Analysis of Leadership and Management Strategies at Asda

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MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
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Executive Summary
Leadership and management; both are important for an organisation. This report has been
accomplished by operation manager of Asda, a UK based Retail organisation that operates
business in domestic as well as international sector. This report has been sent to CEO of Asda to
maintain proper leadership and management strategies that have been followed by Asda officials.
Different theories of leadership have been evaluated in this report with their effectiveness and
disadvantages. Different management styles have also included in this report and operation
manager has framed an outline of their critical analysis. In case of wider business impact, role of
leaders and managers have also been noted in this report.
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Table of Content
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
LO1: Difference between leadership and management.................................................................4
P1: Define and compare role of leaders and managers..............................................................4
M1: Analyze roles of leaders and managers by theoretical approach..........................................6
LO2: Application of leadership and management...........................................................................8
P2: Application of leadership and management is situational context........................................8
P3: Different theories of leadership...........................................................................................11
M2: Evaluation of strength and weakness.................................................................................12
D1: Critical Analysis and evaluation of different theories........................................................13
LO3: Demonstrate role of leaders and managers in operational management..............................14
P4: Explanation of key approaches............................................................................................14
P5: Importance of operational management..............................................................................15
M3: Evaluation of leadership and management to improve efficiency.....................................16
LO4: Relationship between leadership and management..............................................................17
P6: Factors of business environment.........................................................................................17
M4: Analyze different factors....................................................................................................19
D2: Critical evaluation of operation management.....................................................................20
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................21
Appendices:...................................................................................................................................24
Appendix A:...............................................................................................................................24
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Introduction
Leadership and management are both significant for operational management of an organisation.
This report aims to evaluate leadership and management theories and its application on retail
sector of UK. This report has been outlined by operational manager of Asda, a UK based retail
industry that operates their business in both domestic and international market. This company
operates their business in 633 locations with employee base of 165,000 and revenue £21,666
million. Operation manager of concerning company produce this report to CEO of Asda for
providing recommendations for their application and make an overview of organisational culture
with relationship between effective leadership and fruitful management.
LO1: Difference between leadership and management
P1: Define and compare role of leaders and managers
Leadership is a quality factor of management and operations to fulfil interest of stakeholders for
success in challenging market through relevant strategic way. Since, leadership has some
common characteristics but there are various differences with management in a business
organisation. As per comment of Liao et al. (2017: 438), management also plays crucial part of
management and operations to enhance success of an organisational objective through proper
managing style for stakeholders. Management have to manage stakeholder of an organisation
through formal way. Alternatively, leaders can lead their employees and workers through both
informal and formal ways to increase performance of different operations.
Definition of Leaders:
Leaders are the key factors of an organisation to introduce different influences to their
stakeholders such as responsibility, objectives, motivation. Similarly, leaders guide their team
members to enhance vision of organisation towards future objectives. Leadership also
communicate with management and external stakeholders to transfers different complaints of
employees to provide quality facilities. Leaders of ASDA take vital responsibility to lead retail
market business in international challenging market.
Definition of Managers:
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Managers are common influences of management of an organisation to management several
business organisation to deal with organisational objectives. According to Holten & Brenner
(2015: 16), management can be defined as this consists of several business techniques to make
an effective and profitable business environment for success. Managers have to corporate with
different operations to balance 5M which are Money, Men, Machine, Materials, and Methods.
Management of ASDA is very active in several business organisations to create prominent brand
image in international retail industry to grow revenue from competitive market.
Role of Leaders Roe of Managers
Leaders of an organisation encourage and
motivate their team members to increase their
work efficiency of different process
Managers provide different procedure to their
subordinate to manage different activities
Leadership style of leaders can influence
employees interests
Managers communicate with stakeholders to
enhance their engagements in organisational
objective
Leaders guided their employees for different
operations (Herman, 2016: 187)
Managers provide rules to maintain quality of
different operations
Leaders have to focus on different operations Managers of any organisation have to monitor
each and every process
Leaders communicate with management to
deliver needs of employees
Managers of ASDA collaborate with
stakeholders to supply quality facilities
Leaders always plays supportive role for their
employees
Management style of managers is active in
nature
Leaders can change their leading style
according to requirements
Managers cannot change their managing style
continuously
Table 1: Comparison of role and characteristics of leaders and managers
(Source: Given by Researcher)
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Thus, management and leadership play major roles in success of organisation in competitive
international markets. ASDA has prominent leadership style such as Transformative leadership
to lead stakeholders of retail market to deliver quality products to their valuable customers.
Leaders communicate with employees to adopt relevant information from their employees to
change leadership style according to situation. Moreover, leaders also build appropriate reading
strategies for their team members to deliver quality facilities for improvement of various
organisational processes. ASDA have about 10000 leaders in their international retail industry
those who serve quality leading style to subordinates.
Furthermore, managers of ASDA plays significant managing techniques to monitor and control
several stakeholders of organisation to enlarge market share in challenging retail market (Aga et
al. 2016: 806). There are several managers of ASDA such marketing manager, production
manager, service manager to grow efficiency of different departments of retail markets.
Managers of different departments are sensitive about quality and service for their customers to
enlarge business growth in challenging market.
M1: Analyze roles of leaders and managers by theoretical approach.
Leaders of an organisation follow different types of leadership theories as well as concepts for
leading teams. Following theories are commons for leadership styles:
Trait Theory:
According to this theory, leaders of different various organisations can deliver traits to their team
members to enhance quality of products for success in challenging markets. Respectively, trait
theory supplies valuable decision making process and business strategies to create successful
market strategies.
Behavioural Leadership theory:
Behaviour is one of the important factors of leadership to understand different needs of
employees to implement facilities regarding various operations (Aga et al. 2016: 806).
Behaviours can reduce communication conflict with employees for leaders of organisation.
Behavioural leadership has three major parts which are autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire
leadership.
Autocratic Leadership:
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In case of autocratic leadership, leaders may not consult with their subordinates to implement
any type of decision regarding different operations. Leaders of an organisation can use autocratic
leadership in emergency situations to achieve goal.
Democratic Leadership:
Democratic leadership takes responsibility regarding needs of their subordinates to adopt any
type of decision. On aspect of necessary improvement, leaders focus on complexity of different
operations to deliver excellent facilities (Bansal & Song, 2017: 149).
Laissez-faire Leadership:
This type of leadership may not applicable for direct solution of different process. This type of
leadership can helps leaders to take decision according to requirement. Laissez-faire Leadership
is effective in particular business environment to enhance exact performance improvement to
reduce failure of different operations.
Transformational leadership:
This is also relevant leadership style of leaders of ASDA to motivate their employees to attain
success by executing different business strategies for their employees (Hernandez et al.2016: 68).
Most of the business organisation uses this type of leadership style to access vision of
organisation in international market.
Transactional leadership:
In case of transactional leadership style, leaders evaluate ability of their team members to
provide specific procedure of work towards success in challenging market. Respectively, leaders
also supply training and development program to their employees to enhance their skills for
performance management.
Management can control, monitor, and manage different process through different managing
techniques. Moreover, there are several management theories for managing different
organisational process which are:
Classical management theories
This is one of the oldest managing styles to management subordinates of organisation by
inspiring stakeholders. According to Bansal & Song (2017: 149) these management theories help
managers to focus on different operations such as productions, marketing to grow efficiency.
Scientific management theory:
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Scientific management theory is an important part of Classical management theories,
management focuses on duration of operations to reduce waste of resources. Management can
introduces different scientific tools to increase production rate as well as quality of services for
their customers.
Bureaucracy theory:
Management of several organisations follows hierarchical organisational structure to manage
stakeholders of organisation to reduce performance of department in retail industry. Since,
management of ASDA follows hierarchical leadership style for their organisation, this managing
style also helpful for business environment (Hernandez et al.2016: 68).
Behavioural management theories
Behaviour is key tool for enhancement of communication and collaboration with stakeholders to
evaluate strong bonding. Behavioural theories have two types of strategies for management of an
organisation.
Human relationship:
In order to get stakeholders experience, management may introduce human relationship
strategies to reduce conflicts of different process in challenging market in international business
market. Management have to understand tradition of stakeholders needs to apply behaviour
(Murphy et al. 2017: 692).
Behavioural science:
According to this theory management have access different psychological behaviour factors of
employees such psychology, sociology, and anthropology to implement management decisions.
Therefore, management have to conduct analysis program to know different issues relating
various process.
LO2: Application of leadership and management
P2: Application of leadership and management is situational context
Leaders of an organisation have several roles for their team members to enhance performance in
different situation. The roles of leaders of an organisation are following:
Conflict management:
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Since, conflicts may decrease quality of different products in retail industry as well as may
reduce market size. Leader plays major responsibility to reduce conflicts in workplace by
introduces collaboration (Chiu et al. 2016: 1705).
Discipline:
Discipline is also one of the major factors of different teams to achieve success. Thus, leaders of
ASDA provide different policies to their employees to obey proper discipline regarding
workplace to serve quality facility to their customers.
Monitoring:
Leaders also focus on different process and operations to monitors performance. Respectively,
leaders also analyses the ability of their employees to provide development program to enhance
efficiency.
Encouragement & Supervision:
On the other hand, leaders can motivate their employees to enhance their engagement for
performance of different operations. Similarly, leaders of ASDA also play a major role to divide
different works among their employees (Chiu et al. 2016: 1705).
Moreover, management has several responsibilities for organisation to achieve organisational
goal in challenging international retail market. These are given below:
Planning:
In order to implement scheduling of different project operation, management implement relevant
planning for stakeholders to reduce different issues in challenging market. Management of
ASDA makes plan for maintaining strategies for different steps such as budgeting, monitoring,
and controlling.
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Figure 1: Role of managers
(Source: Given by Researcher)
Organising:
Managers also take crucial responsibilities to organise various steps and operations for their
employees in online retail market. Organising of different activities can reduce the problems of
different activities.
Controlling:
Managers also control different operations to control different process through effective
organisational structure. Management of ASDA follows hierarchical structure for controlling
several departments (Murphy et al. 2017: 692).
Leading:
Management of different organisation leads their subordinates to meet objective of ASDA to
keep out their competitors from international markets.
Staffing:
Alternatively, management also recruits effective candidate for organisation to increase
performance and growth of several departmental process.
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P3: Different theories of leadership
In this report of management and operations, accomplished by operation manager of Asda, three
main theories and of leadership has been discussed. These leadership styles have been followed
by Asda officials to maintain their work culture as well as employee base. These theories are;
Train Theory of leadership, Situational Theory of Leadership and Contingency theory of
leadership.
Trait Theory of Leadership: Trait theory of leadership emphasises on personal skill of
leadership of a leader. In case of Asda, officials operate business in much geographical location
maintaining different base of employees and customers. In order to conduct their business,
leaders of concerning retail shops follow Train theory of Leadership that infuses on personal
leadership skill, based on communication and thought deliver (Holten et al. 2015: 3-4).
Communication infuses organisational bonding among employees and produce desirable
outcome. Nevertheless, this communication induces effective leadership capability based on trait
or personality of concerning leader. This style of leadership has also been used to motivate
employees for insulating more productivity in organisational operation. In case of domestic retail
business, Asda officials follow this leadership strategy in commercialisation.
Figure 2: Different theories of leadership
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Leadership
styles
Trait theory
of
leadership
Contingency
thoery of
leadership
Situational
theory of
leadership

(Source: Created by researcher)
Situational Theory of leadership: In case of quality management and business policy, Asda
officials follow Situational theory of leadership that depends on behaviour of employees and
current business situation. In case of production and quality management, leaders are responsible
for maintaining quality of product that depends upon market demand and policy. Market demand
has been based on changing trend of customer which has been monitored by marketing
department as well as research and development wing of Asda. On other side, business policy
has been formulated by employee capacity and attitude of employees into business operation.
This theory has been aimed to make decision according to situation. Different business policies
have been evaluated by this theory. This is also helpful for leaders to encourage their employees
and make decisions according to situation.
Contingency theory of leadership: This theory of leadership has emphasized to make decision
according to situation. This leadership described that there is no best leadership theory that can
be effectively followed by business organisations (Liao et al. 2017: 438-39). Asda officials use
this theory for their company administration. This theory has a minimal link with Situational
theory of leadership by making decision according to situation. However, this theory emphasises
for making decision by evaluating both internal and external factors. In case of Risk
management, officials insulate this theory to make positive outcomes in business operation.
M2: Evaluation of strength and weakness
In this report, three major leadership theories that have been followed by Asda officials have
been discussed. In order to follow them, manager has witnessed both effectiveness and
disadvantages of these theories.
Strengths: Trait theory of leadership emphasises on personal trait or behaviour of leaders.
Personal leadership skill of leader can prove to be fruitful for organisational business. This
leadership follows concerning cultural heritage. Situational theory of leadership focuses on
making decision according to situation of business operation. This helps management to analyse
and evaluate situation for getting solution of crisis (Herman, 2016: 167-168). Contingency
theory of leadership emphasizes on situation with internal and external factors. This theory
focuses on employee capability and their opinion. Another effectiveness of this theory is to focus
on market nature and customer’s choice.
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