Roles and Characteristics of a Leader and a Manager

This document discusses the roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager in an organization. It explores how these roles apply in different situational contexts and analyzes the utilization of leadership models such as contingency or systems leadership theory. The document also assesses the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to situations within the work environment.

Unit 4 –
Management
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager....3
M1 differentiate between the role of a leader and the functions of a manager by effectively
applying a range of theories and concepts. ............................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P2 Analyse how role of a leader and function of a manager apply in different situational
contexts...................................................................................................................................6
P3 Utilization of several leadership models such as contingency or systems leadership theory
................................................................................................................................................8
M2 Assess and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to situations
within the work environment..................................................................................................9
D.1 Critically analyse and evaluate the different theories and approaches to leadership in
given contexts.........................................................................................................................9
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
P4 Evaluation of main concepts of operation management with description duties performed
by managers and leaders ....................................................................................................10
P5) Explain importance of operations management to attain business objectives ..............11
M3) Determine how leaders and managers can improve the efficiency of operational
management for attaining business objectives.....................................................................12
D2 Critically evaluate application of operations management and factors that impact on the
wider business environment. ...............................................................................................13
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................13
P6) Discuss the factors of business environment that affect operational management and
decision-making of managers and leaders............................................................................13
M4 Analyse how these different factors affect the business environment and wider community
..............................................................................................................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Company or business organisation is the biggest field which involves the multiple
functions and operations. So it needs the implementation of right management strategies and
skills for effective results. Management operations is the part of organisation management
system who responsibility is to mange the designing, planing and controlling actions of
production and actions of the another business operations (Abubakar, 2019). TESCO is
multinational company, Headquartered in Welwyn Garden city, United Kingdom. It is trading
retailer company for groceries offers the multiple variety of products for their customers. Here
in this report we are going to discuss the management operation system in prospect to the
TESCO, that what are the roles and characteristics of manger and leader. Along with this it
involves the analysis of manger and leader roles, functions application for particular situation
rices in the organisation. It also involves the consideration of factors which effects the
management operations along with the decision making of organisation.

TASK 1
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager
Leader is the person who leads the team and command the group for the completion of
organisation task and objectives. They have to provide all the required support to their team, as
well as provide the right direction for task management.
Manger is the person who posse the responsibility's of organisation management, manger
is the one who has to mange every different team of departments. Its manger responsibility to
plan, organize and control the activities for goal accomplishment. Their are many more roles and
responsibility of leader and mangers explain below.
Roles of the Manger
 Decision-making: This is one of the most impotent responsibility of manger is to take a
decisions, for their staff and subordinates. He has to take decision for the training of their
staff, that which type of guideline they need to complete the task (Di Vaio, Palladino,
2020). Need to take decision for resource management and so on. Manger should posses
the quality of creativity and problem solving skills for doing all this responsibility's.
 Maintains budget: budget management is some thing which is very sensitive and
delegated responsibility, which should we mange by manger in appropriate manner
(Goffin, and Mitchell, 2016). Its a responsibility of manger to mange the budget of
organisation for every type of organisational functions in order to mange the profit
margin along with this. For the improvement, promotion, production, resource they have
to plan the right budget.
 Quality roles: manger is the one who is responsible for managing the product and
services quality,in order to mange the customer relationship with the company. He has to
follow all the legal quality standards too, in order to prevent legal issues. They have to
handle the feedbacks of customer and improve the drawbacks if have.
Roles of a Leader
 Organisation representative: Leader is the one who has to guide and explain the
projects, plans of company to the team members. Its responsibility of leader to represent
the organisation, he has to conduct seminars, orientations, webinars etc.
 Supports and provides training: leader has to use the right leadership style for guiding
their team members on the basis of work environment. He has to support the in every

prospects of task. In some time he has to be involve with their team for performing
certain difficult activity of task. He has to make the right flow of action in order to
complete the work at right time.
Characteristic of a leader
 Trustworthy: leader have to posses some quality's, to be an effective leader like he has
to be trustworthy for organisation as well as for their team member, fear for every one.
He has to make the trustable bond in between their team, so that team work on the basis
of leader without making any quarries and debate. If leader posses the trustworthy nature
then it aid to develop trustworthiness of whole team.
 Empathetic: leader have to posses the quality of understanding, he has to understand
every one in every terms (Jackson, and Richter, 2017). They have to understand the
others point of view and feeling, so that team member easily share their problems with
leader. This quality of leader increases the loyalty of team members for team leader and
aid to get the effective results of team work.
Characteristic of a manager
 Experience : Manger should poses the experience of some year related to that field,
because without experience he cant take the right division, as for guiding any thing it
needs the awareness about, advantages and disadvantages of that action, and this can
come from the experience (Lynch, McCance, 2018).
 Respect for subordinates: Manger along with the management and commanding of
teams, should also posses the respect for their subordinates, employees, work staff.
Manager of TESCO give respect to their every groups of staff. Because the lake of
respect causes the negative environment and conflict.
M1 differentiate between the role of a leader and the functions of a manager by effectively
applying a range of theories and concepts.
Manger and leader posses different roles and responsibilities and there are the multiple theory's
or concepts which aid them to perform the right function of their post. Such as classical,
behavioural and modern management theory's. Scientific management theory on the basis of
which manger have to plane for the strategies which can reduces the chances of waste and save
the productivity time. One the basis of behavioural management theory its a responsibilities

leader's and manger to maintain the culture of organisation, positive and productive. With the
help of cultural rules and by providing all the required thing from the employees side.
TASK 2
P2 Analyse how role of a leader and function of a manager apply in different situational contexts
Organisation cant be run without the skilled manger and leader, as they plays the crucial
role the management of organisation functions and operations in an appropriate manner. In order
to achieves the goals and objectives of company. In the current competitive market there are the
multiple factors which can causes the sudden changes and difficult situation, and this can be
mange by mangers and leaders of the organisation (Montano, Reeske, 2017). The further
explantation of leader and manger roles application for different situation is given below.

Situation one- Conflicts situation
Conflict is the basic situational problem which create due to the lack of information and
guidance some time it create due to the variant personal and profession issues of team members.
Then in the his situation role of the leader and function of the manger is applied (Montano,
Reeske, 2017)
 Problem solver- In this situation leader responsibility is to solve the problem and
understand the causes of that problem so that he can prevent the for farther fight. Leaders
of the TESCO assurers that they can not leave any point which can create the conflict,
and if by chance it created then they solve it with their problem solving skills.
 Coach- This is another important role of the leader which work as a preventer of the
conflict, because as a coach its a responsibility of leader to guide their team for managing
the conflicts at the absence of leader.
Function of the manager
 Planning- Its a mange responsibility to make a goal accomplishing plans and strategies.
They have to distribute the employees for different task of the goal and objectives, they
have to differentiate the responsibility of workers for every task. Its a manger who has assist
the team leader that how to distribute the resources for good results, manger should make
the effective time line and work standards for task accomplishment.
 Monitoring- After the planing the next function of the manger is to analyse the work flow,
so that he can identify the mistakes of the team, while performing the task. He has to track
the performance and progress of the team, identification of mistake then, improvement of
that mistake (Prange, and Heracleous, 2018).
 Roles-. Task and pans involves the multiple operations so manger have to monitor them by
optimizing all the activities.
Situations 2- hypothetical situations: This involve s the situation where the possible questions
rices.
Role of leader-
 Strategy implementer- TESCO Leaders has to apply their strategies at the
hypothetical situation to solve the problem. Hypothetical situation are those when
assumption of the particular problem and solution is done , it involves the possibility of

something. So at this situation leader has to play his strategy implementer role to select
the right solution.
 Influencer- leader has to be influencer, so that he can influence the others to take the
decision according to him, during such type of situations related to organisation. It is
the important skill which should be posses by the leader (Rezvani, Dong, and Khosravi,
2017). Leader of the TESCO use their influencing skills to Handel that situation.
Functions of manager
 Organise- Manger have to be organized about the organisation data and information so
that he can use those information for taking the right decision at that situation by
applying the previous results and data.
P3 Utilization of several leadership models such as contingency or systems leadership theory
Successful is one of the most significant aspects of business management , and various
leadership theories and methods are adopted by different organisations according to their needs.
Efficient utilisation of these types of approaches enhances decision making abilities of an
organisation and results in swift and precise decision making process adopted by the leaders of
the organisation. The UK based retail and supermarket chain TESCO uses various leadership
approaches and proposition to improve the decision-making abilities of management working in
the organisation.
 Situational leadership: This approach requires the administrator and leader of TESCO
to switch and modify their leadership method depending on the varying circumstances
faced by the leader at their organisation. To make decisions suitable to different
situations, the manager of the organisation will use planning as a managerial function .
Advantages- This type of method is able to create comfortable atmosphere for workers
as the leader changes their approach according to worker's individual demands.
Dis vantages- This leadership approach is not suitable for supervising objectives which
are repetitious as in the respective organisation.
 System leadership: This leadership practice will require the corporates leader and
manager to promote and sustain optimistic atmosphere across full spectrum of an
organisation so the workers are inspired and impelled to reach their maximum potential.
Various management factors such as interpersonal relationships , team construction and
motivation are included in this type of approach (Tortorella, 2018).

Advantages- This approach provides the company advantage in the form of complete
and homogeneous decision making procedure with respect to all departments of the organisation.
Disadvantages- This type of approach requires huge amount of time investment (Wang,
Huang, and Kang, 2019). This is huge drawback for TESCO as disciplined deliverance of
products is key component of the retail industry.
 Contingency leadership: This type of leadership approach will require the manager at the
respective organisation to focus on environment and individual skills of their employees
to construct work related decisions. Several management aspects that are included in this
approach are goal oriented motivational abilities and effective team supervision .
Advantages- The main advantage given to the organisation is less demands of employees
when overlooking the growth and governance of a new product.
Disadvantages- The key disadvantage of this type of leadership approach is the
inflexibility of this method to adjust with changing atmosphere.
M2 Assess and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to situations
within the work environment.
Approaches use for the solution of different situation of work environment are Monitoring for
conflict management. Its strength is that continuous monitoring of the employees performance.
Helps to understand the causes of the conflict so, it can be easily solve. Its weaknesses is that you
can analyse the causes of problem, only if you are doing it from the starting of the project. It is
time consuming. For the hypothetical situation, approach is can be use is market research. It
helps to identify the possibility and the effectively of it. Its weaknesses is that, for market
research it needs the higher investment and the accurate research data or topics.
D.1 Critically analyse and evaluate the different theories and approaches to leadership in
given contexts
Their are the multiple types of theory's which are applied by the TESCO company leader's are
Situational leadership, System leadership, Contingency leadership. Situational leadership theory
state that Leader should work according to the work situations and use the suitable leadership
style. According Contingency leadership theory leader and manager have to focused about their
employees skills and set them into the task on the basis of that. And mange the positive
motivational work environment. Situational leadership state that mangers and leader should

systemically uses the inspiring, encouraging programmes, along with the careful environment
management.
TASK 3
P4 Evaluation of main concepts of operation management with description duties performed by
managers and leaders
Operations management is defined as the activity of supervision of various
business operations with the goal to achieve maximum level of efficiency and stable productivity
rate for the benefit of the organisation. Various operations are simultaneously directed within an
organisation to achieve the organisation's desires and targets, the effective management of these
operations is key component responsible for the growth and success of an organisation. In
context of the retail organisation TESCO several operations involved in selling of thousands of
products across the globe are provided below:
 Logistics and inventory management: This operation in the context of the company
involves efficient supervision and administration of storage and delivery of various
products sold by the organisation. The responsibility of the manager and to an extent
leader is to keep track of the demands of various products across the supermarket chain
and to also distributes these products according to the demands by the consumers. To
guarantee efficient management of the inventory the leader can maintain communication
with executives of supermarkets at different location and receive data about any problems
or scarcity of stock and make decisions to solve these problems.
The organisation uses various techniques and methods to smoothly complete the process of
operations management. Some of these approaches are given below:
 Just-in-time: The effective adoption and implementation of this technique by the
respective corporation reduces any amount of time wastage in all the operations
conducted by the organisation. The main focus of managers and leaders while utilizing
this technique should be on learning the demand of the product and align this demand
with disciplined delivery of the product of the consumer.
Responsibility of the manager- Implementation of strategies which help the company
reduce time wasted when effective execution of various functions is necessary. The construction

and enforcement of plans which effectively reduce time wastage by employees while completion
of various tasks is equally important. Technology an be used to efficiently identify sectors which
consume huge amount of time (Wilson, Cummings, 2017) .
Responsibility of leader- Effective management and completion of various actions
conducted at the organisation in a way which increases employee productivity and decreases
time consumption will be overlooked by the manager so that all tasks can be completed swiftly
and with utmost accuracy.
 Total quality management: This approach requires the management and leadership at
the corporation to invest in programs and activities which help in improving and
increasing worker satisfaction and inspire them to give their best effort while working
for the organisation. This will increase the quality of customer related services
provided by the company and reflect positively on the net profitability of the
organisation.
Responsibility of manager: The duty and function of the manager of the respective firm
should be to create and manage training and development sessions and procedures which help
the employees continuously grow with the company. These practices will not only increase the
satisfaction of the workers but also improve the quality of customer service received by the
consumers.
Responsibility of the leader: The responsibilities and functions undertaken by the leader
of TESCO while execution of this approach is to encourage each and every employees to
actively participate in various training initiatives conducted at the organisation so they can
increase their career growth and help the company achieve exponential growth just as the
development of their career.
P5) Explain importance of operations management to attain business objectives
As operation management is the the part of organisation management system and it deals with
the management of production process along with the management of all the essentials resources
in order to achieve the goals of the organisation by performing the important functions. Which
are the importance of operation management to attain business objectives.
Enhance operational efficiency: Its important function of operation management which
involves, the selection of right methods of product development, right strategies of resources
distribution, in order to produce quality product at lower price with in a right time, by reducing

the waste of resources. And this leads towards the success of organisation. TESCO is using the
best product serving and management techniques in order to provide the product to the customer
at right time, with the kind and professional behaviour.
Improve Quality: Manger of the TESCO uses the best production techniques to develop
the best quality product on the basis of customer demand. Which increases the sell and
productivity of organisation.
Cost reduction: All the importance of operational management is related to the
production method's and technology, because due to the increasing innovative production
method it aid the organisation to get the effective results. As these methods help to produce the
products and services within in the minimum investment of raw material, reduces the worker
cost due to the innovative techniques. Which finally helps in the achievement of goal with the
increased profit margin.
Customer satisfaction: interactive method's of operation management system aid to
provide the quality product to the customer with the innovative serving style and satisfy the
customers which and customers satisfaction, increases the organization value and success.
Increase in sales: further the production and attractive operation methods aid to produce
the customer required product, which increases the sales of product and then it helps to achieve
the objectives of organisation.
M3) Determine how leaders and managers can improve the efficiency of operational
management for attaining business objectives
Leaders and manger can use the different strategies to increasing the efficiency of
operational management for the achievement of objectives. Such as resourcing of all the
production assets at time with the help of their effective communication skill, aid them to wild
strong relationship with their suppliers. Manager can improve the production method's by doing
the macro environment analysis, such as of technological factors, he can select the right updated
method and machinery for the operational management system. And the updated method help to
get higher profit by saving the time, material and production cost. Leaders improve the operation
efficiency by the aid of right leadership style and cultural management. Which helps to
increasing the profitability by the energetic performance of the employees.

D2 Critically evaluate application of operations management and factors that impact on the
wider business environment.
Operation management applications are improving product and production quality, Cost-
reduction, Customer satisfaction, Increase in sales of product, which combinationally aid to get
success in the business. And this can be done by the aid of effective management of, production
strategies along with the management of resources, workers, time, method's and serving. And the
factor which impact all these functions of operation management are, culture of the organisation,
business ethics, society, environment, technological development, economy of the market and so
on.
TASK 4
P6) Discuss the factors of business environment that affect operational management and
decision-making of managers and leaders
Factors of business environment are divided into to category's that is macro and micro
factors. And both group of the environmental factors highly effects the decision making of
manger and leaders as their feathers can get change any time and it causes the region to change
the plan and project procedures. The affects all those environmental factors are given below in
prospect of TESCO that how it effects the decision making of leader and manger of organisation.
Culture and Values: This involves the internal factors such as the value of product and
organisation at market, internal production process, work efficiency of employees, personalty
and behaviour of organisation human resources. For the positive work environment with
effective work efficiency, it need to follow all the proper work environment and culture. Manger
and leader of the TESCO follow all the cultural guidelines with their team for effective results.
Corporate social responsibility: This involves the factors related to the society and
environment, organization has follow the environmental safety rules and laws in order to safe the
environment from pollution and plastic waste (Zigarmi, and Roberts, 2017). They also have to
focus on the needs of society according to their culture and ethics, because it effects the sell of
product and services. This also involves analysis of the competition and plan according to that.
Manger of TESCO makes the plan by analysing all these factors and then leader help them to
implement it.

Business ethics: Is the standers set for the every type of businesses and which should be
followed by every organisation for smooth running of organisation. This involves rules, laws,
principles which should be consider by company during the construction of plans, projects,
strategies. This is also important for well fare of every members of the association. Leader and
manger of the TESCO before the decision making and planing of their task for organisation
they first consider the businesses ethics.
M4 Analyse how these different factors affect the business environment and wider community
There are the different factors inside of the organisation and outside of the organisation.
Internal factors is can be changed by the company. But external environment factors can not be
change by company, so they have to plane according to those factors. Such as politics, legal,
environmental and technological factors posses both opportunities and threats for organisation
so company have to analyse, evaluate and apply these factors for growth.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis it has been concluded that operation management system is the
crucial part of the organisation. Which has to be run by the leaders and manger of the
organisation by the implementation of right strategies and planing for that system. Operational
management system posse the multiple important step for the achievements of goals, such as cost
management, customer satisfaction, production efficiency and so on. Their are the macro and
micro environmental factors which impact the operational strategies of the organisation, so this
has to be mange by the effective decision making of leaders and manger by concerning all these
factors.

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