know their views so that it will help to make better decision for
the company (Parvin, 2019).
Autocratic leadership style: In this style, leader of the company make their own
decision and inform the employees what to do and what not to do. It is beneficial when the firm
needs quick decision and a situation is quite stressful.
Hard and soft skills
Hard Management skills: This management skill are the learned abilities which are
acquired and enhances through a repetition and education. Further, these skills describe these
which are in control by manager and certain in their work (Wikle and Fagin, 2015). For example,
a manager of Mainstreet Trading Ltd must have financial knowledge, IT skills, software
development skills such as Quickbooks, SAP software etc. Therefore, they are more tangible and
harder as compared to other skills.
Soft leadership skills: this are character trait and interpersonal skill which are
characterize person's relationship with others and it is the combination of people skills, social
skills and communication skills that helps a person to perform better to achieve the goals of a
firm (Matteson, Anderson and Boyden, 2016). Therefore, the leader of Mainstreet Trading Ltd
must posses' communication skills, teamwork and decision-making skills, empowerment and
Empathy so that they can easily convince their employees or motivate them as well.
Three transformation process in operation management
The transformation is the process of any activity that takes one or more inputs which
transform or add values into them so that it provides output for the customer. It if three types
such as:
Material Processing: It is defined as a step which is used to manufacture the raw
material into finished goods. Therefore, this operation helps to produce large quantities in a
business. In the same way, Mainstreet Trading Ltd also uses this method to convert the input into
output in order to continue to improve the quality and production yields.
Informational Processing: It is the use of advance technology and many of the company
will use new digital products into the working place In order to make the information
transformation the most important and central dimension (Erol, Schumacher and Sihn 2016).
Such that Mainstreet leaders can opt this in order to develop new online business. For instance,
providing effective quality of products to their customers using online application.
5

Customer Processing: it is another type of transformational process which provide
immediate interface between an organization and their customers so that they get direct
interaction with customers (Zuo, 2015). Apart from this, through this process the company will
easily identify whether the products are beneficial for the system or not.
Describing the term Quality and four cost of quality
Quality is the ongoing process of sustaining relationship by assessing and anticipating or
fulfilling the implied needs and for Mainstreet Ltd, it is quite essential for managing quality in
order to make sure that the organization is fir for purpose. Its four cost of quality are as
mentioned:
Prevention cost: The cost which is incurred to minimize the number of cost in known as
prevention cost and it is better for the product to prevent defects rather than removing. For
example, Mainstreet Trading can use quality engineering in order to detect the errors (Lai and
Cheng, 2016).
Appraisal cost: It is the cost which is incurred to determine the defective products before
they are shipped to customers. For example, company may use test and inspection of incoming
material for this.
Internal failure cost: That cost which is used to remove the defect from the products
before handling them to customers. This is generally happen when operation manager reject
products or rework.
External failure cost: It is incurred when the defective products are shipped to
customers and at that time external failure cost arise because it dissatisfies customers and
damage goodwill (Tyagi and et.al., 2015).
TQM
Total quality Management is the long term success that helps to improve the customer
satisfaction. Such that by using this theory, employees of Mainstreet can easily improve their
ability and provide the best quality material to them. In this, the manager plays different role
such that:
Facilitator: In TQM, the manager act as a facilitator in which they help the employees to
assist employees for implementing TQM and also select the right candidate who can work as a
line manager. Further, it is the duty of manager to assign resource for TQM and also appreciate
the employees who come with different improvement ideas and strategies so that firm will
6

provide superior quality of products (TQM, 2018). Apart from this, manager must communicate
all the benefits of TQM so that employees will easily understand the need of using TQM into
workplace.
Just in time approach and waste reduction
Just in time is the management theory that align raw material orders from the suppliers
to the production schedules. Therefore, company use this strategy in order to increases efficiency
and reduce the waste by receiving goods during production process. The method also help to
reduce the inventory cost and increases production growth. Further, it also help in cost saving,
lower down the production cost and also increases customer satisfaction (Lai and Cheng, 2016).
On the other side, lean production is used to cutting down waste and make sure about the
quality. This approach should also be used by Mainstreet Ltd in order to cut cost and make the
business more efficient and responsive to the market needs. The method is also based upon the
principle of Kaizen and help a business for its continuous improvement so that a firm will easily
improve its quality of products.
Three methods manager can adjust in capacity management
There are three methods which a manager can use for capacity management such that:
Gain resources visibility: Manager of Mainstreet must assign the right resource so that
they can be adjust in right project. Therefore, it gives comprehensive view of the resources
which assist a business to make the best commitment levels for employees (Boyabatlı, Nguyen
and Wang, 2017).
Prioritise the task with continuous planning: Always make a list of the task as per
priority and based upon the individual commitment levels, resources must be assigned using
mentioned visibility.
Derive insights from past reports: Through this, the manager can easily reflect from the
past report which is accurate and also reflect the knowledge transfer to happen in real time using
exact figures (Ning and Sobel, 2017).
7

Conclusion
From the above, it has been concluded that leaders and mangers are two different roles in
a firm but they both work for achieving the goals. The role of leader is mainly to motivate and
provide direction to the employees and on the other side, manager assign duties and also
organize training session for their member. Therefore, they both have their own roles and
responsibility which makes them differ from each other.
LO 2 & LO 4
1. Introduction to chosen business organization.
Mainstreet Trading Company is a cafe and bookshop company that is based in St.
Boswells, Scottish Border Village. The company focuses on introducing innovation and also on
expanding its customer base. The innovation introduced by chosen company includes “A Year of
Books” subscription services. Bookshop stocks more than 8000 titles and also extensive
children's section that includes 'Book burrows', beautiful dens in which children can enjoy
listening to audio books (Browse a bookshop: The Mainstreet Trading Company, St Boswells,
2018).
2. An explanation of Operations department including role in operations.
Operations management is concerned with administrating of business practices for
creating maximum level of efficient and effectiveness possible in the business organization. The
focus of this department is to convert raw materials and labours into products and services as
efficiently as possible for maximizing the profits and reducing waste.
The role of operations in producing coffee and other products within the Mainstreet
Trading Company includes:
Production planning: This role is centred with production and manufacturing of products and
services. The operations' manager is responsible for settling on one of the basic production
strategy, such as: mass production, make-to-order (Customized products) or mass customization .
Production Control: In this role, Operation's manager is responsible for assessing the
production progress, doing comparison and contrasting of the alternatives, making required
adjustments and also communicating with the employees (What Happens in the Operations
Department of a Manufacturing Company, 2018).
8

Quality Control: This role basically ensures about id products effectively comply with the
specifications and standards. This role of operations department can never afford for becoming
self-satisfied and complacent. Quality control helps in reducing the safety risks, conserves
resources, keeps the cost in line and also preserves the reputation of company.
3. Background of management team in this department.
Operations management is basically the process which involves planning, organizing,
controlling, managing and supervising the process of production and manufacturing within the
business organization (Mahadevan, 2015). The role and functions of operational manager
involves overseeing the production and manufacturing process to make the process smooth and
profitable. The management team is responsible for ensuring that:
Keeping the business run in efficient way: The management team focuses the production
process and business runs in effective and efficient way. Manager ensures that production
processes does as much as it can do without taking any extra time. Management team anticipates
about how many products can be made from the available materials and how much time will be
required under the ordinary business circumstances.
Ensures about overall quality: The management team of operational department aims at
making the highest possible quality products and services relative with the business
circumstances and according to the price paid by customers. Management team is responsible for
maintaining consistency as it is an important factor of the quality.
Timeliness in the delivery process: The management team of the Mainstreet Trading company
ensures that orders of customers are delivered on scheduled time (Major Objectives of an
Operations Department, 2019). Managers are focused on communicate with the customers for
clarifying their expectations and meeting it effectively.
4. Strengths and weaknesses of the management and leadership approaches.
Situational Approach to Leadership:
Leadership refers to the ability for influencing group of people towards the
accomplishment of goals and objectives of company. Situational Approach to leadership is based
on basic premises that describes that different situational context requires and demands different
styles and types of leadership.
Strengths of situation approach to leadership:
 This is simple and intuitive approach and also easy to understand.
9

 This approach is well-known and practically applicable to variety of settings within the
business organization (Eriksson and et.al., 2017).
 This approach emphasizes leaders' flexibility, i.e. leaders focus on making sure that their
style matches with the need of subordinates and business situation as well.
Weaknesses of situation approach to leadership:
 This is hard for defining that how commitment can be conceptualized according to the
approaches and models. The leaders may face pressure for constantly analysing the situations before making any
decisions regarding the actions and this may lead to affect the efficiency level.
Classical Approach to Management:
This approach is about managing the business activities and operations in classical
methods. This is about application of original researches and studies done on the management.
The goal and objectives of classical management us cutting the costs of business and
accomplishment of results in most efficient and effective way.
Strengths of situation approach to leadership:
 The classical management approach follows clear organizational hierarchy having three
distinct levels of management (Advantages and Benefits of the Classical Management
Theory, 2019).
 The division of labour is another strength of classical management approach. The
business projects are divided into smaller activities which makes it easy to complete.
Weaknesses of situation approach to leadership:
 The major weakness of classical management approach is that it is tough and possess
rigid structure.
 This approach leads to create an assembly line business environment, that leads to hinder
the creativity and innovation on the side of employees and workers.
5. Three specific roles and duties of management in the organization.
Manager puts efforts for improving the efficiency of employees and overall organization.
The operations' manager keeps eye on various areas within the Mainstreet trading Company, they
assure about productivity, increasing efficiency while also seeks for reducing the costs
(.Schedlitzki and Edwards, 2017).
10

 Operations' manager are responsible for overall well-being of the operation's of company,
thus, they tend to give the big-picture perspective.
 Managers are able for determining needs of the company and also connect groups for
working together to solve the arisen problems and issues.
 Manager oversights the procedure of supply chain and also the inventory tracking.
 They also focus on having a handle on the staffing requirements of company within the
operational department.
6. One real occasion with different theories and models of management approaches.
Mainstreet Trading Company has added Home & Deli section in its operations in order to
increase the market share and also strengthening the customer base. This real occasion led to
bring various changes in the business organization and its activities. More number of staff ad
workforce was required. Employees needed to be motivated so that they can manage the changes
effectively. Managers of the company adopted and implemented situational approaches of
management for effectively managing this business situation.
In this situation, role of management was excellent as he applied the best approach to
management, i.e. situational approach. Manager was capable for guiding and directing
employees and workforce to feel motivated and put their best efforts in right directions. The
changes of business organization were effectively accepted by the workforce and employees due
to the efforts of management.
7. Theory of leadership style as applied to the manager on this occasion.
The changes in the Mainstreet Trading Company, i.e. adding the Home & Deli sections
led to bring great influences on the operations and activities of company (Northouse, 2018). In
order to get successful outcomes and become most effective, managers need to be able for
adopting to his approach and style within the diverse situations and circumstances. Manager of
the company focuses on implementing the best leadership style so that he can effectively manage
the business circumstances. Democratic style was implemented by the management team so that
employees feel engaged and also feel motivated in the business situations. In this leadership
style, leader expresses their values and priorities in making important decisions and setting goals,
but they also focus on taking part in the group works and accepts employees advice and
suggestions. The advantage of this style is that it leads to bring innovation and creation from the
side of employees as they feel satisfied due to their involvement in decision-making process.
11

8. Discuss the type of transformation process is common in the chosen company
In Mainstreet Trading, Material process is common in which all the material is
transferred from the raw material to finished parts and products. For example, as the company
provides coffee and other fast food product to their customers. Therefore, it initially uses raw
material and them convert them into finished goods and then serve it to customers. In Material
process, the cycle of manufacturing process helps in convert material into parts and then raw
material are extracted from minerals and also produces natural substance (Zuo, 2015). Therefore,
this type of transformation process is mainly used in the quoted firm.
9. Discuss the impact of two adjustments for Capacity Management on the organization.
Using two alternatives into the working place will help to mitigate the change and growth
and also help to controlling as well as optimizing the cost which incurred for running the IT
management. If Mainstreet Ltd will use good capacity management then it will provide business
with the ability to make more informed decision about those softwares which are invested into a
business. Thus, it all creates positive impact upon the business and firm also have enough
capacity to run its business in more effective way. Apart from this, it has been analysed that by
using the alternative will help to performance analysis and this also includes analysis of the
impact of new release on the capacity. Therefore, through this, the company will make sure that
the information technology resources are meet with current and future business requirements
even in cost effective manner so that it creates positive impact upon the financial performance of
a firm.
10. Two operational recommendations to management for future improvements.
 Minimize inventory: It is recommended to manager that by using FIFO and regular
auditing the company can easily improve its operational management in its future
because inventory uses space in the process and by reducing the size and make the
process smoothly will help to manage operation in company (Morden, 2017).
 Minimize the backtracking of work: Sending material back-to-back will create
confusion. Therefore, by maintaining separate inbox for the first time material and then
return them back, or a firm can establish marketing system to distinguish will help to
manage the operational management in the future.
12

CONCLUSION
From the present report, it can be concluded that leader and managers play different role
towards the accomplishment of overall goals of the company. Different theories, models and
approaches of leadership and management are adopted by the business in different situations of
business such that situational leadership style, classical theory of management and trait theory of
leadership. Further, report also concluded that operation management of Mainstreet Ltd should
use TQM and lean production approach so that it will help to minimize the errors and increases
the quality of a firm. In addition to this, report also concluded that by using material
transformation process, quoted firm will easily convert the raw material into finished goods so
that it meet the customer needs. Lastly, by minimizing inventory cost and backtracking of work,
company will also improve its operational management system in its future.
13

References
Books and Journals
Antonakis, J. and Day, D. V. eds., 2017. The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Boyabatlı, O., Nguyen, J. and Wang, T., 2017. Capacity management in agricultural commodity
processing and application in the palm industry. Manufacturing & Service Operations
Management. 19(4). pp.551-567.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
Eriksson, A. and et.al., 2017. Management and leadership approaches to health promotion and
sustainable workplaces: A scoping review. Societies. 7(2). p.14.
Erol, S., Schumacher, A. and Sihn, W., 2016, January. Strategic guidance towards Industry 4.0–a
three-stage process model. In International conference on competitive
manufacturing (Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 495-501).
Islami, X., Mulolli, E. and Mustafa, N., 2018. Using Management by Objectives as a
performance appraisal tool for employee satisfaction. Future Business Journal.4(1).
pp.94-108.
Lai, K. H. and Cheng, T. E., 2016. Just-in-time logistics. Routledge.
Mahadevan, B., 2015. Operations management: Theory and practice. Pearson Education India.
Matteson, M. L., Anderson, L. and Boyden, C., 2016. " Soft Skills": A Phrase in Search of
Meaning. portal: Libraries and the Academy.16(1). pp.71-88.
Morden, T., 2017. Principles of management. Routledge.
Ning, J. and Sobel, M. J., 2017. Production and capacity management with internal
financing. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.20(1). pp.147-160.
Northouse, P. G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Parvin, A., 2019. Leadership and management in quality assurance: insights from the context of
Khulna University, Bangladesh. Higher Education.77(4). pp.739-756.
Schedlitzki, D. and Edwards, G., 2017. Studying leadership: Traditional and critical
approaches. Sage.
Shin, Y. and et.al., 2015. Top management ethical leadership and firm performance: Mediating
role of ethical and procedural justice climate. Journal of Business Ethics.129(1). pp.43-
57.
Tyagi, S. and et.al., 2015. Value stream mapping to reduce the lead-time of a product
development process. International Journal of Production Economics. 160. pp.202-212.
Wikle, T. A. and Fagin, T. D., 2015. Hard and soft skills in preparing GIS professionals:
Comparing perceptions of employers and educators. Transactions in GIS.19(5). pp.641-
652.
Zuo, J., 2015. The application of management and control platform based on acceptance standard
system in electric transmission and transformation equipment acceptance: Jinquan Zuo.
In Information Technology and Career Education(pp. 31-40). CRC Press.
Online
Advantages and Benefits of the Classical Management Theory. 2019. [Online]. Available
through: <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-benefits-classical-management-
theory-37990.html>
14

Browse a bookshop: The Mainstreet Trading Company, St Boswells. 2018. [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/18/browse-a-bookshop-the-
mainstreet-trading-company-st-boswells-scottish-borders>
Leadership and management by J.Kotter. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.tlu.ee/~sirvir/Leadership/Leadership%20versus%20Management%20and
%20Emerged%20Leadership/john_paul_kotters__approach.html/>.
Major Objectives of an Operations Department. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://smallbusiness.chron.com/major-objectives-operations-department-31500.html>
TQM. 2018. [Online]. Avaialble through: <https://asq.org/quality-resources/total-quality-
management>.
What Happens in the Operations Department of a Manufacturing Company?. 2018. [Online].
Available through: <https://smallbusiness.chron.com/happens-operations-department-
manufacturing-company-24453.html>
15