Management and Leadership – Challenges and Practice

This article discusses the challenges and practices of management and leadership at Nestlé UK Limited. It covers the key similarities and differences between leadership and management, leadership principles that support organizational values, reasons for leadership failure, and how to become a better leader. The article also provides insights on how a manager can ensure that they become a better leader.

Management and Leadership – Challenges and Practice 1
Management and Leadership – Challenges and Practice (Nestlé UK Limited)
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Introduction
Organizations which are successful have leaders who are strong and managers who encourage,
support and develop the longevity of employees within an organization. There is a significant difference
between management and leadership although both skills are collectively useful for an organization’s
profitability. Generally, leadership is a notion for the communication of an organization’s vision,
whereas management largely deals with the implementation of the vision of the organization. Therefore,
the paper discusses leadership and management, the challenges and practice.
Key Similarities And Differences Between Leadership And Management
The key difference between managers and leaders is that managers have people work for them
while leaders have people follow them. Another difference is that managing is maily focused on the
administration and ensuring that day-to-day activities are happening as they should while leadersip is
getting people to understand and believe the leader’s vision and work with them for the realization of the
vision. However, both managers and leaders are similar in that they guide, direct, assist and work with
other people to achieve a certain goal. In addition, both managers and leaders need to interact with
human beings thus they have knowledge on how to deal with different types of people to avoid disasters.
Leadership Principles That Support Organizational Values at Nestlé UK Limited
Organizational values are important as they guide a company insetting of its goals and
objectives. The principles of leadership are therefore important as they support the organizational values.
At Nestlé UK Limited, leadership principles are critical for the company to enhance its commitment in
improving life quality and contributing to a healthier future. Leadership principles in the organization
include encouraging the heart, enabling others to act, challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision

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and modeling the way. The leadership principles ensures that the organization maintains quality of its
services to assure quality and keep the clients delighted.
How do leaders fail and what are the reasons for their failure?
Leaders fail in several ways. Firstly, at Nestlé UK Limited, a leader is considered a failure if they
cannot get their team members on board with the organizational objectives, targets and goals. Liu ( 2010
p.232) stated that “if a leader does not incorporate available resources to attain organizational goals, then
they are failures”. Therefore, when leaders fail to hit their targets and goals it does not mean they have
stepped back but is just an excellent stepping block to success. Boss and Sims (2008 p.135) once said “it
is better to try and fail than fail to try and success comes as a result of hard work, persistence, perfection
and learning for failure. Furthermore, Nestlé UK Limited seeks employees with good track records
reflecting both success and failures because there is a high probability of somebody who has survived a
failure to gain irreplaceable knowledge and unstoppable perseverance that has resulted from
hardship.Leaders fail when they fail to hit their targets and drive their team to achieve the objectives of
an organization for a long period but not just once.
Some leaders may possess excellent leadership principles like making sure employees understand
organization principles, overestimation on the power of positive attitudes and moving away from
traditional power hierarchy but eventually they end up failing. According to Brown and Mitchell (2010
p.583) good leadership is associated with good management and poor management can spoil an effective
leadership. Therefore, management is the main reason why leaders are failures. In addition, other factors
outside the control of management and leaders such as the economy, inflations, time constraints and
resource might contribute to leadership failure. If leaders fail, it is recommendable for them to make sure

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they talk about how they have dealt with challenges and analyzed setbacks. Seeking honest feedback will
ensure a leader learns from the failure.
How can a leader get cohesion among a team which disagrees?
Quoidbach and Hansenne (2009 p.32) defined the term “team cohesiveness” as an affinity that
exists between team members and the extent to which employees feels like part of an organization. Team
disagreements and workforce conflicts in Nestlé UK Limited act as a test to leaders on how to utilize
their integrity, power and their leadership style to bring cohesion. In this situation, depending on relations
that exist between management and leadership, finding a common ground between disagreeing members
is a better option. Furthermore, the differences between organizational culture and leadership behavior
and styles at Nestlé UK Limited usually delay a proper solution to the disagreements. An effective leader
may consider bringing cohesion by addressing all team members about their overall goal and implication
that if they fail to the unit and work as a team they may end up failing to achieve their set goals and
targets. Furthermore, effective communication to a member on working as the group promotes
knowledge sharing and members collaborate to come to a win/win agreement to both sides.
A research conducted by Foss, Husted, and Michailova (2010 p.455) found that knowledge
sharing is related to performance because the team is focused on generating creative and innovative
ideas, learning and ways of solving problems effectively. In addition, knowledge sharing will increase
the degree to which team members generally give and ask for advice from leaders, give feedbacks, share
opinions and provide explanations. Therefore, an effective leader must appreciate all team and look for
better ways to solve the positive and negative conflicts that might drag them behind in achieving their
target. Positive conflicts might occur in Nestlé UK Limited due to some employees’ personality styles,
traits, ideological differences, task or decision processes involving a pathway that can lead to a

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resolution. According to Demetri et al (2013 p.235), any tolerable conflict amount is a key to either
group success or failure. Positive conflict may lead to low change resistance in an organization and team
members are encouraged to contribute effectively. Furthermore, a leader with excellent principles
controls positive conflicts.
What are a few resources you would recommend to someone looking to gain insight into
becoming a better leader?
People who have an intrinsic desire to make changes are able to become better leaders in
their leadership style through the combination of different leadership methods and techniques. A
leaders looking to improve their leadership style should take feedback from their team members. To
get an honest opinion, the feedback should be gathered in such a way that the anonymity of the
respondents is maintained. The leader can then get a 360 degree feedback done and work on
improving on the areas which they have found to be having weaknessFurthermore, the person
looking to improve their leadership capabilities can research by reading various books and articles
based on programs for good leadership styles.
The best resources to use include advanced learning from top management institutes so as to
learn desirable insights in becoming a better leader. However, going through great leadership write-
ups or reading books alone cannot be relied upon as the only aspect for improving as a leader.
Leaders have to review their surroundings and look around themselves to ensure they learn how
various leaders behave in different situations, the outcomes, the good things, and put them into
practice as part of their leadership. Looking up to succeeding leaders as mentors can also be helpful
for the improvement of leadership capabilities.
How can a manager ensure that they become better leaders?

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Nestlé UK Limited’s managers are hardworking and aspiring thus improve their career by taking
into consideration the advantage of being good leaders and benefit from learning the transformation of
their management skills into leadership skills. In difficult economies, organizations may begin retaining
and promoting the managers who have great leadership skills and those who possess management skills
which are excellent and those which exemplify leadership qualities. Managers and leaders at Nestlé UK
Limited develop their leadership skills by knowing where to focus their efforts, inspire teams and
impress executives. To stand out from the crowd, managers who are great leaders have a model positive
behavior and are optimistic, help their followers feel like art of the solution, embrace the past while
planning for the future, be effective listeners, and learn every day. Managers should understand that
leadership is a method of bringing people together for the accomplishment of goals.
Managers should strive to become better leaders and develop outstanding leadership skills.
Learning from customers and staff every day is critical in improving leadership skills through frequent
check-ins thus fostering clearer communication (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo and Gutiérrez-
Gutiérrez 2012 p.1040). The improvement can be attained through open-door management policies and
regular short meetings. In addition, soliciting customers to give feedback can be beneficial in improving
processes. Furthermore, managers can become better leaders through listening first and then speaking.
Effective listening takes time to learn and requires practice. When managers listen to their employees, the
aspect can be an important morale booster as the customers feel that their views and concerns are being
heard. Moreover, learning from the past can assist managers in knowing what worked and what did not.
Staff should also be invited to be part of the solution. Additionally, being optimistic can assist followers
with optimism.
Conclusion

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Leaders and managers operate in a complex, dynamic and rapidly changing environments hence
they are essential for the success of any organization.leadership and management positions establishment
and the setting of the firm’s expecrtations for the professionals holding the positions is important when it
comes to the running of an organization’s operations. Leaders are tasked with the responsibility of
holding all their followers accountable to their work and actions. Managers should therefore strive to
become better leaders for the improvement of personal and organizational performance.
References

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Foss, N.J., Husted, K. and Michailova, S., 2010. Governing knowledge sharing in organizations: Levels
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