Leadership and Management in Tesco plc: Analysis and Comparison

This report analyzes and compares the leadership and management practices in Tesco plc, a giant entity in the retail sector. It discusses various theories and models used by the organization and evaluates its performance using key performance metrics of the retail sector in the UK.

MG629 DEVELOPING
LEADERSHIP AND
MANAGEMENT SKILLS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report is aimed to present a broad picture of the role of leadership and management in the
Tesco plc which is one of the giant entity in retail sector. With this regard in the report sort of
theories and models were to be presented to elaborate leadership and management in context of
the organization. The report discussed various managerial and leadership aspects of the
organization using appropriate theories and models too.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................5
ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT .........................5
KEY PERFORMANCE METRICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL SECTOR.....................................8
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE......................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is the act to driving others in order to make them achieve the goals of the
organization, where a leader affects its subordinates by its attitude, aptitude and behaviour so can
pave way to accomplish for the entity. At the same time management is the process to control the
group of people so can achieve the objectives. Leadership is considered the process of
motivating others by some acts and characteristics which enable them to strive for the entity
(Beauchamp, Hulme, 2021)
For the purpose of the report TESCO plc has been chosen which is one of the biggest
retail giant of UK and getting operated its operations in more than 11 nations with a wast number
of stores. The entity is well-known for its better services and products pertaining to retail sector.
With the progress of time it is expanding business globally which needs strong leadership and
management to accomplish the objective of the entity. TESCO is famous in the market for its
retail market performance and having good leadership management too.
The report will be analysing and making comparison of leadership and management, here
different theories shall be evaluated. To make the analysis comprehensive some leadership
theories are articulated in context of the organization, For the retail sector where the entity is
operating its business would analyse key performance metrics and other significant aspects of
retail sector in UK would be taken into consideration.
At the end of the report organizational leadership and management shall be deciphered in
attempt to present proper idea that how it is actually performing. Here the impact of leadership
styles in the performance of the organization would be closely observed and for making the
evaluation more authentic some benchmarks are also taken into focus.
ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Leadership and management are tow different phenomenon, but generally both are used
inter-replaceable, but both are having intensive difference in term of their effectiveness and
conceptions too.
Since, Tesco plc is having a mammoth size and working across many nations with its
number of stores so the entity is having hybrid approach of leadership. Using range of leadership
models as per its requirements, but it would be fair to say that the organization is having

democratic model of leadership, where all the participants of the business operation are
allowed to share their ideas and getting equal voice to raise.
The organization is abiding with transformational leadership model, which is being practised by
TESCO plc. Transformational leadership style pays attention to the notion that there must be
transformation in the behaviour of the employees (Hallinger, 2020) For this purpose in TESCO a
range of such techniques are being used such as cultural changes, radical technologies, making
great operating changes, brining reformation in product and service offerings of the entity.
At the same time in some specific predicaments the entity is practising transactional
leadership, where the employees who are performing better are getting rewarded and the
employees whose performance is not much good are getting punished. This model is hectic and
not for long term vision of the entity, but sometimes it works and hike the productivity and
performance.
The management of the entity is well-structured and with the progress of time getting
evolved too. Human relations theory and change management theory are being practised by the
organization.
Working with lacs of employees and serving millions of customers is not an easy task so
the entity is very conscious about it and by strategic management it gives attention to develop
better human relationship so can take advantage of its loyal customer constellation.
It is one of the leading organization and constituting around 31% of the retail sector so
having rigours need to make appropriate changes to manage the changes of the industry (Rehman
and Iqbal, 2020) TESCO plc timely revise its marketing, operational strategies so can make itself
suitable for the market and can meet requirements of the customers.
Comparison of leadership and management-
Comparison between leadership and management-
Thinking-
Leadership- It focuses on people, and main aim is to bring difference in their behaviour, attitude
by motivating them.
Management- Focus is on entire process of the organization, mainly how to achieve the goals
and how to manage every and each activity, operation which may turn out better to the entity.

Goal-
Leadership- Vision for better future of the entity, As in TESCO its aim to be top in the retail
market is being kept in centre by the leaders. Execution of the plans in order to achieve goal.
Management- In TESCO management just play great role to improve operations. The main aim
of management is to achieve the goal which has been given to the management, in general it is
based on the short term goals (Sobratee and Bodhanya, 2018)
Employee relationship-
Leadership- To enhance capability of individual and fabrication of strong trust. The salient aim is
to bring difference in the behaviour of the employees which is only possible with trust
development.
Management- Control on the members. Cause it believes that with proper control, planning,
communication objectives can be accomplished so it must be taken into consideration.
Governance-
Leadership- It influences others. The central point of governance is to drive employees to govern
their self by their own efforts and less interference of extraneous forces (Gürlek and Çemberci,
2020)
Management- With authority governance is carried out. Here the duty to carry out governance
lies in the jurisdiction of management.
Directions-
Leadership- the directions in leadership are extended in smooth manner, considering employees
as centre of all so how to bring the most affective consequences of the process to them is kept in
mind while directing them.
Management- it pays attention to the conviction that for giving direction, there must be a proper
hierarchy and all the people must be guided and ordered for the objectives' achievement.
Roles-
Leadership- the role of a leader it to be creative and inculcate changes in the personnel so can
make them ready to hike their ability, skills and productivity. Leader is supposed to the person

who is having enormous amount of roles and responsibilities to play in an organization due to
diverse diaspora it serves.
Management- the role of a manager is to react to the circumstances and just paving way to
achieve the goal which has been directed to them. Their role is relatively limited since they are
supposed to dire the organization to eradicate all potential bottlenecks and grab the goals
(Hammad, Samier and Mohammed, 2022)
So from the logics above it can be concluded that both leadership and management are
having their unique and mammoth role in organizational success, they serve entity in different
ways to achieve common objective.
KEY PERFORMANCE METRICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL SECTOR
The retail sector of UK is constituting good market, since the retail sector of the nation is
well grown. Over the time the performance of the sector has faced sort of perils due to some
extraneous factors yet it is performing satisfactory.
The retail sector of the nation is well grown and having great scope to go for further
exploration. More than 300000 business are engaged and over 3 million employees are working.
In 2019, it soled around 439 billion euros. Over 8% people of the nation are engaged in retail
sector so it is one of the biggest sector in term of job driver (Swaffield, Evans and Welch, 2018)
It accounts around 5.2% if the total GDP of UK.
From last couple of years the retail sector is facing some issues due to pandemic and
economic instability yet it is showing good recovery. In the year 2020 in different segments of
the retail sector the percentage change in the retail sales of Great Britain has been as (Naidoo,
and Gasparatos, 2018)
characteristics Percentage change in the retail sales
Food stores -0.6
Non food stores -1
Department stores -1.7
Textiles and footwear stores -0.5
Household goods -1.6

Other stores -0.5
Non store retailing 0.7
Fuel stores -1.3
All retailing -0.6
It is clear evidence that due to some unexpected or drastic circumstances such as Covid-
19 and Brexit the performance of the retail sector got hammered, which is reflecting poor or
negative growth of the retail sales in term of volume.
The retail market of UK is one of the biggest stakeholder of the economy and GDP, but
performance measurement indicators such as sales, sales revenue or volume, customer retention,
conversion rate, inventory turnover, transaction value etc. are now not looking in favour of the
market. In the year 2022 it is expected to notch up growth of around 2% which is not much
higher but satisfactory considering the prevailing circumstances (Nyame-Asiamah and Ghulam,
2019)
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
PERFORMANCE
In Tesco plc both leadership and management are being redeemed with greater
effectiveness. The entity is having its widely prevailed operations so there is rigorous
requirement to have such errorless leadership and management in the organization.
It has signed up Mr Tery Leahy as its CEO, who became driving force for the entity and
brought some paradigm shifts. He has been one of the prominent leader who gave a strong shape
to the entity in attempt to make it thrive in the market. As the entity is having its democratic
structure of leadership which allows everyone to raise their concerns and voice so can make the
operations better. The entity also uses different leadership models such as transformational and
transactional leadership as per requirement of time (Ferreira, Pinheiro, 2019)
On the other hand the management of the entity is also well articulated, since it is getting
operated in more than 11 nations with it's a range of stores and mammoth number of products
and services so having rigorous need to set up a good management structure in the organization.
TESCO plc uses management by objective concept so can reduce interference and can

also enhance productivity of the employees. The entity is having a functional structure where
different departments are working such as finance, human resource, administration, R&D,
marketing etc. so can pave better way for all activities. This is the salient reason behind the
success of the organization which is thriving and leading the market with greater impact.
Annual revenues of the entity which got hiked due to better management and leadership by
personnels of TESCO plc.
years Revenue in GBP million
2021 53170
2020 52898
2019 51643
2018 44914
2017 43524
2016 43080
2015 45062
The performance of organizational leadership and management has been wonderful, since
in the period of pandemics when all other organizations, sectors were not able to even keep their
revenues and performance stable, at that time the entity has notched up great surge in its
performance. It all became possible due to better management of the operations and good
leadership provided to the personnels of the entity.
The management of Tesco plc has shown their great understanding of the market. In
Covid-19 they changed the pattern of their operations, they changed the time of opening and
closing of the stores, changed employee working patter, enhanced their marketing efforts and
social media used to convince customers etc. (Prakash, 2018)
On the other hand their leadership also depicted a good sense of humour. They made their
personnels believe in their capacity and also made them ready to adopt changes. Tesco plc
recruited 50000 more temporary employees to keep its operations continue. To meet increased
demand of the customers it strived to hike proportional productivity with the help of better
leadership practise which enabled the entity to channelize employees. The efforts of the

organization reflected results in drastic way and it became first UK retail sector giant to cross
one million online sale of grocery products in a week. So it would not be unfair to say that it was
leadership and management practise of the entity which made it accomplish bigger in the market,
even when the market was placing severe challenges (Yusof, 2019)
Earlier the entity was having its grave attention to the direct market operations where it
was offering its products to the customers from stores, but in last couple of years some
circumstances such as over revolution of AI and social media, pandemics, changing marketing
techniques surged need to go with new alternatives and entity decided to pave the way for E
marketing, for this sake, with efficient leadership it prepared its employees who made the goal
feasible.
After pandemics when entire economy was suffering that moment with better internal
management and leadership the entity has shown a great ability to hike its profits. In the year
2022 first quarter the revenues of the company has been 219.7% higher, adjusted profits were
also climbed to 58%. These all became possible for the entity due to better management and
leadership practise (Putra and Muzakir, 2020)
Earlier TESCO was having some ethical issues as well which were hindering its way to
perform better in the market so the leadership of the organization has presented good sense of
superiority in the market and dealt with every and each aspect which was hindering their ethical
practices.
CONCLUSION
From the report above it can be concluded that leadership and management are having
their great role in the success and higher performance of an organization. In the report TESCO
plc has been considered and the leadership model of the organization was evaluated considering
some leadership theories. The basis information of the organization have been overlooked and
some key aspects were outlined.
In the report various leadership models and theories have been deciphered to articulate
their impact on the performance of the organization. For the Tesco plc leadership and
management theories have been evaluated, and an analysis was also carried out to depict a well
articulated comparison between management and leadership. Leadership and management
models which were being practised in the organization were articulated in attempt to bring better

understanding about such theoretical models and advantages of their proper application in the
entity.
Transformational and transaction leadership models were used in the organization. So in
the report both models of the entity have been looked deeply in attempt to make a comparative
study. Various aspects of the leadership models and their usefulness for the organization was ex
amplified.
Key performance metrics of the organization considering retail sector was also articulated
in order to depict the picture of the sector and its affects on the performance of the organization.
With this regard the retail sector of UK was taken into consideration. The key performance
metrics was also described with respect to the retail industry, where different aspects were
looked up.
At the end of the report organizational leadership and management performance was
evaluated. For making better understanding of the performance of the entity some benchmarking
techniques were considered. Here role of leadership and engagement have been evaluated, also
substantiated with appropriate illustrations and examples.

REFERENCES
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management from the emerging regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America, 1965–
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Nyame-Asiamah, F. and Ghulam, S., 2019. The relationship between CSR activity and sales
growth in the UK retailing sector. Social Responsibility Journal.
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Prakash, G., 2018. Review of the food processing supply chain literature: a UK, India bilateral
context. Journal of Advances in Management Research.
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Operation Strategy: A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Based Approach. AFEBI
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Convention theory and the problem of food waste in the UK retail sector. Geoforum. 89.
pp.43-51.
Yusof, A., 2019. Tesco Plc likely to exit Asia business, focus on home country, EU. New Straits
Times, pp.1-1.
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