Roles of Leaders and Managers: Amazon Case Study Report

This report delves into the core elements of management and operations, emphasizing the significance of leadership within organizations, specifically using Amazon as a case study. The report investigates the distinct roles of leaders and managers, contrasting their characteristics and responsibilities, ...Read More

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1. P1 Roles and characteristics of Leaders and Managers..........................................................1
LO2..................................................................................................................................................2
P2 Role of leaders and Functions of managers in different situational context.....................2
P3 Different theories and model of approaches.....................................................................3
LO3..................................................................................................................................................6
P4 Key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play.6
P5 Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives........6
LO4..................................................................................................................................................6
P6 Factors with in the business environment that impact upon operational management and
decision making by leaders and managers.............................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Management and Operations both are fundamental element of any organization. Strategic
management and operational functions deliver productivity and excellence to workforce and
organization as well(Slack and Brandon, 2018).
This study will focus upon different roles of leaders and managers and their impact on
operational management of the organization. The study will highlight different
approaches/theories of operations management with strength and weakness of each approach.
The report will address all mentioned tasks in context of AMAZON, the largest international E-
commerce company. Amazon was founded in 5th of July 1994 by Jeff Bezos, which was started
as an online book store but later diversified their selling process. It is the largest internet
company by revenue in the world. There are more than 613,300 employees working in Amazon
and operates across the world. This study will present the role of leaders and managers in
different situational contexts. It will also highlight some key approaches to operational
management role of leaders and managers in increasing operational management efficiency.
LO1.
P1 Roles and characteristics of Leaders and Managers
Leaders may be a person who influences people towards the achievement of goals in an
organisation. A leader is a person who is in charge, a person who motivates and convinces other
people to follow him or her.
Manager is a person who is in charge to a certain group of tasks or any subset of an
organisation. Manager is responsible for administering or controlling an organisation or staff or a
group.
Difference between leaders and managers in Amazon is as follows:
Leaders Managers
Leaders of Amazon creates vision and inspires
people towards it.
Managers create goals for an organisation and
focuses on setting, measuring and achieving
these goals.
Leaders of Amazon help in bringing changes in Managers plan for the changes in an
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an organisation by embracing the change. organisation.
Leaders of Amazon are willing to take risks. Managers of Amazon help in minimising risks
in organisation.
Leaders of Amazon build relationship in an
organisation.
Managers of Amazon help in building systems.
Leaders and managers both are the building blocks of an organization. Both are responsible for
strategic steps that are carried out for sustainable development (Pingili and et.al., 2014). There
are some differences in their functions and roles described as follows-
Roles Characteristics
LEADERS MANAGERS LEADERS MANAGERS
Motivator: He/she
continuously
motivates their
team members to
excel in every task.
Provider: Manager
provides required
resources to the
workforce of
organization.
Leaders are employee
centric and
participative.
Managers adopt more
professionalized way to
get the work done by
their workforce.
Guide: Leader
provide guidelines
to team members
to eradicate
confusions
regarding given
specimen.
Organizer: Managers
organizes the work
culture, activities and
related professional key
task to facilitate the
employees.
Leaders effectively
uses their interpersonal
skills to deliver
motivation and
satisfaction to
employees.
Managers design reward
and benefit system to
increase employees'
satisfaction and
motivation.
Supporter: Leader
supports its team
member fully in
terms of all
possible aspect.
Facilitator: Provide
different facilities to
employees in terms of
compensation, reward
and other benefits.
Effectively
communicate with
team members and
resolve their problems.
Managers are the least
approachable by
employees to resolve
organizational
conflict/issues.
Representative: Disseminator: Leaders are less Managers are highly
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Leaders represents
the whole team and
presents the
strength of team to
the organization.
Disseminates suitable
job role and
responsibilities to the
employees depending
upon their capabilities
and designations.
permissive to take any
action.
authorized to take any
actions/measures.
M1. Role of leaders and managers through different theories/concepts.
Leaders and Managers working behaviour can be linked with different
theories/approaches. Like:
In Path-Goal leadership model, leaders are Supportive, Participative while Managers are
Achievement oriented and Directive by nature. Transactional Leadership theory is adopted by
Managers as they follow organizational protocols, professional behaviour to motivate and
influence employees. Leaders adopt Transformational leadership theory which is
participative, flexible and influence workforce in a better way than that of transaction leadership.
Leaders and Managers of Amazon follows 14 specific principles to increase its operational
excellence. In a comparison report of Amazon, Managers are highly scored by employees while
Leaders are not satisfactorily scored by Operational department specially.
Hence, Amazon require transformational leaders to deliver strategic results and
operational excellence to the organization.
LO2.
P2 Role of leaders and Functions of managers in different situational context
Organizational Conflict:
Leaders play vital role in resolving conflicts. They are well aware about the behaviour of
involved parties which facilitate decision making process(Warrick, 2017). While, Managers
organise different meetings to resolve these issue which may consume a lot of time.
Managers of Amazon has designed secured workplace culture by making an agreement in
2013 with CIA for conflict resolution and Leaders have strong communication and interpersonal
skills for smooth resolution of conflicts.
Merging and Acquisition:
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Leaders act as a bridge of communication among new and old employees. They develop
employees' and organisations' relations. Managers develop different plan to increase workplace
culture, to deliver required resources and provide formalised protocols to enhance relations of
employees within two organisation.
At Amazon, Managers have designed strong M&A strategies and culture to strengthen its
partnership with different well known organizations. While, its Leaders has efficient required
skills to deliver guidelines and supports to new and existing workforce to work collaboratively.
Organizational Crises:
Leaders motivate, support and inspire employees to work with enthusiasm and pace. While,
Managers provide possible financial support to the organization and analyse measures to provide
sustainable resources to the organization(Warrick, 2017).
For instance, Managers of Amazon built effective bond with employees to perform
strategically in crises and have designed forward stock management to eradicate the situation of
crises. While, Leaders are on their toes and adopt flexibility, participative and situational
leadership at the time of crises. Both have successfully managed the organization reputation
strategies to overcome such crises.
Accidents at workplace:
Leaders provide assurance and show empathy in such conditions to the workforce as well as the
victim. Managers deliver predefined compensation to the employee and take further measures to
rectify the faulty situations.
Leaders and Managers at Amazon has an efficient compensation system to facilitate the
employees during such accidents. They conduct operational meetings for the safety measures of
employees.
Situation 1 (Transactional leadership style): Amazon has taken up a new project but the
employees are not performing up to the level and manager of Amazon has order that if any
employee's performance level in not improved in future he or she will be fired from the
organisation.
Situation 2 (Transformational Leadership style): As employees of an organisation is facing
issues in their performance level so the leader is working with the team identify changing needs
and motivates and guides employees to improve their performance.
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P3 Different theories and model of approaches
Situational Leadership: This model involves implementation of strategic decisions
according to the situation. Such type of Leadership requires focused planning, great personal
skills and quick decisive quality(Sosik and Jung, 2018). It has different leadership styles
followed by leaders and managers according to different situations.
Directing and Telling style is followed by Managers. For instance, packaging and
shipment of items at Amazon by employees are strictly directed and supervised by managers.
Coaching style of leadership is adopted by Leaders of Amazon in terms of designing new
plans, products and introducing new technologies at workplace to employees.
Supporting leadership style is adopted by Managers. For instance, managers at Amazon
provide high financial support to its IT teams for fulfilling the requirement of new technologies
and software regarding operational management.
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Illustration 1: Situational Leadership Model and Styles
(Source: Situational Leadership model and Styles. 2017)

Delegating style is adopted by Autocratic Managers. Like, managers at Amazon delegate
necessary actions to its workforce for its customer centric services to achieve customer loyalty
and operational productivity.
Amazon has taken up a new project, but employees of the organisation lack the
information about the project and how a task is to be performed so, leaders of the organisation
has to provide training to the employees in order to improve their performance.
System leadership: In this leadership, Leaders and Managers both focus on overall
system of workplace and emphasis on each and every aspect of organization, group and an
individual(Jaques, 2017).
Managers and Leaders at Amazon, motivates employees by providing different benefits
like career choice programs, Training and development programs and bringing pets to work,
Friday Happy hours, In house gym. This features incorporated with leadership style to increase
productivity and decreasing turn over. Hence, adopt system leadership style by focusing on
employees as well as operational excellence of organisation.
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Illustration 2: Attributes of System Leadership
(Source: Attributes of System Leadership, 2018)

A manager has announced 2 times more bonus for the employee whose performance for the
month will be best. So this leadership style will help in increasing the productivity level of the
employees in an organisation.
Contingency Leadership: It depends on the skills of leaders and managers that how
effectively they align their leadership style with the situation(Henkel and Bourdeau, 2018). The
efficiency of outcomes depends on the extent of relationship with employees. For instance, At
Amazon Leaders and Managers are task oriented but do not construct required bond with
employees, hence outcomes are highly depends upon the amount of benefits provided to
employees.
An organisation has introduced a new software, so it has become necessary for the
leaders to provide employees training how to operate new software which can help in managing
organisation's functions.
On the other hand, leaders of Amazon are approachable, participative and relationship
motivated which brings desired outcomes to the organization (Ichinose and et.al, 2015). As
Amazon has specific management rules to follow, leaders and managers both share a common
approach of leadership.
M2. Strength and Weakness of different approaches of leadership
Situational approach System approach Contingency approach
Strengths
It is flexible in nature
Consume less time in
decision making
process.
Follows organization
system and protocols.
Deliver appropriate
strategic results.
Adaptive in nature, Task
oriented and relationship
motivated leaders perform
to their best.
Weaknesses
Highly depends on
available resources,
Create a sense of
confusions among
employees regarding
executives' decisions.
It is rigid and strongly
depends on organization's
policies, protocols and
resources.
Weak relationship with
employees is a big concern
for this leadership, highly
depends on employees'
efficiency.
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LO3.
P4 Key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play.
Covered in PPT
P5 Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives.
Covered in PPT
LO4.
P6 Factors with in the business environment that impact upon operational management and
decision making by leaders and managers.
There are many factors available to affect
the operational management like financial
factor, human resources, company location
Etc.
Financial resources : Operation
management handles all activities related to
the finance like investment, funding and
source of income (Ramesh and et.al., 2016).
They take the decision related to the
investment. For example; if investment is
done in the wrong company or place by
operational managers then Amazon may
have to suffer a considerable loss. That time
managers and leaders may have to change
their decision. That is why They take care
about the financial condition of the
company. It is necessary for the operational
managers to aware from company's
liabilities and assets. Customer invest their
money (Kato, NEC Corp, 2015). In any
condition managers does not provide
product with the best quality then it is direct
affecting on the operational management. It
is the responsibility of the operational
manager to provide product with the best
quality for customer satisfaction.
Human resources : Operational
management influence by the human
resources like Employees, volunteers and
workers. Employees quality, capability,
working way, capacity they all affecting
operational management. Employees does
not work accurately or management recruit
ineffective employees then chance of
mistake will increase. That time operational
management influenced by the employees
(Warrick, 2017). This point affect manager
decision therefore Leaders and managers
can terminate those employees who do not
work effectively. That is why operational
management recruit high skilled employees
who can handle all over the work.
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Physical resources : Company
location, facilities, and their equipments are
included in the physical resources.
Operational management influenced by the
physical resources. For example Operational
management handled manufacturing process
if company located at such a place where
raw material does not get easily that time it
is impacted on operational management.
Operational management suffer from this
problem if Proper Equipments and facilities
are not available.
Marketing issues : Customers needs
and trends are regularly changed. That is
why operational management are daily face
the marketing issue. They may have to
change product quality and designs
according to the customers. In a competitive
market, it is necessary to identify the right
technology for their products. They manage
all production process therefore marketing
issues impact on the operational
management. Leaders and managers
decision does not right all the time. Some
time due to Market issues leaders and
managers change their decisions.
PESTLE analysis:
Political factors affect the management of
operations in Amazon company as its
procedures are highly dependent on suppliers,
dealers, retailers and any type of political
hindrance may create a problematic situation
for leaders and managers.
Manager take their decision after
analysis the situation.
Economic factors are one of the considerable
factor that fluctuates the costing and budgeting
criteria of companies like Amazon. Due
fluctuation in budgeting and costing it impacts
on manager decision making in which they are
accountable for recreating plans and strategies.
Social factors are highly considered by leaders
and managers of Amazon to produce any new
products or services. They design each of its
services with respect to the demographic and
attitude and lifestyles of customers to a higher
extent.
Service and Products of Amazon are highly
dependent upon the development of
technologies to deliver the services timely.
Even decisions regarding minute procedures are
dependent on technologies and software.
Legal factors delivers strategic framework to
the services of the customers. Its services are
legally bound and leaders and managers need to
take decisions with respect to these legal laws
applied to its services.
9

Environmental factors are highly considered by
leaders and managers of Amazon. They tend to
align of their services with respect to
environmental issues persist in the location as
well as in the world. They need to design its
social responsibilities based on different
environmental concerns.
SWOT Analysis
Strength: Amazon is highly competitive
company and has adopted diversified marketing
strategies to attract its customers. This delivers
great support to perform other business
activities planned by leaders and managers.
They can easily identify the needs and demands
of customers and smartly attracts its potential
customers as well.
Weaknesses: Amazon is restricted in terms of
development and expansion. It does not have
sufficient planning for innovation and stand
within a highly competitive environment. This
weakness affects the decisive power of leaders
and managers in terms of connecting with a
new business or business activities due to lack
of innovation strategies. It impacts on manager
decision making procedure, they consider all
the weak points and make sufficient plans
which is beneficial for overall business
expansion process.
Opportunity: Amazon already has attained
popularity and customers' loyalty and can thrive
in other fields as well. It has a great opportunity
of market penetration. The leaders and
managers of Amazon need to match their
services and planning to grab these related
market opportunities. They make plans based
on target market needs and conduct market
research for gathering more information about
peoples needs.
Threats: Amazon may faces strong
competition and threat due to other e commerce
platforms providing equal range of products
with additional advanced features (Nakamura
and et.al., 2015). For this the leaders and
managers need to take advanced analysis for its
competitors and other related features that are
increasing in the field of E commerce. Manager
will make more new plans to increase the
performance of business as well as workers.
M4. Effect of these factors on business
environment and wider community
Physical resources increase the
operational efficiency but requires a lot of
capital funding. Activities like procurement,
installations, rearrangement of machineries
takes a lot of time and cost. Inefficient Human
Resource deliver inappropriate workforce to the
organization that may hamper the smooth
functioning of different departments too.
Marketing issues increases cost of company in
terms of innovation, market analysis and related
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marketing functions. Ineffective market research reduces the market image of the
products/company/services.
CONCLUSION
The above content have shown that effective leaders and managers are the back bone of
organizations. It has also shown that different theories and models of approaches can be helpful
in achieving desired goals and objectives. This report laid emphasis on key approaches to
operations management by justifying the fact that approaches like Six Sigma has proved to be
the most effective and it must be adopted. This report emphasised that proper analysis of internal
factors are necessary to attain operational excellence in business environment. Form above it has
been concluded that all the factors within business environment put impact on manager decision
making procedure in which they are responsible for making plan and strategies based on
situational analysis.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities. 6(12).pp.1063-1072.
Henkel, T. and Bourdeau, D., 2018. A Field Study: An Examination Of Managers’ Situational
Leadership Styles. Journal of Diversity Management–December.13(2).
Ichinose, R. and et.al, 2015. Use-Assisting Tool for Autonomous Mobile Device, Operation
Management Center, Operation System, and Autonomous Mobile Device. U.S. Patent
Application 14/419. 681.
Jacobs, B.W. and et.al., 2015. Performance effects of early and late Six Sigma adoptions. Journal
of Operations Management.36.pp.244-257.
Jaques, E., 2017.Requisite organization: A total system for effective managerial organization and
managerial leadership for the 21st century. Routledge.
Kato, K., NEC Corp, 2015. Operation management apparatus, operation management method
and program. U.S. Patent Application 14/384,197.
Mehra, S., Hoffman, J.M. and Sirias, D., 2001. TQM as a management strategy for the next
millennia. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.
21(5/6).pp.855-876.
Nakamura, T. and et.al., 2015. Operation management apparatus, operation management method,
and operation management program. U.S. Patent 9. 031. 703.
Pingili, S.R. and et.al., 2014. Power management via coordination and selective operation of
timer-related tasks. U.S. Patent 8. 898. 487.
Ramesh, C. and et.al., 2016. Lean Six Sigma Approach to Improve Overall Equipment
Effectiveness Performance: A Case Study in the Indian Small Manufacturing Firm.
Slack, N. and Brandon-Jones, A., 2018.Operations and process management: principles and
practice for strategic impact. Pearson UK.
Sosik, J. J. and Jung, D., 2018.Full range leadership development: Pathways for people, profit,
and planet. Routledge.
Warrick, D. D., 2017. What leaders need to know about organizational culture. Business Horizons.
60(3).pp.395-404.
ONLINE
Attributes of System Leadership. 2017. [ONLINE] Available through:
<http://www.rtuni.org/quicklinks/reference/blc/page.php?page_id=12>.
Situational Leadership model and Styles. 2018. [ONLINE] Available through:
<https://www.catalysts.cc/the-catalysts-way/9-4-situational-leadership/>.