Leadership at Sainsbury's: Concept, Style, and Reflection

This report discusses the concept and style of leadership, the leadership style chosen by Sainsbury's, and a reflection on personal leadership style. It also includes an action plan for leadership development. Sainsbury's is a UK-based supermarket chain that follows a participative or democratic leadership style. The report concludes that leadership is an essential activity within an organisation to influence and motivate team members.

Leadership at Sainsbury

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Organisational background..........................................................................................................3
Leadership concept and style.......................................................................................................3
Leadership style chosen by Sainsbury.........................................................................................4
Reflection on leadership style......................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................6
Books and Journals:.....................................................................................................................6
Appendix......................................................................................................................................7

Introduction
Leadership the ability of an individual to influence others and motivate live with human
rights. In context of an organisation the main role of leaders is to check whether the employees
are performing well or not for the benefit of organisational and even for them self (Daniëls,
Hondeghemand Dochy, 2019). The leaders mainly appointed in organisation to see that whether
the employees are getting full satisfaction or not according to their job. In case leaders found any
obstacle then they can work to remove the obstacles. Sainsbury is famous chain of supermarket
in UK which offer household products to their customers. It is headquartered in London, UK. It
is founded by John James and Mary Ann Sainsbury in the year 1869. The following report
covers organisational background, leadership and style of leadership, leadership style chosen by
Sainsbury, reflection of own leadership style and area for improvement and at the end it covers a
action plan for leadership.
Main Body
Organisational background
Sainsbury is an global company which is founded in 1869 by a married couple John
James and Mary Ann Sainsbury. They started a small shop in Drury Lane, London to sell fresh
foods. Later they started selling packed foods such as sugar and tea. They become large retailer
in 1922 by providing good quality of products in less prices. In the year 2018, Sainsbury divided
in three different businesses. First one is Sainsbury Supermarket Ltd which sell all household
items. Second is Sainsbury Banks which providing banking facilities to their customers and the
last is Sainsbury Argos.
Leadership concept and style
Leadership is a ability of a person or a group to influence others to follow their thoughts
and ideas because they ensure their followers that they are working for their benefits. The person
who perform good leadership activities and chosen representative of a crowd is called leader of
that group (Oc, 2018). Leaders are responsible to check that their group will not have any issue
in performing their tasks. Leaders are assign within an organisation to manage employees and to
understand how employees feel at workplace related to company and their task. Leaders are
responsible to handle all issues of employee's satisfaction and motivate them to work better.

Leaders are the link between employees and management team by performing the role of
employees representation. There are three types of leadership style which are explained below-
 Autocratic leadership style- This is the leadership style where leaders take all decisions
for the organisational benefit. They did not take suggestions from their subordinates and
work according to them self. They order their employees to follow their decisions
strictly.
 Participative leadership style- Here leaders and employees work together to take any
decision for the organisation (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2020). Final decision is
taken by leader but they allow participation of employees to provide suggestions and
good suggestions are appreciated. Here leaders take those decisions only which are
beneficial for organisation as well as for employees.
 Delegative leadership style- Here, leaders allow their employees to take decisions
among them self. A major part of decision making process if influenced by employees
and labours.
Leadership style chosen by Sainsbury
In context of Sainsbury, they follow participative or democratic leadership style because
they believe that their employees get motivated when they are asked to make suggestions in
decision making process. In this organisation leaders and employees are having good
relationship which help them to maintain a good working environment. The main reason behind
their success is employees engagement toward the work. Their employees are having full
satisfaction from their job and company because the company respect the hard work and
engagement of employees toward the success. There are many benefits noticed by Sainsbury by
adopting participative leadership style such as increase in motivation of employees, increase in
overall productivity and profitability because when employees and leaders work together to take
decisions then the decision will consist of the benefit of both organisation and employees
(Crosby and Bryson, 2018). Secondly, their working culture and reputation in market get
improved and there are many other benefits of following democratic leadership style.
Reflection on leadership style
When I was in secondary education I supposed to be a leader of my group in various
activities where I lean many skills like team management, problem solving skills, good
communication skills ad many others. My teachers always suggest my names in any activity

where there is the requirement of a leader to handle other students because they know that I have
gained a good leadership style under their guidance. Once I have been chosen as a captain of my
basketball team in School where I supposed to choose new players who can perform well and
bring a trophy at national level. At this time I played many leadership roles like finding
opportunities for tournaments, asking players in case they have any issue regarding their
gameplay and tournaments, in case any player get injured then arrange other player as soon as
possible before tournaments and many others. The one of the best skill which I learnt at this
time was problem solving skill where I supposed to focus on solving the issues of my group and
influence and motivate them to play with their best efforts.
Conclusion
From the above information it is concluded that leadership is an most effective and
essential activity within an organisation to influence and motivate the team members. There are
many roles of an leader like influencing the group, motivating the group to perform better, solve
the issues of teammates and many others. Many skills get improved by having leadership
qualities like communications skill, problem solving skill, decision making skill and many
others. It is essential for an leader to work according to provide benefits to organisation and
organisational employee's.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Daniëls, E., Hondeghem, A. and Dochy, F., 2019. A review on leadership and leadership
development in educational settings. Educational research review, 27, pp.110-125.
Oc, B., 2018. Contextual leadership: A systematic review of how contextual factors shape
leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), pp.218-235.
Leithwood, K., Harris, A. and Hopkins, D., 2020. Seven strong claims about successful school
leadership revisited. School leadership & management, 40(1), pp.5-22.
Crosby, B.C. and Bryson, J.M., 2018. Why leadership of public leadership research matters: and
what to do about it. Public Management Review, 20(9), pp.1265-1286.
Eva, N. and et. al., 2019. Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future
research. The leadership quarterly, 30(1), pp.111-132.
Rudolph, C.W., Rauvola, R.S. and Zacher, H., 2018. Leadership and generations at work: A
critical review. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), pp.44-57.
Ospina, S.M. and et. al., 2020. Collective dimensions of leadership: Connecting theory and
method. Human Relations, 73(4), pp.441-463.
Karagianni, D. and Jude Montgomery, A., 2018. Developing leadership skills among adolescents
and young adults: a review of leadership programmes. International Journal of
Adolescence and Youth, 23(1), pp.86-98.
Aslam, M., 2018. Current trends and issues affecting academic libraries and leadership
skills. Library Management.
Farrell, M., 2017. Leadership reflections: Leadership skills for knowledge management. Journal
of Library Administration, 57(6), pp.674-682.

Appendix
What are my
Leadership
development
Objectives?
What leadership activities do
I need to undertake to achieve
my objectives?
Where will I develop
my leadership to
achieve my leadership
objectives?
Target date
for achieving
my objectives
To improve my
communication
skill.
It is essential for me
communicate more with group
members or surrounding to gain
knowledge of way of speaking
(Eva and et. al., 2019). It is
good for me to read news
papers and watch business news
channels on daily basis to sharp
my knowledge because
communication skills are
required to gain more true and
actual facts. Secondly listening
others carefully and then
respond is also included in
communication skill.
I can perform this
activity at any place
whether it is school,
college or at home by
communicating more
with people and noticing
the way of their effective
communication.
I need 6
months to
achieve this
objective.
To enhance
time
management
skill.
I can gain this skill by
developing a priority list where
I will mark which task will be
submitter first and which one
will be later so that I will focus
more on those tasks which is
supposed to completed first.
Secondly, I can also make a
time table and set a particular
time for completing every task
I can perform this
activity at home and also
at workplace by setting
time to complete the task
before due date.
4 months are
required to
achieve time
management
skill in daily
lifestyle.

in daily life.
To enhance
participative
nature of
leadership style.
It is essential for a leader to
learn participative leadership
style because it most used
leadership styles nowadays in
organisation (Rudolph,
Rauvola, 2018). I can develop
this leadership style by giving
chance to my co-workers to
provide me suggestions for
changes if required. I can also
appreciate the good working
teammates. I can also take
online classes for achieving
good participative leadership
skills.
It is essential to develop
this leadership activities
at workplace because
applying this activity on
a team is effective and
me to learn the concept
of participative
leadership style in better
way. Hence, it is clear
that I need to perform
this activities to achieve
the objective of gaining
participative leadership
style.
6 months are
required for
achieving this
objective.
To develop
good decision
making skills.
It is most effective skill to
develop in leaders for managing
this work (Ospina et. al., 2020).
Here, I can take the help of case
studies and try to solve their
questions after carefully reading
them. I will choose business
especially leadership related
case studies where a real
organisational situation is given
and asked to suggest some good
decisions to solve the situations.
This activity will help me to
gain a good decision making
I can perform this
activity at work place and
other places too because
good decision making
skill is not only required
at organisation but it is
also required in personal
life. Hence, I can practice
this activity anywhere
and for achieving success
I must focus that I will
choose those decisions
only which will provide
be best outcomes.
For achieving
this skill I
required 6
months of time
period.

skill in different organisational
situation. I can also watch some
online videos on the topic “how
to enhance good decision
making skills as an leader” on
You Tube where I can find
various kind of techniques to
develop this skill.
To develop
coordination
skill.
Coordination skill is also one of
the best effective skill for
leaders to perform (Karagianni
and Jude Montgomery, 2018). I
can develop this skill by
observing how other leaders
coordinate with their teammates
while handling them and a
particular task. I will observe
and learn the way they
coordinate with different
behaviour people in
organization. In my training
session I will be taught about
the ways and techniques to
coordinate with different
designations at workplace. I
need to focus more on working
in a big team of having 8-9
members. This will help me to
coordinate well where I
communicate with my team and
also give them chance to speak
This skill can be
practiced at workplace
only where I have to grab
all opportunities to work
within a team. Working
with skilled coordinators
at organisations will
further help to achieve
the success.
I required
minimum 8
months to learn
this skill
perfectly.

and put their point of view.
Understanding teammates even
by body or sign languages is
also a way I can develop my
coordinate skill which is
essential for a effective leader.
To develop
problem
solving skill.
It is one of the most essential
skills of a leader (Aslam, 2018).
I can gain this skill by taking
coaching and practice in real
life. I can write all my decisions
on a sheet and measure the
outcome of my decisions so that
I can see the result whether I
have made good decision or a
bad decision. Measuring both
good as well as bad decisions
are good for improvement. In
case my any decision results
negative outcome then I have to
work upon it taking suggestions
with my tutor that how could I
improve my decisions in
particular situations.
I can develop this
leadership skills at my
workplace and at home
too because good
decisions are required at
every place. In
professional life whole
professional career is
depend upon good
decision making. Hence,
workplace is the better
place for practicing to
achieve this objective.
I required 1
year to develop
this skill
perfectly.