Roles and Characteristics of a Leader and Manager at Sainsbury

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
Roles and Characteristics of a leader and manager.....................................................................3
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................5
Role of manager and leaders in different organizational situation..............................................5
The use of systems, situational and contingency theory..............................................................8
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION.............................................................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Sainsbury is an international chain of supermarkets and is second largest retail company
operating in UK. It was founded in the year 1869 by the founder John Sainsbury and today the
company has gross revenue of £518 million. In this report the roles and characteristics of leaders
and managers at Sainsbury will be discussed along with the evidence and support of various
theories.
MAIN BODY
LO 1
Roles and Characteristics of a leader and manager
Peter Drucker defines leader as someone who has followers and leadership can be
categorized as an art through which a team or group of individuals are motivated to achieve a
common or shared goal. A manager on the other hand is an entity that is usually found in
organizational contexts and can be defined as a person who is responsible for managing all the
subordinates and employees under them. Harold Koontz defined management as an art of
getting things done by other people who have been organized or assembled in a formal setting
(Reid and Sanders, 2015). In Sainsbury as well there is a differentiation in the roles and
responsibilities that have been assigned to the managers and leaders of the company and both are
expected to address different problems in an organization.
Difference between leaders and managers’ roles and responsibilities at Sainsbury:
Leaders Managers
Leaders are visionary i.e. they formulate a
vision toward a better future and motivate their
followers to work towards achieving that vision
and turning it into reality. At Sainsbury the
leaders have always presented innovative ideas
like creating digital labs etc. to keep up with the
changes
Managers on the other hand are goal oriented
i.e. their focus is on achieving in a certain
measured and desires goal that are not their
own and are usually set by a certain top
management or higher authority. Similarly,
Sainsbury’s managers are goal oriented as
well
Innovation is the key aspect behind leaders
getting motivated and they are generally
referred as change agents because they are
constantly trying to integrate change and
Managers on the other hand are concerned
with monitoring the work system
implemented in the organizations and focus
on regular improvement of the wok

innovation in the current i.e. regular practices
that have been adopted (Schermerhorn and
et.al., 2019). Innovation is the backbone at
Sainsbury as well.
processes or structures or systems asking
them better so that efficiency rather than
innovation can be incorporated in the
organization like at Sainsbury.
The major distinguishing factor of leaders is
that they are not imitating anyone and are
extremely self-aware working towards building
of their own identity which is unique. At
Sainsbury as well, they inculcate authenticity
and transparency in their behaviour and
characteristic that they have adopted
influencing others to become like them or to
follow their mantra.
Managers on the other hand work on those
principles that are learned or copied form
someone else. The behavioural or
management styles that they adopt are
usually influenced form the ones followed by
others and rather than crating their own
ideas, they try to implement the ideas of the
higher authority following their instructions.
Managers of Sainsbury are equally efficient
as leaders in managing employees and
getting work done.
When it comes to risk taking, leaders are
extremely sporty taking huge risks since they
are usually trying newer or innovative ideas that
can either succeed if even lead to an ultimate
failure. Therefore the amount of risk that they
are exposed is huge and is on a regular basis
like Sainsbury’s expansion into other product
lines under which some were extremely
successful and some were not.
Managers on the other hand take minimal to
no risk and furthermore, it can be said that
their job is to minimize the risks that an
organization might face (Slack and Brandon-
Jones, 2018). At Sainsbury too, managers
tend to control the problems around them
altogether rather than embracing the
challenges.
Leaders are well acknowledged with the fact
that the change they are intending to
incorporate is not short term and are dedicated
for a long time duration committed to the work
that they intend to do. Similarly leaders of
Sainsbury are also working with the objective
of learning something new every day and are
Managers on the other hand usually have
shorter and manageable goals and these goals
can be usually measured and their
performance tracked. The work needed to be
performed by managers in Sainsbury is
standardized i.e. the success factor is usually
associated with how perfectly they have