Operations Management and Leadership Theories

This assignment provides a detailed overview of operations management and leadership theories, including contingency theory, resource-based theory, and institutional theory. It highlights the importance of operational management in achieving business objectives and discusses various approaches to leadership and management in different situations. The assignment also covers factors affecting business operations and decisions, and suggests ways to improve processes and methods for efficient functioning.

Management and
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
P1 Explain and similitude different roles and characteristics of a leaders and a managers........4
P2 Explain how role of a leader and function of a manager can apply in different situation ....6
P3 Utilize different theories and models of approach those include situational leadership,
systems leadership and contingency...........................................................................................8
TASK2.............................................................................................................................................9
P4.Key approaches to operations management and role of leaders and managers ..................9
P5. Value and importance of operational management ...........................................................11
P.6 Factors affecting business environment and decision making of leaders and managers ...12
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION

Operation management are important field of an organisation management. In this firm
has analysis current market situations and according implemented change at work place. Leaders
and manager are playing important role in development of companies performance. In this report
Mark's & Spencer company can choose. Mark's & Spencer has world top most retail company
with 979 store are running in UK and overall 84939 employees are working under this firm.
They can choose appropriate strategies and plan for enhance employees productivity and
profitability of the firms (Hitt, Xu, and Carnes, 2016). The nuder-mansion report is based on
leadership approaches and mangers functions. This report is focus on theories, role, function,
characteristics and different approaches according to situation for leaders as well as managers.
TASK 1
P1 Explain and similitude different roles and characteristics of a leaders and a managers
Leader: Leaders are motivating his followers behaviour to achieve specific goals and
objectives. They are supporting and encouraging whole team members to work effectively.
Leaders setvision and mission and inspire their follower to achieve organisation goals.
Manager: Manager is a person who make strategies and plan for competing task. They
have to manage organisation and take responsibility of organising, planing, controlling,
coordinating, direction etc. to achieve firm goals and objectives. Manager has an authority to hire
employees and they get their work done by workers. Top, meddle and lower level managers have
work with in an organisation. Each one management level has their own responsibility and role
in the firms. The role and responsibility of managers depends on their nature of work. Top level
management are responsible for achieving organisation vision and mission, meddle level
management has responsible for making strategies and planing for executing firms work, and in
the last lower level management has responsible toward implementing pre determine strategies
and planing (Pinto, 2015).
Role of leaders: Role of manager:
 Motivators: Leaders are motivating
team member to competing their work
in a very effective manner. They
 Planing: Manager has preparing plan
for executing and implementing
strategies with an organisation. That is

provide possible path through
employees has attaining their goals and
objectives.
 Risk taker: Leaders are taking risk for
new or innovating way competing
work. Leaders are implementing new
ideas and process for achieving targets
goals.
 Supportive: They have support their
team member to work together and
motivating them to achieve objectives
or task (Kauppi, 2013).
the major role of the manager at work
place. Mostly top level management
has doing this work. Planing is a blue
print which helps employees to work
effectively in order to achieve their
targets.
 Staffing: Mangers has authority to hire
new employees accordingly to their
needs and wants. They recruiting and
selecting potential employees. HR
manager has selecting right candidates
at right time at right place.
 Organising: Manager of the company
has organising work accordingly to
respected department, so that work
done on a systematic way. Managers
has assigning task according to
employees capacities.
 Controlling: Managers has controlling
over employees performance and
productivity so that firms have
producing quality product and increase
profitability. Manager can watch
employees so that they resolve
problems.
Characteristics of leaders and mangers
 Leaders and managers have attaining their goals and objectives with in specific time
period, so they contributing in growth and development of an organisation.
 Both are the good learner, they have learn new things by experience. They are taking

risk and enhance their motivation.
 They both has an capacity to work in a pressure so leaders and managers have
completing difficult task in a very effective manner.
Difference between leaders and managers:
Leaders Managers
 Leaders are the best motivator and
enhance employees performance and
productivity.
 They can be build employees positive
attitude towards work.
 Leaders can be follows managers
directions.
 Leaders can not managers.
 Leaders can be a good communicators,
they enhance quality to increase
employees morale with effective
communication.
 Mangers have assigning task to
employees and controlling over their
performance and productivity.
 They have recruiting and selecting new
employees accordingly to their needs
and wants.
 Manager can not follow leaders
direction.
 But managers are always led a team.
 Managers has communicating their
objectives among employees (Hristov
and et. al., 2013).
P2 Explain how role of a leader and function of a manager can apply in different situation
With in an organisation leaders as well as manager has facing different type of situation
on the daily basis. Mark's & Spencer is a leading company in their industries. They have around
979 store on UK and approximately 84,939 employees have working under this organisation.
Mark's & Spencer's management has organising and controlling these all employees. Leaders and
managers can be different role and responsibility at work place. Managers has making plan and
leaders are effectively executing these planing with in a team which can assign to them, through
this firms have increasing their profitability with a give time frame. Manager has distributing
work to all department equally (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017).
Some important situation Mark's & Spencer are describe as follows:

 Stability: Very firms wants stability in business activities at Mark'set place. Manager and
leaders have running their task activities very smoothly. So that they provide
sustainability to companies for long period of time. Mark's & Spencer can follow some
rule and regulations related to work which introduced by company itself. Through this
possibility of conflicts between employees and management or with in workers are solve.
Stability provide healthy environment at work place so that team are providing quality
work and profitability (Schniederjans, Cao, and Triche, 2013).
 Change: An organisation's management has implementing change at work place in order
to achieve goals and objectives in a very effective manner. Leaders and managers of
Mark's & Spencer provide support and help to employees in order to deal with change.
Leaders motivating their team members for accepting new change at work place.
 Fast changing situation: Uncertainty in environment has increasing risk for an
organisation in order to achieve their goals and objectives with in a time frame. So that
management can be manage these uncertainty and reducing risk for gain competitive
advantages at Mark'set place. Mark's and Spencer's management has monitoring
employees work so that manager can make suitable change in order to full fill firms
needs and wants and handle situation effectively. Moderate changing situation: For expending their business activities and work area
management of an organisation has make strategies and planing. Mark's & Spencer has
growing and expending their business operation in a slow pace.
Leaders role at different situation:
 Work Oriented: Leaders should competing their work on time so that they have
analysing their performance quality and make improvement on time to time. They
are goal oriented so that achieve their goals on a given time. They have motivating
employees to push their limits and attain targets (Bartlett and Beamish, 2018).
 Encouragement the moral of team members: Leaders have motivating their team
members and enhancing their positive morale toward work. They provide
opportunities to employees for grow their career and build professional skills.
Managers functions on different situation:
Manager has dealing different type of situational at work place so that they have
analysing employees performance and gain over all profitability of the firms. In an organisation

management can be divided in three levels top, meddle and lower level of management.
According to level their functions are also different. Mark's & Spencer's management has
organising task in a effective manner and achieve set goals and objectives with in a time frame.
Manager has analysing employees problem and resolve it by taking appropriate action. The can
discus their problem with supervisor and solve it.
P3 Utilize different theories and models of approach those include situational leadership, systems
leadership and contingency
An organisation can a choose appropriate theories and approaches for expeanding their
work at international level. For this expansion firms has analysing situation and according select
appropriate approaches of leadership style model (Hajmohammad and et. al., 2013). Some
important leadership models are as follows:
Situational leadership: This theory introduced by Ken Blanchard and Paul Heresy.
Mark's & Spencer has adopting this theory for increase profitability and gain competitive
advantages at work place. In this theory company has assigning leaders according to situation
needs and wants. So that manager firstly analysing current situation and their requirements in
order to appoint appropriate leader. According to Mark'set situation firm can change their
strategies and planing to gain per determine goals and objectives.
Example: When Mark'set are facing slow growth then organisation's management has assigning
new leaders those has capabilities for providing innovative ideas to operating business activities
in a very effective manner.
Contingency theories: This theory are introducing by Fred Edward Fiedler in 1964.
Contingency theory are providing importance to leaders personality and situation where leaders
are operating their work. Accordingly to theory certain factor can determine, whether the chosen
leadership style are working effectively or not accordingly to situational requirements. This
theory is related to situational approach (Dobrzykowski and et. al., 2014). Three top most
popular contingency theories are Fiedler's model, House's Path – Goal theory and Hersey and
Blanchard's situational model. These models are determining how different leadership style can
relate different situation.

Example: Every leaders has different personality trait's so that company can provide leadership
style according to needs and wants of situations. Mark's & Spencer has analysing situation and
according select leadership style.
System leadership: This model is based on an perceptive of an organisation as a system.
Company's management has improving organisation in order to develop, manage and applied
leadership. Through systematic theory of leadership leaders can set clear goals and aim regarding
to develop firms systematic operation. An organisation can be know their needs and wants which
provide information related to chosen appropriate leadership style. An organisation is a system
where several activities are run in a systematic way (Brandenburg and et. al., 2014).
Example: Mark's & Spencer's management has controlling over organisation operation system.
They can sure about their working process, that employees completing their work according to
planted way.
Mark's & Spencer has choosing appropriate approaches for an organisation to achieve
competitive advantages at market place and long term sustainable growth. Most of the time
Mark's & Spencer's can choose various leadership theorise for gain efficiency in a every
situation. Very theories has their own positive and negative point so that companies has
considering these positive negative factor before taking any leadership style.
TASK2
P4.Key approaches to operations management and role of leaders and managers
Mostly companies tries to improve their business operations as it influences on the profits
of the company (DeAnna and et. al., 2010). There are various approaches used by companies in
operational management. This is done to improve the plans and procedures in the firm. Through
this company can earn more profits. There are various approaches used by Amazon company
are- Lean production – It is the method in which it tries to reduce the cost in the production.
Through it the cost is minimized and company tries to deliver best services to the
customers .Amazon company tries to reduce the transportation cost and human resources
cost in the delivery process. It directly helps the firm in increasing the production.
Organization can improve the processes and procedures. This results in efficient and

effective functioning of processes and activities. Thus it results in good quality of output.
Through it customers are happy and contented. It can easily expanded and diversify the
business in shorter period of time. Queueing and logistics – Company can follow all steps in a systematic process and
manner. Amazon firstly receives goods from suppliers,then record the goods in a
statement and do the packaging process. Afterwards it sends the goods and maintains the
record of the inventory. Firm has various warehouses and it dispatches the goods through
using good transportation system. It tries to reduce the cost of transportation and sends
the goods in various warehouses located in various countries. Through this company can
easily expand their operations and can widens the business. It can deliver good services
to customers and can increase the profits. Just in time – In this approach appropriate time is decided for the production and
delivery of the goods (Handschin and Petroianu, 2012). Proper scheduling is to be done
for receiving and dispatching of the goods. Goods are to be received in proper time from
the supplier. Then all processes such as packaging and other activities are to be
determined. They are to be transported in time to the delivery trucks so that further
processes can be done in proper time. Afterwards salesman can dispatch goods to the
customers in proper time. So thus Amazon can deliver the best services to the customers
and can satisfy the consumers.
 Total quality management – Total quality management is the approach in which there
are no defects in delivery of the products. Salesman of the Amazon company tries to
evaluate the products that there are no defects in packaging and there is no hazardous and
dangerous goods (Hatziargyriou,2014). Then company can deliver goods in proper time.
Gifts and incentive's can be given to various employees so that they can check the quality
of goods properly. This helps in giving the best services to the customers. Through this
consumers can become happy and satisfied. Thus company can maintain good
relationship with the users. Thus it can maintain brand loyalty of their products.
Role of leaders and managers in operations management
Zeff Broz and other managers create the plans and policies related to the production and
for the production process. They motivate and support the employees to evaluate the goods in a
proper manner. Through this there are no defects in the products. Both leaders and managers

support staff members so that it increases the energy level and enthusiasm and can perform the
activity and tasks in an efficient manner. It leads to good functioning of the processes and other
methods in the firm. Both evaluates that minimum cost is involved in the production and give
guidelines to all employees regarding the transportation of the goods. Through support of both
managers and leaders Amazon can deliver the goods in proper time to the customers. Thus
customers can remain happy and satisfied. This leads to expansion and growth of the business.
P5. Value and importance of operational management
Operational management is the planning and methods related to the processes and tasks
so that they can run in an efficient manner. This is important so that company can improve the
performance of operational activities and tasks. Thus it satisfy the customers and can create good
brand image in minds of the public. Importance of operational management of the Amazon are - Qualitative approach – In this approach company mainly emphasis on the performance
of the goods and services. Managers create plans and policies so that employees can
perform in the firm (Lind, 2013). They give various incentives to staff members so that
workers properly check the quality of the goods. Thus it reduces the defects from the
goods .Leaders motivate and support the staff members so that they can easily perform
the activities and tasks and check the quality of the goods. It thus provides good services
to customers and leads to customer satisfaction. This results in maintaining of good
image in minds of the consumers. Thus it can give strong competition to other firms. Customer satisfaction – Both manager and leaders evaluated the customer demand. They
evaluates the needs and preferences of customers and accordingly deliver goods to them.
Manager tell to salesman to deliver the goods in proper time. If there any defects the
goods are returned to the customers in time (Mendis,Muttaqi and Perera,2014) . Through
this they are happy as their problems are solved. Users give reference to their friends and
relatives. Thus it maintains brand loyalty. Firm can maintain good and positive image in
front of all the consumers. Through this firm can earn profits and can expand their
operations in various countries. This leads to long term growth and success of the firm. Achievement of target – Company tries that employees achieve their goals and
objectives. Managers and leaders give responsibility of the work to the employees
according to their capabilities. Some employees can evaluate the quality of the goods and
others can check that the processes and other activities are run successfully and smoothly

in the firm. Through this all employees can work efficiently and effectively. Leaders and
managers support and motivates employees to perform better. Through this staff
members can achieve the targets and goals in minimum time. Thus it leads to
accomplishment of organizational objectives. Through this Amazon can run smoothly
and successfully for a longer period of time. Profit motive – Company tries to earn profits through operational activities and
procedures. Leaders and managers support employees to make good quality of products.
Through it employees evaluate their quality of products and also checks the functioning
of the processes and activities in the firm. Through this operational activities run
smoothly and successfully (Nakamura and et. al.,2015). Goods can be delivered in time
to the customers. Through this many customers become happy and satisfied. Firm can
earn more profits and can increase the market share. Firm can easily expand and widens
the operations in many countries. It can give strong competition to other organizations.
 Brand image - Amazon checks the needs and preferences of all the customers through
the questionnaire and surveys. Then leaders and managers motivate all employees to
check the quality of good properly so that there are no defects. Thus it results in
maintaining of best products. Firm supports the salesman so that goods can be delivered
in time to the customers. If there is wrong delivery of the goods then new goods can be
given to the customers (Nakayama and Bucks, 2012). Through this customers become
happy and contended. It maintains positive and favourable image of the company in
minds of customers. Thus it leads to increasing of reputation of the brand.
P.6 Factors affecting business environment and decision making of leaders and managers
There are various factors which affects the business environment of various companies.
So company has to properly evaluate them so that it can change in the operational activities and
procedures. Through this activities and tasks run smoothly and successfully in the firm. The
factors which affect the business environment and decision making of leaders and managers in
Amazon are-
External factors – There are various external factors which affect decisions of managers and
leaders are-

(Source- Understanding Pest Analysis with Definitions and Understanding Pest Analysis with
Definitions and Examples,2018)
 Political - The rules and regulations which affects amazon company. There is Brexit in
which U.K exists from the E.U. So hence Amazon company has to create new plans and
policies related to production and the operations (Shuxin, 2011). They had decided that
they can achieve some market share but they cannot accomplish the goal. So hence
leaders and managers had to change the strategies and policies and motivate the
employees to adopt to the changes. Social – There are various changes in the needs and preferences of the public. They are
more aware about the health and hygienic products. Due to this change leaders and
managers had to change their plans and policies (White,2016). They motivated and
support to all employees so that they can deliver the good and hygienic products to the
customers. Through this customers can remain happy and satisfied. Economical – It includes the policies such as inflation. In this prices of goods are high
and demand of the goods are reduced .Customers do not purchase the products. It gives
the negative impact on the company. So leaders and managers have to take decision to
improve the plans and policies and to reduce the price to sustain in the market .Then only
firm can increase the profits.
 Technological – There are various changes in the technologies. In the market there are
use of online and digital technologies. So leaders and managers organize training sessions
Illustration 1: Understanding Pest Analysis with Definitions and Understanding
Pest Analysis with Definitions and Examples

of employees so that they can learn new and innovative methods of delivering the
products to the customers. Through this employees can work efficiently and effectively.
Through it firm can increase the profits and can increase the market share.
Internal factors – There are various internal factors which affects Amazon are- Customers – Amazon creates plans and policies related to the needs and preferences of
the customers. Leaders and managers motivate and support employees to evaluate the
quality of goods so that there are no defects. They also explain salesman to deliver the
goods in time so that customers gets happy and satisfied. This results in maintaining of
good image in minds of the customers.
 Suppliers – There are various suppliers who supplies the goods to Amazon. If they
properly deliver the goods in time then all activities and process runs smoothly and
successfully. So hence firm can deliver to the customers in proper time to customers. It
results in increasing of the customer satisfaction. Hence firm can increase the profits and
market share. It can also give strong competition to other firms.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above assignment that operational management is
important for the company. Leaders and managers play a vital role in managing the operational
activities and procedures on the firm. Through this all activities and tasks runs successfully and
firm can deliver goods to customers in appropriate time. There are various roles and
characteristics of manager and the leader. There are different functions of leaders and manager in
various situations. There are various approaches and theories of leadership through which firm
can run successfully. There are various approaches in operational management which results in
efficient and effective functions of operations in company. The importance of operations
management in achieving the business objectives. There are various factors which affects the
business operations and decisions of leaders and managers. Company can consider the factors
and can improve the processes and methods so that there is efficient functioning of the
operations. This results in customer satisfaction.
REFERENCES
Books & Journals

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management research in healthcare (1982–2011). International Journal of Production
Economics. 147. pp.514-530.
Hajmohammad, S. and et. al., 2013. Reprint of Lean management and supply management: their
role in green practices and performance. Journal of Cleaner Production. 56. pp.86-93.
Schniederjans, M. J., Cao, Q. and Triche, J. H., 2013. E-commerce operations management.
World Scientific Publishing Company.
Bartlett, C. A. and Beamish, P. W., 2018. Transnational management. Cambridge University
Press.
Hitt, M. A., Xu, K. and Carnes, C. M., 2016. Resource based theory in operations management
research. Journal of Operations Management. 41. pp.77-94.
Pinto, J. K., 2015. Project management: achieving competitive advantage. Prentice Hall.
Kauppi, K., 2013. Extending the use of institutional theory in operations and supply chain
management research: Review and research suggestions. International Journal of
Operations & Production Management. 33(10). pp.1318-1345.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H. R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Hristov, A. N. and et. al., 2013. Special topics—Mitigation of methane and nitrous oxide
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options. Journal of Animal Science. 91(11). pp.5095-5113.
Gao, J. and You, F., 2015. Optimal design and operations of supply chain networks for water
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Online
Contingency theory. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.leadership-central.com/contingency-theories.html>.