Roles and Functions of Leaders and Managers in Operation Management

This project studies about the roles, functions, approaches of leaders and manager along with the concept of operational management and the impacts of corporate social responsibility, culture, ethics towards operation management.

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Role and functions of leader and manager...................................................................................3
Leadership theories and approaches............................................................................................5
Applicability of Roles, approaches and functions of leaders and managers in different
situations......................................................................................................................................6
Operation management approaches along with the role of managers and leaders......................7
Importance of operation management in respect of Uber............................................................8
Factors which affect decision-making of leaders and managers.................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Managers and leaders are important element of every company which leads to the proper
functioning and operation of company. They are the key for the achievement of company's
objective. By using various approaches and skills the leader can integrate the individual's goals
with the company's goal with 100% employees involvement and contribution. Managers by
performing his managerial functions also helps the company in goal achievement. Like manager
and leaders operation management is also an indispensable and important part of every company
which leads to quality improvement and quality production. This project studies about the roles,
functions, approaches of leaders and manager along with the concept of operational management
and the impacts of corporate social responsibility, culture, ethics towards operation management.
MAIN BODY
Role and functions of leader and manager
Manager:
A manager is that person who is responsible for motivating and directing the employees
to perform their work as it will lead to the achievement of company's goal. Manager is
responsible for performing the managerial work in the company starting from planning,
organizing, staffing, directing and controlling so that the organizational goal will be achieved.
Leader:
A leader is that person who lead or provide direction or guidance to his follower which
may be in his personal life or the employees of the organization. In simple words a leader is that
person who identify and target a vision which means company's goal and inspire and motivates
the employees or followers towards the goal and finally leads to the achievement of company's
goal with the employee's consideration and efforts.
Functions of a manager:
There are various functions which a manager of a company performs. Out of them, some are:
Planning:
This is the main and first function which every manager performs which means making
the plan by keeping the company's objective. A manager starts his functioning by firstly making
the plan in such a manner that the company's objective will be achieved.

Organizing:
After making the plan the manager will organize the work and distribute it among various
departments and assigning them authority matching to their responsibility so that, the work will
be started and done in accordance with company's goal (Conaway, 2017 ).
Staffing:
This is also main function of manager that he will assign the required staff and employees
so that the whole planning and work will convert into actions. This function of manager will
convert the planning into execution mode.
Directing:
Once staff will be appointed and plans convert into action then the next function of
manager is to direct the employees toward the goal achievement. It includes providing the way or
direction to employees so that the whole work will be done as per the plan.
Controlling:
Once everything is done then the next function of manager is controlling which means
evaluating the performance of the employees as per the standards and see that there should be no
deviation or differences (Cicala, 2020). If there is any deviation then the manager will take the
corrective actions so that the differences will be overcome and company's goal will be achieved.
Role of Leader:
Leaders perform the main role in the company which means they provide guidance,
motivates the employees and most importantly merge the individual objective with company's
objective. Thus, the main role of leader is to integrate the individual goal with organizational
goal which leads to the achievement of individual goal as well as company's goal. The
requirement and role of leader is applicable at every level of management which means in
making of plans and policies with innovativeness and thinking till its execution by the
employees. A leader by his knowledge, skills, personality support every activity of the company
which means he performs his work regarding the company's goal achievement with the 100%
contribution of employees (Paais, 2020). And for doing this he invites the ideas and needs of the
employees and then merge them in common way towards the goal achievement so that not only
the employees but company's goal will also be achieved.

Leadership theories and approaches
There are various theories and approaches which leaders adapt to perform their roles:
Contingency theory:
This theory says that there should be no single theory or approach which leader could
adopt and apply in all the situations of the company. This means that the situations and
conditions of every company changes from time to time and by considering the changing
situation and needs or requirement of the situations, leader have to choose and apply the
appropriate approach and theory (Kulkarni, 2017).
Situational theory:
As contingency theory, situational theory also highlights the importance of situation and
its requirement and says that no one theory is better in comparison of other theory. As the
demand of all situation is not same which means different thus, the leader have to properly
analyse and understands the needs of particular situation and the employees and accordingly
have to take decision regarding choosing the best theory (Meier, 2016).
Transactional theory:
This theory is also known as management or reward punishment theory because under
this theory the leader performs the functions of manager including direction, organization or
cooperation among employees (Dugan, 2017). Under this theory leader motivates the employees
by giving them rewards for their better moves and punishment for wrong moves. This is one of
the most common theory which is applicable and followed in every company.
Transformational theory of leadership:
As per the name suggest that under this theory the leader transforms the individual
objective towards the organizational objective which means that this theory basically focusses or
emphasizes on the relationship between the leaders and the employees or followers. This theory
is also known as relationship theory.
Democratic leadership:
This theory is also known as participative theory which works on the principle of people
participation in the organizational decision-making and treats employees as stakeholders of the
company whose actions have effect as well as value over the company's operation and decisions.
Under this theory leader always considers and listen the views of employees and inculcate in
management decision-making (Chan, 2019).

Trait theory:
This theory differentiate between a leader and non leader which means this theory says
that leadership is inborn talent of a person. A person can't become a leader by learning or
understanding, the quality and personality of a leadership in a person is from his birth only
(Bratton, 2020).
Applicability of Roles, approaches and functions of leaders and managers in different situations
Uber Technologies Inc commonly known as Uber is one of the famous and biggest
company of United States who provides a variety of services including rental vehicles, food
deliveries, courier, and many more. The main aim of Uber is to provide its services globally and
wants to become the biggest provider of ready available transportation services. And in order to
achieve its objective and meet the various situations the managers or leaders performs various
functions and roles.
Whenever Uber thinks to enter into new production line or launch new product or service
planning plays a very important role because under planning the managers performs the proper
marketing research and try to understand the need of products and then prepare an outline
framework considering all the future contingency and effects of new product over the market and
its success or failure. Thus, it would be right to considered that planning is the base which helps
the Uber to do its business and enter into new products or services (Reichard, 2017).
In the same way the staffing function of the managers help the Uber in the staffing of new
employees as per the requirements. Whenever there is a need of employees in the Uber or when
Uber wants to engage new employees in a particular stream then staffing plays a very important
role for Uber by which it can engage or hire the best and talented staffs.
Performance management is an important task for every company including the Uber. Under this
the employee's performance is measured or monitored by the manager against the standard and
try to direct it towards the achievement of company's goal. For performance management leaders
also plays a very important role because they will motivate the employees by using the
transactional approach under which they appreciate the right actions by rewards and punishes for
wrong actions which will leads to motivation among the employees. Thus, by adopting the
transactional approach leaders not only manage the performance of the employees but also direct
them towards the achievement of Uber's goal (Northouse, 2018).

Since it is very obvious that the changes usually occurs in every company including the Uber
also which may be due to the changing of business environments or its factors including the
economic, social, political, legal or changing the taste and preferences of customers. Under such
situations the situational and contingency theories of leaderships proves to be very beneficial
because by adopting these theories leaders can easily cope and meet the requirement of changes
and helps the Uber to face and wins the changing environments.
Operation management approaches along with the role of managers and leaders
Operation management:
As per the name it refers to that act by which the management will put into operations or actions.
It refers to the administration of the management and convert the plans or management into the
final products in the form of goods or services with 100% efficiency (Bosua, LIFI Labs Inc,
2016). Like the normal management, operations management is also concerned about planning,
organizing, directing but it all regards with the production of goods, providing the services which
means it is more concerned towards the output or results and not on inputs. Apart from that it is
also concerned with the production of output in efficient manner.
Operation management approaches:
Business process redesign:
Under this approach the core or main process is redesigned and revolutionized to make it
more efficient and effective. To meet the changes and requirement the organization have to make
and act accordingly and this approach enables the company to redesign the existing process and
structure so that the changes will be meet and the efficiency will improve with minimum
wastages of resources. But executing this approach is somewhat difficult because of the
resistance of employees towards the changes (Senderovich, Schippers and Reijers, 2020).
To meet such situation the leaders and manager plays a very important role which means they
motivate and influence the employees redarguing the importance of these changes and their
impact towards them as well as company's goal. And it is due to the adoption of various
approaches by leaders and performing the various functions by managers, can enable the
successful execution of this approach.
Lean manufacturing:

Inefficient utilization of resources including the man and material is very harmful for
every organization. Under this approach it is tried that the resources will be full utilized and
maximum efficient output will come out. Thus, this approach minimizes the wastage and ensures
the maximum use of resources (Durakovic, 2018).
For operating this approach the leaders and managers plays an important role because by using
their skills, talent, or leadership qualities, the leaders and managers makes and create the
importance of resources among the employees and the organization that resources are scare and
it is very essential to fully utilized them in order to achieve success.
Six sigma approach:
This approach helps the operation management to improve its quality by reducing the
wastage, errors, cost and by saving time. Under this approach, the customer requirement are first
defined or identified and then the current working will be measured and analysed. After that, the
deviation will be find out if any and then measures will be taken to improve them. Thus, the
overall meaning of this approach is quality improvement (Marzagão and Carvalho, 2016).
For the successful application of this approach managers and leaders plays an important role
because finding the deviation and taking corrective action in order to further improvement in
quality is already one of the function of manager and also to adopt those changes as per deviation
leaders plays an important role because leader by using his communication skills can influence
the employees and make them ready to adopt changes and perform quality improvement.
Adopting these approaches by Uber in its operation management, helps it to achieve more
success and enable it to provide more quality and improvised services to its customers along with
customer satisfaction, which will leads to the achievement of its goal in terms of becoming one
of the biggest company or provider of hiring vehicles to its customers at minimum price but with
maximum profit.
Importance of operation management in respect of Uber
Operation management is very important for Uber due to its following importance:
Productivity:
It is an essential and important element for every company that its productivity should be
high which will not only increase its sales but also its profit objective can be achieved. This

means that every company wants, by putting the less input the maximum output can be
produced. And this can only be done by efficient utilization of resources.
Quality:
It is the main aim of operation management that it improves the quality of products or
services which is again very essential for Uber to grow and improve its sale proportion or service
proportion. Since, every customers wants quality service and due to the execution of operation
management the quality of the services are improved.
Customer satisfaction:
Every company works for satisfying the needs of customers and customer satisfaction is
again an important objective of Uber which will leads to its success. Operation management
plays a very important role in meeting the customer satisfaction by providing them the best
quality services.
Cost reduction:
By improving the quality, increasing the productivity of products or services, meeting
customer needs and provide customer satisfaction the cost of operation lower down which
ultimately leads to high profits which is also an objective of Uber. Thus, operation management
helps the Uber to earn profit and achieve its objective (Zhang, Wang and Lin, 2019).
Factors which affect decision-making of leaders and managers
Organizations leaders and managers have to make sure that company is able to achieve its
targets and for which they have to implement several actions by which organizational
productivity can be increased. Following are the key factors which makes a significant impact
decision-making of leaders and managers.
Culture-
Culture is the way in organizational activities are done and leaders have to make sure that
employees are able to work as per the organizational culture by which chances of goal
achievement can be increased because through thus follow-ship of culture leaders can be make
sure that employee is able to collaborate their efforts for goal achievement.
Managers have to make sure that company is able to work as per the changing market
trends by which it can make sure that company is able to provide new and trendy products to
customers.

Values-
Values consist of contexts and experiences which are used by employees to take
decisions for problem solving and to achieve their targets and thus leaders have to make sure that
employees are motivated in such a way that they are able to utilize their experience in such a way
that overall productivity of company is increased (Parker, Van den Broeck and Holman, 2017).
Managers have to make sure that organizational working strategies are made in such a
way that company's values are being fulfilled and that too overall productivity of the Uber is also
increased and thus decision-making of manager is affected through these criteria.
Ethics-
Ethics are the basic criteria which leaders have to fulfil because if Uber is not able to
fulfil the ethical requirements of employee then employee's engagement in organizational
activities is reduced and also it will make a negative impact on their loyalty towards that
company. Therefore, leaders have to develop effective relationship with employees by which
employees can be motivated for discussing their issues with the company (Shamim and et.al,
2019).
Managers have to make sure that organizational working strategy is developed in such a
way that it fulfil all the employee criteria by which employee loyalty can be increased and also
their engagement with organizational activities is also increased.
Sustain abilities-
Managers have to make sure that company is able to work as per changing market trends
by which it can make sure that company is able to provide products on the basis of customer
requirements which will increase the chances of goal achievement because through this high
sales can be achieved. Therefore, manager have to make sure that effective working strategy is
developed by which high level of productivity can be achieved by implementing changes.
Leaders have to make sure that it motivate employee in such a way that they are able to
learn new skills and implement changes in their working procedures through which leaders
develop a sense in the mind of employee that company is taking care of their professional and
personal development, due to which their engagement in organization increases (Hallo and et.al,
2020).

CONCLUSION
From the above study it is understood that without the manager and the leader it is impossible for
companies to operate their work or operations or converting their plans or policies into actions.
Managers and leaders plays a very important role in the company in terms of handling, dealing
or motivating the employees to work according to company's objective or helps the company in
the achievement of its goal. Managers and leaders are the base upon which the whole company
depends. Apart from managers and leaders operation management is also an important concept
which is applicable in every company or which every company follows because it is not only
helping the company in goal achievement but it also leads to quality improvement and customer
satisfaction which is very essential for the successful growth and development of every
company.

REFERENCES
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Zhang, W.J., Wang, J.W. and Lin, Y., 2019. Integrated design and operation management for
enterprise systems.
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