CBU403: Impact of Leadership & Management Theories on ASDA Culture

This report examines leadership and management theories and their impact on ASDA's effectiveness and culture. It defines leaders and managers, contrasts hard and soft skills, and analyzes various leadership theories like contingency, transactional, transformational, and democratic styles, discussing their influence on decision-making. The report also explores management theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and the importance of organizational culture, highlighting ASDA's hierarchical and communal culture. It concludes by emphasizing the crucial roles of leaders and managers in achieving organizational goals and fostering a positive working environment. The study uses ASDA, a British supermarket chain, as a case study to illustrate these concepts.

INTRODUCTION TO
MANGEMENT THOERY
AND SKILLS

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of various leadership theory examples and their impact on decision-making..............3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Management theory are the collection of the ideas and the rules for managing the
organization. Theories of management addresses the supervisors implementing the strategy for
accomplishing the organizational goals and motivating the employees for performing with the
greatest ability. The management skills are the collection of the business planning, decision-
making, and problem solving these skills are essential for the organization for achieving the well
and desired objectives. ASDA the public limited BRITISH company, leading retailers of
supermarkets chain in UK, serving customers with chain of supermarkets and online services.
The main purpose of the company is to make the products and services more affordable.
This assignment will discuss the details about the leadership and management theories
and its impact on the effectiveness and culture on ASDA.
MAIN BODY
Analysis of various leadership theory examples and their impact on decision-making
Leader is the bold individual with vision, who inspires the team for achieving the goals.
leader is an effective individual who has shared vision aligned with the core values and
understands how to reach to the desired goals. These individuals inspire, manage and support
the team for working creatively and confidently towards the goal. Leaders empower the team
members for embracing, the new leadership qualities and styles with independently accountable
vision (Cooper, 2021). Leader of a company is the leading person who ensure that the team has
sufficient tools and support for achieving the desired goals. Manager is an individual who is
responsible for supervising and motivating the employees for directing the progress of the
organization. An individual who is mainly responsible for getting the things done in the right
way. Its main function is to plan, organize, execute, and control all the available resources
(Febryandoko and Widigdo, 2021). Manger of a company manages various activities concerning
the organization as they can hire and fire the employees, ask for adequate supplies and
equipments and also organize the team with the nature of the tasks.
Hard skills mainly are the abilities and the skills which are easily measurable. These are
the technical abilities acquired for the job. An effective manager generally requires the hard
skills to get succeed. The hard skills for the managers mainly include the business management ,
logistics, hiring, budgeting, human resource knowledge, finance, accounting, office management,

public speaking, project management, digital communication, using foreign languages, operating
with the spreadsheet, point of selling system. Lastly, also acquiring the various programming
languages. Hard skills are important for the manger in order to have the knowledge to perform
for the requirement of the potions. Examples of hard skills are the accountants are the asset
manager and the account analysis. As for the managers they are managing the office and whole
organization. Leader with the hard leadership skills mainly acquire the specific technical
knowledge and the training in the competitive, data driven fields. Hard leaders work within the
organizational cultures, this ;leadership is suitable when the problems are simple and clearly
defines (Lepeley, Beutell and Abarca, 2021). These leaders mainly focus on the specific goals,
agreed upon the rewards and which are purely transactional. These leaders are more goal
focused. Examples of famous hard skill leaders are Steve jobs, jack Welch.
On the contrary the soft skills are the traits which makes an individual a good person,
such as etiquette, communication, listening others. Soft leadership skills are those which helps in
negotiating the win on win task, constantly motivating the employees, aligning workforce. These
skills mainly focus n the transformation mainly concerning the soft tactics. The soft leaders
adopt the democratic and autocratic styles, these leaders mainly focusses the strategies and does
not force people to follow. Soft leaders are better than hard leaders as they work for higher
collective purpose with the mission and visions. Example of famous soft skill leaders are :
George Washington, martin Luther (Lyu and Liu, 2021). Also, the soft managerial skill are
needed in the organization for maintaining the adequate level of workforce. Mainly the soft skills
acquired by the manager are transparency communication skills, listening skills, appreciating and
encouraging team work, trustworthiness.
The key leadership theories and management theory that every manger should follow in
the organization mainly includes are : The contingency theory : This theory of leadership is
applicable to all the situations. It recognizes the variables influencing the situations, leaders
further choose the right action by keeping in mind those variables. With this style the leaders
must strike the right balance of the needs. Example of this theory affecting in the decision-
making : imagining that the new manger is appointed at the ASDA company. In this scenario the
following situational factor can occur : trust will be low : because of the promoting the new
manager In the company. Secondly, the turnover of the staff will be high in the supermarkets
chain so it will be difficult to build strong relationships instantly, the position power will be high

as the ability to hire, fire and punish the employees will be required to achieve the goals. The
relationship oriented leaders get the best results in this leadership style which influence in
decision-making. Transactional theory of leadership this leadership style as seen in the ASDA,
mainly used in the middle management level in the large organization which considers the
rewards and punishments as the basis for the leadership (Rosenblatt, 2018). This is mostly used
theory in the corporate businesses. Which emphasizes on the rewards and punishments which
motivate the employees. Willie Walsh believes that salary of an employee is sufficient for
getting the work done. Transformational leadership theory mainly focus on the relationship
between the leaders and the followers. According to this theory the leaders must be the
inspirational, encouraging and transforming everyone for becoming better for every task. This
theory helps in transforming the skills and the leaders are typically motivated by showing the
ability with the significance of the task and goods.
Democratic leadership theory and the transactional theory is mainly used in ASDA
company : with democratic theory the leader plays participative role. Here the leaders engage
themselves with the role of the employees. Example: in ASDA this style is being followed as
the leader of ASDA is also working as a team member, also give suggestions and opinions to the
management also allows opinions in taking the final decision of the company. By practising
these employees get further rewards which is regarded as transactional style of leadership. This
leadership style will help the in evaluating the sense of purpose for achieving the specific goals
which future helps in valuing the opinions of the employees and influences the decision-making
in organization.
Some of the management theory adopted by ASDA are : Maslow's hierarchy theory as a
management and motivation theory used by ASDA, according to this theory the individual need
is motivated for achieving the objective, once the objective is achieved the individual changes
the goal and is motivated for achieving the next goal. Thus, with this theory the hierarchy
diagram is drawn in which the lowest level considers as the basic need for the employee, which
further motivated everyone for working (Phan, 2021). Once a person is able to meet the needs,
their objectives changes to the next level of requirements for meeting the next level of objectives.
Culture mainly includes all the code of manner, dress, religion, rituals of the society.
Culture is important as it is the reflection of the Community or the nation. It helps in determining
the factors of the community of how societies are responding, reacting and growing. Culture

creates sense of belongingness for so many people and also unifies the societies. In the lives as it
gives the ways of living. The cultural values serve as the founding principles of the lives of
individual and society it produces he stability for the people, it helps in nurturing the people,
helps in expanding and growing the community.
ASDA follows the hierarchical and functional type of the organizational and communal
culture. The structure followed by the company resulting in the lack of communication between
the different groups, and each groups work separately. With the lower groups the people feel
some dissatisfaction as not actively involved in the decision-making. In order to minimize the
loophole, the communal culture is very important for ASDA which helps in gaining the better
performance (Organizations Behaviour of ASDA, 2021). Thus, a culture helps in providing better
and positive working environment. With the common objective which helps n enhancing the
level of commitment by the employees. Also, the organizational structure and the culture
provides the common motive which helps the company in performing better in the dynamic
environment.
Leaders and Managers play very important role in the organization. The role of leader is
to lead the organization and directs everyone in achieving the goals. The role of the leader in a
company helps the workforce in increasing the efficiency and skills. Leaders set the vision for
the organization and gives direction for achieving those visions. Moreover, Manger plays very
important role in the organization as they perform various functions, primary functions is to plan
for the objectives, further organizing the workforce and equipments, leading the employees
towards the objectives and controlling the performance of employees in achieving the common
goal.
CONCLUSION
With this assignment it can be concluded that leaders individuals who inspire, support
the team for working creatively and confidently towards achieving the goal. The managers are
responsible for performing the activities in right manner. Soft skills and hard skills must be
acquired by the manager and leaders for operating with the technical equipments and aligning the
workforce in company. The culture of an organization plays very important role culture helps in
determining the factors affecting the whole society in which the business is operating. There are
various leadership theories mainly the transactional and democratic style and contingency theory

influences the company in the decision-making process and also impacted at various levels at the
operating levels.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cooper, M ., 2021. How to be a good leader. ITNOW. 63(2). pp.32-33.
Febryandoko, F. and Widigdo, A. M. N., 2021. THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP, TEAMWORK,
AND BUSINESS PROCESS IN AFFECTING THE PERFOMANCE OF ACCOUNT
MANAGER AT PT. TELKOM INDONESIA IN SELLING THE VPN PRODUCTS.
Dinasti International Journal of Management Science. 2(3). pp.484-493.
Lepeley, M. T., Beutell, N. J. and Abarca, N. eds., 2021. Soft Skills for Human Centered
Management and Global Sustainability. Routledge.
Lyu, W. and Liu, J., 2021. Soft skills, hard skills: What matters most? Evidence from job
postings. Applied Energy. 300. p.117307.
Phan, P. H., 2021. Where Is Management Theory in An Age of Crises?. Academy of
Management Perspectives. 35(3). pp.331-333.
Rosenblatt, L. M., 2018. The transactional theory of reading and writing. In Theoretical Models
and Processes of Literacy .(pp. 451-479). Routledge.
Online
Organizations Behaviour of ASDA. 2021. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.academia.edu/24681037/Organizations_Behaviour_of_ASDA_and_Amazon>