Operational Manager's Role and Leadership Theories

The provided report discusses the importance of operational management for Amazon, highlighting the role of operational managers in managing business functions. It also explores different leadership theories, such as situational leadership, systems leadership, and contingency leadership, and demonstrates their application in various situations. The report concludes that operational managers play a crucial role in ensuring Amazon's success by providing quality services and achieving business objectives effectively.

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LOI...................................................................................................................................................4
P1 Comparison of a Leader and a Manager..........................................................................4
LO2..................................................................................................................................................6
P2 Role of a leader and function of a manger in Different Situation.....................................6
P3 Different theories and Models of approach.....................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report going through the comparison of the leader and manage accordingly to Roles
and Characteristic and this report also going through the roles of leaders in different situations
and the functions of the manager on those situations. Situational leadership helps leader in
dealing different situation effectively by reacting properly in situation. Operational management
approaches are described in this report alone with factor that impact on the operation
management of company.
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INTRODUCTION
Management is the art of getting things done through and by people. Management is an
essential tool for running an organization. For the smooth flow of operations proper management
is needed. Whether it's a profit-making organisation or a non-profitable organisation
management is the governing body that is necessary.
Operations Management is the governing body which looks at the strategies at a business can use
for creating the highest level of efficiency. Amazon is taken for the study which is the
multinational firm that is performing well in e-commerce industry.
LOI
P1 Comparison between management and leadership
Leader:- leader motivates group of people so that they help in obtaining organisational goal.
Individual leads team. Leaders empower its staff members so that they feel valued and perform
their duties well (What Is Leadership, 2019).
Manger:- manage is the person who manager the company and the employees of the company.
Manger handles the department and provide the work for the employees (Bromiley and Rau ,
2016).
Role of leader
 Leaders play the role of motivators they encourage people so that they can perform their
duties well. By getting motivation from leader’s employees work with energy and they
work hard for accomplishing business objectives.
 Leaders are responsible for building an effective team, they always make people aware
and ensure that they work effectively (Ferguson And et.al, 2016)..
 They always work on achieving long term business objectives
Function of manager
 Managers have to make proper plan to complete the task on time. If there is improper
planning then entity may get fail to finish task on time.
 Manager has to control over business activities, if sometimes is going wrong then they
have to ensure controlling over such wrong things and implementing strategies to correct
it.
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 Directing people is another function of manager, they always train employees and give
them direction so that workers can perform their duties well and can complete work on
time (Bromiley and Rau , 2016).
 They work on accomplishing goal by concentrating on operations only.
Basis Manager Leader
Risk Managers are responsible for
avoiding risk, they always plan
to reduce risk or avoid it.
Leaders of Amazon emphases on
new ideas hence they take risk.
Their risk taking ability helps in
improving operational
efficiency.
Employee relationship Managers build professional
relationship with workers, they
don’t build personal bonding
with them (Chiarini and
Vagnoni 2015). They focus on
the analytical way. Manager of
Amazon always focus on the
goals and the targets.
Leaders builds personal and
professional relationship with
staff members, this develops
bonding between them and they
become able to work effectively
with each other. Leader build
relation which work together for
the long time and leader always
believe in the long-term relation
(Ferguson And et.al, 2016).
Formulation Managers makes policies and
procedures which aids in
conducting operations in
systematic manner.
Leaders formulate principles and
set guidelines so that employees
can perform their work
effectively.
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Approach Manager of the Amazon create
goals which is need to complete
in given time and manager has
the approach for the work and
employees (Gibson and
Parkman, 2018).
Leader has approach to create
vision for the employee.
Amazon's leader always tries to
to improve the strength of the
employee. Leader always create
strategy for the task and apply
them on the task.
Aim Managers always aim for
growth,.
Leaders of company aims to get
desired results rather than
development.
LO2
P2 Role of a leader and function of a manger
Technological Changes
Amazon is working in e-commerce industry, here it is essential for the firm to implement
advance technologies so that it can coordinate with consumers effectively (Grant, Trautrims and
Wong, 2017). Every changes creates difficult situation in organisation, employee resistance get
increased if Amazon plan for technical changes ,in such condition leaders work as motivator,
they make employee understand necessity of this change so that workers accept such
modification easily. Leaders play the role of policy maker they make new regulations that may
help in running operations in systematic manner. If firm is planning to make new changes in
technologies, then it has to make policy for using this technology which may help in getting
positive results. Leaders make long term goal and convenience people in such manner so that
employees use this new technique and contribute in achieving such long term objective of
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business. Manages ensures such technical changes through which entity can get immediate
results hence they focus more on short term goal achievement.
Sales Decrease
Amazon is facing huge competition, there are many brands those which are offering
online services to consumers. If sales of company is declining them leaders act as innovator, they
find innovative ideas through which consumers can get attracted towards the brand (Heizer and
et.al, 2017). Managers act as trainer, they give training to staff members so that they can
communicate with consumers easily. Managers acts as planner, they make systematic plan
through sales can be raised whereas leaders work as relationship builder, individual build healthy
relationship with staff so that they feel happy and put best efforts to increase sales of Amazon
(Kapadia, Dong and Yang, Cisco Technology Inc, 2018)..
Employee Turn over
It is another situation which is faced by Amazon, due to heavy workload people are
leaving this organisation. (Lawrence and et.al, 2015). Leaders plays the role of relationship
builder, they create healthy workplace environment so that people feel comfortable. By this way
employees like to work in the firm for longer duration. Whereas managers play the role of
motivator, they gives incentive, bonuses to staff members so that their monetary needs get
fulfilled. This thing motivates workers and make them positive towards the brand. By this way
they stay in Amazon for longer duration (Laudon. and Laudon, 2016).
P3 Theories of leadership
Situational Leadership:-
In this Approach Leaders try to manage the difference situation in the Amazon
Company. In the Situational leadership leader change his style of working accordingly to the
situation. Leaders understand situation and accordingly react, if conflicts is there is leaders react
in such manner so that workers work in discipline whereas if there is heavy workload then
leaders behave friendly so that workplace environment can be lighter (Reid and Sanders, 2015).
Amazon’s leaders implement this type of leadership approach and deal with employees
effectively (Situational leadership, 2019).
Situational leadership explains that evaluation of various situations is essential for leader
to make correct decisions. It states that telling leaders give close guidance to others and closely
supervise employees’ performance. They make clear communication which supports in getting
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desired results. Selling leaders explain tasks to people if they are facing issues in completing
their work, they also give opinion to them so that they can complete their work on time.
Participating leaders enhances involvement of people if there is negativity at workplace, this
participation enhances loyalty of workers and make them positive towards the brand. Delegating
leaders give minimum guidance to staff members and they support them wherever firm is facing
any complexity.
The advantage of situational leadership is that it recognises flexibility need in business so
that if there is hard environment or soft can be managed easily. Situational leadership supports in
creating good workplace environment which helps in making people positive so that they support
Amazon in every critical situation.
Systems leadership:-
This theory highlights that leaders have to create such environment when people like to
work and become more productive. Leaders have to predict behaviour of its staff members and
accordingly make arrangement so that effective system can be developed and productivity of
Amazon can be raised (Bromiley and Rau, 2016). System leadership is the approach which
highlights inter dependencies between various functional units. It ensures that all department
work together to deal with any related business issue. This is beneficial in order to raise
uniformity and making the operations more dynamic.
Creating healthy culture and supportive atmosphere always work well and it aids business
in motivating people to work hard. Leaders train workers that supports in improving capabilities
of employees and they become more productive and profitable for Amazon (Chiarini and
Vagnoni, 2015).
Contingency leadership:-
This theory states that no particular style of leadership is perfect, leaders have to
understand gravity of situation and accordingly they have to take their each decision. This theory
gives scoring to leaders by considering least preferred co-workers scale (LPC). High LPC shows
that leaders build relations with other employees and this relationship support them to complete
task on time whereas Low LPC shows that leaders concentrates n task only and continuously
work on accomplishing task on time (Grant, Trautrims and Wong, 2017).. Leaders make
changes in their strategies by emphasizing on employees and rest co-workers. The advantage of
implementing this approach is that it is adaptive hence leaders would be able to transform their
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policies with changing business environment. Apart from this, it would help in taking correct
judgement by considering situation of Amazon.
Autocratic is the great leadership style which ensures top management takes all the
decisions and employees follow their instructions. Workers don’t get involved in decisions of
higher authorities.
Democratic leadership ensures that people get involved so that leaders can get unique
ideas which will give benefit in making correct decisions. Participation develops bonding and
make people loyal as well.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that manager and leader play a very important
role for Amazon by managing as well as by leading the functions of the business, and also
explained the application of roles and functions of the operational manager in different
situations. It also stated the application of theories and models of different approaches including
situational leadership, systems leadership as well as contingency leadership and demonstrated the
operational functions to run the organisation effectively. It described the importance and values
of operations management for amazon by providing quality services and much more to achieve
the business objectives effectively and efficiently.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Bromiley, P. and Rau, D., 2016. Operations management and the resource based view: Another
view. Journal of Operations Management. 41. pp.95-106.
Chiarini, A. and Vagnoni, E., 2015. World-class manufacturing by Fiat. Comparison with Toyota
production system from a strategic management, management accounting, operations
management and performance measurement dimension. International Journal of
Production Research. 53(2). pp.590-606.
Ferguson, N.T. And et.al, 2016. Secure management of operations on protected virtual
machines. U.S. Patent Application 15/243,647.
Gibson, P. and Parkman, R., 2018. Cruise operations management: Hospitality perspectives.
Routledge.
Grant, D.B., Trautrims, A. and Wong, C.Y., 2017. Sustainable logistics and supply chain
management: principles and practices for sustainable operations and management.
Kogan Page Publishers.
Heizer, J. and et.al, 2017. Operations management: sustainability and supply chain management,
12/e. Pearson Education.
Kapadia, S., Dong, L. and Yang, Y., Cisco Technology Inc, 2018. Operations, administration
and management (OAM) in overlay data center environments. U.S. Patent Application
10/116,559.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Lawrence, M. and et.al, 2015. Transportation systems management and operations benefit-cost
analysis compendium (No. FHWA-HOP-14-032).
Reid, R.D. and Sanders, N.R., 2015. Operations Management, Binder Ready Version: An
Integrated Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Online
Situational leadership. 2019. [online] Available through: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/define-
situational-leadership-2976.html
What Is Leadership. 2019. [Online]. Available through <https://www.game-learn.com/what-is-
leadership-ways-to-define/>
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