Analysis of Leadership and Management in B&Q plc: A Report

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Running head: MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS 1
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MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS 2
Executive Summary:
The paper will focuses upon the leadership and managerial characteristics and
aspects of B&Q plc. It will elaborately discuss about the different theories of leadership
and focuses upon the functions of managers and its importance in the workplace.

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Contents
Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………..3
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………....3
Roles and characteristics of leaders………………………………………………..4
Roles and characteristics of managers……………………………………………..5
Situation affecting the role of a leader and function of a manger………………...6
Range of theories and concepts in the leadership………………………………...7
Conclusion………………………………………….…………………………………..9
Reference………………………………………………………………………………10

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Introduction:
The words leaders and managers are very much significant for each and every
organizations, groups, and units. While speaking about leaders, the leaders are those
who perform the right things and the managers are those who manage and control the
process in the right way. In the business perspectives, leadership is done for achieving
certain objectives and challenging goals which are required for taking the business
forward and thereby inspiring the others in the organization and to perform their best.
The managers are one who is solely responsible for managing and controlling and
taking the charge for certain tasks. Under manager, there are staffs or groups who work
according to the instructions of managers and report him or her whenever it is required.
The chosen organization for this paper is B&Q plc which is a multinational company
headquartered in the United Kingdom. It offers products of home improvement tools and
also gardening supplies and plants. The company has a huge customer base and its
financial statement reports suggest that the company is in a favourable situation while
generating considerable revenue and net income. The company now decided to expand
its business operations and thus to do so the management of the company wants to
prepare a framework and to train their staffs to initiate for the future management and
leadership roles. So it is very much essential to develop a management and leadership
development programme for this organization (B & Q Plc). Hence a report will be
presented entirely relating to the roles, functions and characteristics of the leaders and
managers within the organization.

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a. The roles and characteristics of leaders are discussed below:
i. Leadership are essential for all levels – The leadership can be defined as
the function required for all the levels of management. In the top, most
level of management leaders helps in formulating the plans while at the
lower level it executes and makes interpretation of the plans. Leaders
provide counselling to their subordinates during the time for execution of
the plans.
ii. Reconciliation and integration of the organizational and personal goals –
The leaders with the help of its leadership traits smartly integrates and
also reconciles individual goals of the staffs with that of the organizational
goals. The leader always tries to make proper coordination of the efforts
made by the people to a very common purpose in order to achieve a
common objective.
iii. Organization's representative – A leader can also be regarded as the
representative of the organization as he had to represent the organization
in various conferences, seminars and general meetings. His prime
objective is to establish a communication process for the organization with
the outside parties.
iv. Acts as a friend and guide – A leader always have three most significant
traits in his nature i.e. he acts as friend philosopher and guide to his
employees or staffs and followers. He is a philosopher in the sense by
providing experience and intelligence by guiding its employees whenever
there is a requirement. He is a friend when he shares the opinions and
feelings with his staffs or employees. Finally, he is a guide by establishing
communication and supervising the plans to the different levels of
management in order to obtain the goals of the organization.
v. Provide support – A leader in an organization offers cooperation and
support to its subordinates. He offers extended support with the help of his
experience and maturity level. Thus he invites important suggestions and
tries to implement them to achieve the enterprise goals (Zhu et al 2009).

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The roles and characteristics of managers are discussed below:
i. Interpersonal roles – It is the responsibility of managers to perform his
responsibilities and duties. For this, he might have to sign important legal
documents of the organization as the representative head of the
organization. He might also receive the outside guests and have to attend
important meetings, seminars and social functions of the organization.
The managers had to solve various activities related to subordinates. He
takes part in the recruitment and hiring process and also in firing and
making the employees discipline. His prime objective is to motivate the
employees and to establish the contracts situated outside the agencies in
order to gather the information related to the business. The providers of
the outside information might be in groups or individuals.
ii. Decisional roles – There are basically four types of decisional roles
according to Mintzberg. The manager oversees and takes new
assignments for the development of the performance in the organization,
this particular role is known as the entrepreneurial role. Managers initiate
important actions to eradicate and solve unforeseen and instant problems
affecting the interest of the organization. He primarily acts as the
allocation of resources thereby monitoring and assigning monetary,
physical and human resources. He also takes the position of negotiators
at the time of bargaining and discussing with the parties and groups.
iii. Informational roles – It is essential for each and every manager to
possess informational roles. It is necessary to gather knowledge and
information about the market scenario form the outside sources, hence
managers here plays a significant role in performing these activities. The
information provided by managers is considered to be precise and factual.
It also has interpretations that are required for the benefits of the users. In
representing the organization he acts as the spokesperson to the
outsiders (Damanpour et al 2008).
Thus from the above roles and characteristics of leaders and managers, there exists
some sort of differences. Leaders are the ones who motivate the employees or groups

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and show them the right path to achieve the desired goals and objectives. While
managers are the ones who controls and manages the employees and staffs working
under him. It is the sole responsibility of the managers to achieve the business
objectives and goals within a stipulated time period. Hence this can be regarded as the
subtle differences that exist in between the leaders and managers.

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b. Situation affecting the role of a leader and function of a manger -
The roles of leaders and functions of managers in B& Q can be affected because
of various reasons. Mainly if the leaders and managers are basically focused
upon profit making then sometimes tends to ignore the well being and puts more
pressure on their employees or staffs. It affects the culture of teams and the
satisfaction level of the employees and thereby inviting the collateral damage for
the organization. Thus these behavioural patterns become costly for the
organization. Thus it is very much essential to maintain a positive culture and
atmosphere within the organization in order to increase the effectiveness and
productivity of the organization. Profit generation must not be the main objective
or goals for a leader or a manager. It is not a wise decision to put excessive
pressure or workload over the employees which will force them to quit or
adversely affects their productivity.
Alternatively, there are some situations when leaders and managers have
to take strict decisions in order to achieve certain objectives within a stipulated
time period. Like for B& Q plc if there is a requirement of huge orders for home
improvement tools and that too within a specified time period then to attain the
objective the leaders had to follow strict policies and strategies to attain that
particular objective within the time period. The leaders or managers, in turn, will
have to offer incentives or overtime pay to their employees or workers to
complete the work within a short span of time. Hence there will be work pressure
for the employees but still, they will be eager to absorb the pressure for the sake
of getting bonus and incentives. This policy or integrity will not hamper the work
atmosphere and discipline that exists within the organization (Failla et al 2008).

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c. Range of theories and concepts in the leadership are as follows:
i. Situational leadership – This form of leadership is somewhat flexible and it
automatically adapts to the present work environment. It also looks after
the requirements and organizational needs. It is not at all based upon the
particular skills of the leader whereas it tends to modify the management
style in order to fulfil the needs and requirements of the organization. The
most significant factor in situational leadership involves adaptability. Here
the leaders are required to move from one style of leadership to another in
order to meet the demands and requirements of the organization and also
to its staffs or employees. The leader following the situational leadership
has a great insight for understanding the changes in the management
style and t its strategies (Thompson et al 2009).
ii. System leadership - System leadership helps the leaders of an
organization in order to create suitable conditions where the people
representing from various levels might work accordingly and as per their
capacity. The system leaders generally use the sound principles for
properly understanding the human behaviour and to understand and
frame out the model's system design, good leadership, social process and
organizational strategy. It also enhances the leaders by supplying the
necessary tools and also to predict the behaviour of the people within the
organization. It helps in constructing efficient systems which results in the
formation of effective realisation and required behaviour for meeting the
purpose of the organization (Hargreaves et al 2008).
iii. Contingency leadership - Contingency leadership theory put more
emphasis towards the efficiency of the leadership patterns and it shows
how the leadership is dependent towards checking the style of leadership
with that of the right situations. This theory also assumes the fact that the
behaviours and styles both these factors cannot mean to be modified or
influenced. The main objective of this leadership theory is that the leaders
might not be active or efficient in all of the situations but they will be
effective in those situations only which will be suitable for them. The

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mismatched form of leadership generally results in creating a great
amount of anxiety for the leader as the work pressure or stress related to
it will compel the leaders to initiate a wrong and unfair form of decisions
and which ultimately results in adverse effect for the organization (Yukl, G.
2011).
While carefully analyzing all these three important leadership theories it will be
effective for B & Q plc to follow the principles of situational and system leadership. As
the leaders in situational leadership are flexible and it automatically adapts to the
present work environment which is applied by the leaders or managers in this
organization then that will be beneficial for the organization in terms of absorbing the
work pressure and directing the team or group of staffs in a very strategic way.
Whereas in the system leadership it will help the employees of B & Q plc to work
systematically and to adapt with the various levels within the organization and act as
per the capacity. Thus both of this leadership apart from contingency leadership is
essential for the managers and leaders of this organization.

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Conclusion:
This paper is basically focused upon the leadership goals, objectives
characteristics and managerial functions which an organization must initiate in order to
run its business operations without hindrances. Here the chosen company is B& Q plc
which had its business throughout different countries and at present moment is
expanding at a good pace. The preferable roles and characteristics of managers are
discussed and along with it, various types of situations which can affect the function of
manager and leader are also highlighted in this paper. Additionally, the analysis of B &
Q plc is also made in order to determine how different unavoidable situations are
affecting the work environment and behavioural pattern of the organization.

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References:
B & Q Plc. Retrieved from: https://www.diy.com/corporate/about/
Damanpour, F., & Schneider, M. 2008. Characteristics of innovation and innovation
adoption in public organizations: Assessing the role of managers. Journal of
public administration research and theory, 19(3), 495-522.
Failla, K. R., & Stichler, J. F. 2008. Manager and staff perceptions of the manager's
leadership style. Journal of Nursing Administration, 38(11), 480-487.
Hargreaves, A., Halász, G., & Pont, B. 2008. The Finnish approach to system
leadership.
Thompson, G., & Vecchio, R. P. 2009. Situational leadership theory: A test of three
versions. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 837-848.
Yukl, G. 2011. Contingency theories of effective leadership. The SAGE handbook of
leadership, 24(1), 286-298.
Zhu, W., Avolio, B. J., & Walumbwa, F. O. 2009. Moderating role of follower
characteristics with transformational leadership and follower work engagement.
Group & Organization Management, 34(5), 590-619.