Effective Leadership in Retail Industry

This article discusses the impact of retail industry and the importance of effective leadership in this sector. It covers major trends, challenges, and the significance of selecting the appropriate leadership style for retail organizations. The article emphasizes the need for a collaborative and customer-oriented approach to achieve business goals and objectives.

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Title: Effective Leadership in Retail Industry
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Introduction
Global retailers and multinational firms have started getting serious about the retail
opportunity for the past two decades. Global retail has seen the rise of many domestic firms
creating the play and being the promising customer opportunity around the world. Moreover,
market numbers are increasing and multinationals are growing the consumption at a faster pace. I
believe, for most of the corporate, retail opportunity has been an elusive goal. More than 60
percent of the global retailers are trying hard to meet the original action plan. An intrusion of the
digital world has made the retailers rethink their tactics and strategies and therefore creating the
value proposition for the customers. The research reveals, retailers are experiencing innumerable
challenges where infrastructure and talent do not meet with the expansion strategy. Today, I have
confidence in this retail industry looks for the new future, which is driven by enhanced
infrastructure facilities, supportive policies and regulation and growing consumption of the
people.
Retail Industry Impact and Leadership Approach
I believe Retailing is known as biggest sectors and undergoing a revolutionary phase. The
origin of retailing is traced back to the emergence of mom and pop stores and Kirana stores.
These are departmental stores which cater to the needs of local people. Today, I can assure the
government has been supportive for the launch of indigenous franchise stores. The economy has
witnessed the retailing impact since 1980s. Few companies in the textile sector had been
Bombay Dyeing, Raymond, etc. Later, Titan launched the retail showrooms (Bader & Smith,
2006).

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Retail Formats-Hypermarkets/ supermarkets-These are self-servicing stores which offer
products from different varieties. Departmental Stores-These are general merchandisers offering
quality products. Mom and Pop Stores-This chain is a family owned stores, which cater to the
needs of the smaller section of the society (Geieregger & Bader, 2007). Shopping Malls-These
are the biggest form of retail stores and offer the customers with amalgamation of different
categories of products and services. Convenience stores- I think these are situated in residential
areas and offer the products and services at a high price because of the convenience provided
(Nisa, 2007). E-trailers-These are virtual online buying and selling stores of different categories
of products and services.
Major Trends-Growth in nuclear families- More than fifty percent of the population is
under the age of 25 years and increased participation of women workforce has created a
consumer group which can premium for convenience. I understand Nuclear families are noted
spending 30 to 40 percent extra when compared with joint families (Amasiatu & Shah, 2018).
Growth in branded products-Irrespective of the growing consumption, there are unique drivers
which lead towards the fast growth of organized retail formats. I have a strong focus towards this
trend as it can be a shift in enhanced awareness regarding the global trends, demographic
structure shift and quest for the best products from the market (Peck, 2018).
Digital World- Digital penetration is growing at a fast pace. More than 85 percent of the
population uses smartphone. I believe about the digital maturity has come up with a sixty percent
internet penetration, which is higher than the USA and China. Ease of conducting business-The
enhancements in the regulatory environment and easy FDI rules has allowed the entry of global
players. This enhances the motivational skills. There have been reports of huge investments

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being made in logistics, customer services and warehouses. This creates the ancillary jobs across
the cities and upgrading the skills of majority workforce.
Decreasing Infrastructure bottlenecks-I can understand the countries are primarily facing
poor infrastructure and lack in the technology adoption. Besides this, there are multifaceted tax
structures. The five year plan is targeted at investments into infrastructure development and
upgrading supply chain networks (Hudak, Russell, Fung & Rosenkrans, 2015).
In year 2010, organized retail sector was projected to grow by 25 percent and 30 percent
in 2020. I am of the strong confidence that this period has witnessed the closure of many stores
and complete shutdown of large global players and operations. The retail industry must
comprehend the challenges and gear up for the future. These include- achievement of the
projected numbers as envisioned by the retailers. The Challenges faced with the vision to
execution journey.
Retail Talent- More than fifty percent of retailers find constraints in getting the
appropriate retail talent. I conclude that with an uproar in demand and narrower availability,
retention of talent has become the increased challenge. According to a survey, more than 40
percent of retailers believe talent development is a major concern. This has created competency
gaps across the different retail areas like supply chain, inventory management, vendor
management and logistics and customer relations. Retention of talent capacity is another key
challenge as more than eighty percent of staff works with a front end. This has been the area of
prime concern for retail companies, especially the attrition rate has been high, which is
approximately thirty to forty percent (Mumford, Todd, Higgs & McIntosh, 2017).

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The leadership style results from the methodology in which the leader applies its
temperament and overall personality to the business decisions. In a retail commerce and trade,
the approach taken by the store manager has a significant impact over the culture of customers
and employees (Lockett & Boyd, 2012).
If I had been a Retail leader, I need to manage two prime management factors which are
people management and task and leadership direction. In the retail environment, tyrannical and
leadership oriented managers will succeed in getting the employees to complete the work
efficiently. I believe this is specifically visible in high volume departmental stores. The
autocratic leader will have the ability to react and take those decisions are related to customer
problems. I believe that the department stores those have seasonal products; leaders must
delegate the merchandising task to subordinates. Moreover, retail leaders are task-oriented, and
put little determination into the public leadership. At times, employees feel as mangers doesn’t
care about irrespective of what they are capable of producing. In a long run, this can lead to low
productivity and employee morale. In stores, with temporary staff during the vacation times, the
task manager will have to struggle with employee retention problems. I understand, most of the
retail managers, emphasize connection or relationship ability in leadership style. The time is
spent on interacting with employees on an individual level and creation of bonds within itself. I
understand retail environment that has a small number of employees, participative manager can
achieve better results in a group oriented culture. Team centered employees are likely to fill the
gaps on an off-day. A better environment can be created with positive workplace (Deschamps,
2005).
Successful retail employers need to find balance with task-leadership direction. When a
manager cares about its employees, they can attain the goals and work more efficiently and

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maintain performance goals. I understand a relational oriented leader will fail when employees
fail to perform. The businesses must be focused towards bringing harmony in groups and
focused towards meeting with the needs of customers. The retail employees those are satisfied
and happy can maintain a balance between the completion of tasks and happily serving the
customers like checking inventories, stocking shelves and cleaning services (Ahrens, Cox, Burris
& Dykes, 2015).
The days are gone, when one person at the top management made most of the decisions.
Today, the successful leaders are associated and remain connected. The retail companies are
evolving with decision making capabilities and responsibilities and encouraging the
collaboration culture. I believe retail is known to be competitive in supermarkets. Local leaders
are known to have a high degree of autonomy in decision making and therefore a response to the
customer needs is easy. In-house distribution channels and warehouses have been set up to
deliver the products to customers quickly. There is a collaborative culture that provides benefits
to rapid channels from a virtual store to store based showrooms. I firmly believe leaders are
forcefully changing themselves and old style of control and leadership practices doesn’t provide
for any more. The leaders need to work in a joint way and form a connected leadership. I think
that new managing directors try to create bureaucracy and control; the successful leaders, create
the simplicity levels through collaborative environment. This is possible through a high degree of
conviction and developed decision making process across the companies. The personnel closest
to the customer often play the major role.
I understand that given the high level of pressure in profitability levels, the significance
of upgrading business basis in retail industry is high. In the above context, what is spoken is
needed to be generated for increasing business and repeat footfalls are necessary. There must be

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a high tendency to generate the creative teams which can create margins and make the business
customer oriented. Selecting the appropriate leadership style can make the organizations achieve
the goals and objectives (de Freitas & Routledge, 2013).
Conclusion
I conclude by understanding what the differentiation point between the effective leaders
and ordinary managers are motivation, long term goals, objectives and decision quality and how
these decisions are implemented at the management level. However, I have observed democratic
styles have their own disadvantages. What is to be remembered is retail organizations depends
on excessive deals of efficiency and energy levels of front end staff facing the customer. This is
of paramount importance as business needs to make day to day connection with customers. This
calls for selection of an appropriate leadership style and organizational culture which can help
the companies to persistently seen as effective and customer friendly. I firmly believe Leadership
styles have a greater probability of a successive future in retail business and these are flexible,
situational and collaborative. These styles create a happy environment and encourage openness
and transparency on a daily basis.

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