Role of Leader and Manager in Operations Management

This document discusses the role of a leader and a manager in operations management, including their functions in different situational contexts. It also explores different theories and models of approach, such as situational leadership, system leadership, and contingency. Additionally, it covers the key approaches to operations management and the importance of operations management in achieving business objectives. The document provides insights into the factors within the business environment that impact operational management and decision-making by leaders and managers.

Management And
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P2 The role of leader and the function of manager in different situational contexts..................3
P3 Different theories and models of approach, including situational leadership, system
leadership and contingency.........................................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
P4 The key approaches to operations management and the role that leader and managers play.
.....................................................................................................................................................4
P5 The importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives......6
TASK 4 ...........................................................................................................................................7
P6 The factors within the business environment that impact upon operational management
and decision-making by leaders and managers. .........................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Operations Management is the process which is concerned with the designing and
controlling the production of an organisation in such a way that it saves cost and time and result
into speedy production (Gibson and Parkman, 2018). Business operations plays a vital role in
any organisation. Here, the inputs are converted into outputs, means, the raw materials are
converted into final products which the company offered to their target market. Starbucks
Corporation is an American company with business of coffee and coffee-house chain. The
company was founded in March 31, 1971 and even expanded its coffee-house to many countries
also. This report talks about the importance of a leader and a manager in operation management
process, the behaviour a leader & manager should follow or accepted to have during a particular
situation. For the reference this report has taken this company.
TASK 2
P2 The role of leader and the function of manager in different situational contexts.
The role of leader and function of manager is very essential to any business. A leader or a
manager is who leads its forks towards the direction which leads them to the achievement of
overall organisational goal (Grant, 2016). Any manager or leader has the following roles-
Representative of a group or organisation- A leader and a manager represents the whole
group. He leads the members of group, he presents the concern to higher authority which his
team is facing, he present his group setted goal and the actual performance by his team and also
supervises the work of whole group. As in case with Starbucks, the company has many outlets in
many countries. Each outlet has its own manager or leader which monitors his team's operations
and issues. His duty is to increase productivity along with guiding and mentoring his team
member.
Integrates and reconciles the personal goals with organisational goals- A leader with his
leadership and managerial skills integrates the personal goals of an employee with the goal of
organisation. Every person works in the organisation has self career goals which keeps him
motivating to perform well in organisation and it is the duty of leader to lead his employee
towards the direction which can help in the attainment of his personal goals (Hair Jr, Page and
Brunsveld, 2019). Similarly, with Starbucks the company's leader or manager positions his

employees according to their skills and personal career plans which also motivates the
employees to perform his work with utmost motivation.
P3 Different theories and models of approach, including situational leadership, system leadership
and contingency.
Role and functions of a leader or manager in below situations-
Situational Leadership- In situational leadership the leader himself changes his style to
fit accordingly to organisational environment. He adjusts himself to fit for the development of
organisation and his employees (Heizer, 2016). As in case with Starbucks, the manager moulds
himself according to the environment and culture of organisation. The adjustments done by
manager or leader helps him to understand his team better and he will take the actions
accordingly.
System leadership- System leadership refers to the leadership style and behaviour a
manager or leader function outside his defined boundaries. In this the style he handles the
situation for which he is not in charge is monitored properly. As in case of Starbucks, the
company monitors all the activity of leader or manager along with the actions he takes in the
situation for which he is not in-charge of.
Relationship-oriented leadership- In this approach the manager or leader develops an
emotional relationship with his team. He considers his team problem as his problem and tries his
level best to resolve it (Lasserre, 2017). Similarly, the leaders in Starbucks functions the same
way. They consider their team as family and tries to build an emotional relationship with them.
This indirectly will increase the productivity of employees as they feel comfortable with them.
Chaos Theory- Chaos theory states that there are small issues into an organisation which
can turn into a big face and has the capacity to create chaos into organisation. Therefore to avoid
such issues, the organisation should try to resolve these at its initial stage only. As in case with
Starbucks, the company's leaders try their level best to solve every issue irrespective to its size
because they know that these issues can take a face of big problem.
TASK 3
P4 The key approaches to operations management and the role that leader and managers play.
Different theories of operations and operations management are as follows-

Six Sigma- Six sigma is quality model in which the chances for error is 0.033%. This
method analyse the error at the beginning and then controls and improves it with required
measures (Mangan and Lalwani, 2016). As in reference to Starbucks, the leader's role is to check
whether this is been followed properly into the organisation or not, necessary measures needs to
be taken and analysis of results. Where as function of manager is to adopt and establish the Six
sigma system.
Lean Production- It is a approach which seeks focus at cutting down of waste while
make sure of quality. This approach can get apply to all department and activities of business. As
in reference with Starbucks, the company's leader gives the ways in which they can cut their
extra costs and the procedure to follow them where as the function of manager is to plan,
organise and manages the approach and make sure to not be raise a single issue regarding it.
Queueing Theory- Queuing theory is a method in which the queue lengths and waiting
time can be well predicted. A manager function in Starbucks is to monitor such waiting lines and
length along with the time the observe huge waiting lines and the corrective actions which the
department needs to follow. Where as leader implement the change, in which he take corrective
actions which fastens the time queue and waiting lines.
Different Operations management approaches are as follows-
Principle of Total Quality Management- The principle of total time management is an
approach which enables an organisation or any person to manages his time according to priority
of his work. The principles helps the organisation in managing of all its tasks and competed all
them at time (Min-jung and Remy, 2018). It is also very much important for Starbucks also. The
role of leader is to understand and analysis which task needs to get done and at what time.
Whereas the role of manager is to plan and organise the work which needs to get into priority.
Just in time inventory- It is a method and an approach in which the inventory is
available with the organisation at time. The time of inventory will be needing into the
organisation is calculated from this method and accordingly orders are been placed. As in case
with Starbucks, the function of manager is to plan for inventories and order for it. Whereas the
leader's role is to see the optimum use of inventories to reduce the waste of materials.
The concept of continuous improvements- In this concept the organisation always seek
for improvement in any activity or operation continuously. The regularly search for the ways in
which an organisation can reduce its cost with the quality. As with reference to the company,

Starbucks, the role of a leader is to analyse that scope for improvement and motivates the
employees to search more and more scope for improved activities (Reid and Sanders, 2019).
Whereas the function of manager is to monitor that the change is been implemented or not, or the
forks are following the changes and the like.
Operational functions-
Process design- Process design refers to the framework and plans of sequences in which
the operations of an organisation needs to take place. As in case of Starbucks, the role of leader
is to form the plans of operations and whereas the function of manager is smooth functioning and
establishment of these plans.
Scheduling- Scheduling refers to a process off arranging, monitoring, controlling and
optimising work and workloads in the process of production. The role of a leader is to makes
schedules for these processes, the technique which is need to choose and how it is to get choose
are all decided by a leader of company.
P5 The importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives
The operations management helps an organisation in following ways-
Helps in achievement of objectives: Operations plays an paramount role in attainment
of organisational objectives. It makes sure that all the activities are going as per the planning and
continuous monitoring is taking place to view the operations progress. Starbucks adopt that
process for operations or manufacturing which yield them less cost and high productivity.
Through their operations advancement they achieves the organisational objectives. When the
production process is at par, half of the work for the company is done because, the output
produce will be of best quality and also will result in satisfied customers.
Improves Employee productivity: It is also said that operation management helps in
improving the productivity of employees. It does it by checking monitoring the performance of
all the people working and compare it it standard performance (Sarkis, 2017). The task of
manager is to train and educate their employees for perform better and they tries their level best
to build up the skills required. Starbucks trained their employees to perform better in their work
which directly increases the overall productivity of organisation.
Optimum utilization of resources: Operations management puts its focus on optimum
utilization of resources of an organisation. The organisation choose that process for
manufacturing which yields the business with cost savings and high productivity. Starbucks will

opt those machineries which will do their work efficiently and more at time rather then use those
machinery which cost less to them but produces low quality work.
Enhance Goodwill: Operations management also helps the organisation in building good
goodwill among the people. By employing good manufacturing process they ensures the good
quality delivered to customers (Schönsleben, 2018). As in case with Starbucks, the company
employees fine quality of operation technology which gives them fine quality of output. The
machinery employed refines and makes the coffee quality coffee which results in happy
customers. This ultimately helps the company in building more and more promising customers.
Good goodwill will also helps the organisation in building new customers at the market. If
Starbucks expands itself in any country, their they need not get to introduce themselves to the
people, the people there would already knew about the brand.
Motivates Employees: If the employees are well known toward the jobs they required to
do and are fully acknowledge about the process from which their job will need to get perform,
they will motivating and confident. This motivation and confident will help the organisation in
getting completed and satisfied work which is good for the organisation. It is the duty of
organisation to guide its employees for job and provide them with comfortable environment.
TASK 4
P6 The factors within the business environment that impact upon operational management and
decision-making by leaders and managers.
Business environment is the combination of both internal and external environment.
Internal environment includes employees, suppliers, customers and etc. whereas external
environment includes political, social, cultural, ethics, technological factors which affects the
business operations (Tang, 2017). Business have full control over internal factors but does not
exercise any control on external factors. Factors within the business environment which affects
the business operations are as follows-
Social culture- Social culture plays an important role in determining what products and
services an organisation is required to serve to its customers. To earn profit the organisation
keeps an eye on social trends and culture which are very dynamic in nature and decide its
product offerings accordingly. As in case of Starbucks, every region culture is different from the
another, therefore the products served by the company also varies according to the country in

which they are serving. That's how it impacts the operational management of organisation. And
with according to this the decisions of leader and managers also gets changed as-
Manager- The manager has to introduce the change in operations if any. Also they need
to keep monitoring upon the changes or work implemented (White, 2016).
Leaders- The leaders identifies the need for change in organisation due to social culture
practice in a particular country. They identifies the need and search for the available alternatives
which the organisation can adopt. Among all those available alternatives, leader choose that
option or choice which is best among the lot and yield profits for the business along with the
cultural satisfaction.
Corporate social responsibilities- Corporate social responsibilities are the activities
which every business needs to undertake. It is believe that the organisation gets successful by
using the resource of society. Hence it is the duty of every business to put some part of its profit
in the welfare of society (Mangan and Lalwani, 2016) . Every business now is obliged to perform
CSR activities. These activities can be done through by performing any social work for the
society. The Impact of CSR's can have on operations management. As the company is start using
the sustainable materials in their product for example- zero or minimal use of plastic straws and
glasses, green marketing, promoting healthy and safe environment. Similarly, the for promoting
CSR activities, the leaders and mangers also burdens with decision- making in following way-
Leaders- They need to form policies regarding the environmental trends running and the
activities which they need to frame for CSR activities which they are planning to perform for
society.
Managers- The managers need to introduce the change to whole organisation and they
make sure that they adopt those changes in their work. Also managers has to form plans in which
he draws the plans regarding how he will implement the change into his organisation (Tang,
2017).
CONCLUSION
From the report it is observed that operational management plays a vital role in any
business. It helps the organisation in converting its inputs into outputs in effective and efficient
way. This report has taken a reference of a company, Starbucks. The role of leader and function
of manager is covered well in this report. Also the approaches and strategies an organisation uses
in its operational management is also discussed. Apart from it, the report also includes the

business environment (internal and external factors) which do put impact on operational
management and the decisions taken by managers and leaders.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Gibson, P. and Parkman, R., 2018. Cruise operations management: hospitality perspectives.
Routledge.
Grant, D. B. ed., 2016. Logistics, Supply Chain and Operations Management Case Study
Collection. Kogan Page Publishers.
Hair Jr, J. F., Page, M. and Brunsveld, N., 2019. Essentials of business research methods.
Routledge.
Heizer, J., 2016. Operations management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.
Lasserre, P., 2017. Global strategic management. Macmillan International Higher Education..
Mangan, J. and Lalwani, C. L., 2016. Global logistics and supply chain management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Min-jung, Y. and Remy, G., 2018. Manufacturing Operations Management. World Scientific.
Reid, R. D. and Sanders, N. R., 2019. Operations management: an integrated approach. John
Wiley & Sons.
Sarkis, J., 2017. Greener manufacturing and operations: From design to delivery and back.
Routledge.
Schönsleben, P., 2018. Integral logistics management: operations and supply chain management
within and across companies. CRC Press.
Tang, H., 2017. Automotive Vehicle Assembly Processes and Operations Management (pp. i-xv).
SAE.
White, P. R., 2016. Public transport: its planning, management and operation. Routledge.