Boots UK Management and Leadership Analysis: A Comprehensive Report

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Management and Operations

Executive Summary
The study focuses upon the structure of management in the organization of Boots. The
specific theories related to the managerial and leadership approaches has been
determined. The positive and negative aspects of the different leadership theories have
also been applied in the study for better analysis. In order to attain the productivity of
the business, the manager has to take up various responsibilities, which are explained
in detail in the following study.
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
1. Introduction of the organization and management structure.....................................3
2. Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, highlighting the differences
between management and leadership.............................................................................4
Differences between management and leadership..........................................................4
The role of a leader and the function of a manager apply in different situational contexts.
......................................................................................................................................... 5
3. The different roles of management and leadership in application to different
organisational situations, supported by theories and concepts........................................6
4. How classical theories (for example, scientific management) and behavioural theories
(for example, Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Effect) apply to the organisation and how these
have supported growth and sustainable performance.....................................................7
5. Conclusion and Recommendations............................................................................10
References.....................................................................................................................11
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Introduction
This report will highlight the significance of the leadership and management concepts
required by the eminent UK based company, Boots. Difference between the leadership
and management in an organization discussed below will signify that both the factors
are essential for retailing business purpose. The study also sheds light on the several
theories, protocols of management operations, as well as, the significance in the
organizational context along with several influential factors.
1. Introduction of the organization and management structure
Boots is the largest retailer of the UK ranging from local pharmacy items to health and
beauty products. Having more than 2500 outlets in the United Kingdom as well as
Ireland, Boots also provides optician and as well as hearing aid services within their
outlets. John Boot established boots in 1849, but it was under his son Jessie Boot that
the company began to target and convert into a drug company. Having more than 58,
000 employees working in the UK and Ireland Boots offers a huge retailing of
pharmacies (both prescribed, non-prescribed), provides an extensive range of health
products including health drinks, supplements along with beauty products including
electrical goods like hair dryers for women, trimmers for men and many others. Apart
from optician care, Boots further diversified to offer their customers with dental aid
(Boots.com, 2019).
Management structure includes understanding the working relationships with managers,
staff and subgroups. By adopting a proper management structure continuous growth,
profitable return, customer’s satisfaction is ensured (Weller et al., 2015). On the other
hand, selecting a wrong management structure, will allow ineffective work practices,
workplace tension between the employees and the management will begin to increase
as a result the overall sales will decrease. Thus, the key components of management
structures are-
● Task Allocation-It is termed as the details of the task allocated to the employees
as per their capabilities
● Communication- Interaction among the employers and the employees plays a
vital role, which helps to connect the whole organization to run efficiently.
● Formalization- It is the degree of standardization of the work methods which will
be executed by the employees.
● Influence-It is the motivation or the influence, which boosts the employees to
achieve their target goals.
Thus, the management structure of Boots, UK facilitates their management methods as
well as their, customer service procedures in order to operate the regular marketing
functions efficiently and to sustain in the end.
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2. Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, highlighting the differences
between management and leadership
Definition of manager: The pivotal role of managers in the company like Boots, UK is
to administer the target assigned to the employees in order to achieve the target goal in
a timely manner. The manager ensures that the organization is functioning well and also
manages professionally if any conflicts arise among the staffs internally within the
organization. The managers have to perform managerial functions, which includes-
planning, organizing, leading and controlling their employees efficiently and effectively.
They possess several technical, conceptual skills to coordinate with their employees
Definition of leaders: In Boots, UK, the function of the leaders is to inspire and
encourage the employees working, to boost up their confidence and motivate them to
perform efficiently. The leaders acts as a representative who assists his teams to work
cooperatively and supports them to accomplish an assigned a target or goal. The
leaders create vision and executing new strategies, which inspires his sub staffs to build
self confidence and achieve the required goal.
Differences between management and leadership
Basis of
comparison
Leadership Management
Significance Leadership is the skill of
influencing, to accomplish a
target goal.
Management is the art of
organizing and coordinating
the activities of an
organization.
Primary Focus It motivates and inspires their
employees
It brings stability in an
organization by controlling and
organizing staff
Objective It helps in creating visions, and
setting strategies
Management set timetables,
establishes several agendas
Based on It is based on leaders and
employees trust
It controls and coordinates
employees
Strategy applied Proactive strategy is applied Reactive strategy is applied
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Capable Leadership is capable of
influencing
Management is capable of
ruling or controlling
Formulation Leadership formulates
guidelines and principles
Management formulates
policies and procedures
Table 1: Differences in management and leadership
(Source: Created by the Learner)
The role of a leader and the function of a manager apply in different situational
contexts.
Several issues arise in an organization among the employees working, thus to resolve
those issues timely and make a fair decision to satisfy their employees the leaders have
to adopt certain policies of leadership styles(Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016). Therefore,
understanding the priorities of the employees the managers as well as the leaders of
Boots allocate the task according to the employee’s capabilities. The staffs get impress
and the retention of the employees is increased. The theories, which help the purpose
of leadership of Boosts, are:
Contingency Leadership
It emphasizes on the fact that the same leadership style is not applicable for all situation
which means the leaders must plan separate strategies for every unalike situation
(Jansen et al 2016). The leaders of Boots is trying overcome different situations like
loss of business, gradual lack of employees and trying to enhance the positive factors to
retain their employees, also managing to decrease the production cost so that the
overall sales of the firm increases.
Systemic Leadership: The systematic leadership deals with the system organizational
which is to be improved so that the employees can function in a conventional manner
(Boylan, 2016). The leaders of the Boots thus, help their employees to understand the
goal, target of the organization, and as a result help to build confidence in them. They
leaders implement several strategies to encourage their staff to accomplish the
objectives so that the business runs profitably.
Situational Leadership
Situational leadership emphasizes that the leaders are efficient enough and they
choose the best action and makes the best decision regarding any issue arising in an
organisation (Meier, 2016). Boots has applied this Situational theory to manage any
kind of conflicts emerged in the organisation among the employees and tries to solve
those accordingly making the best decision in a professional and timely manner.
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3. The different roles of management and leadership in application to different
organisational situations, supported by theories and concepts.
Roles of management
Management mostly entails to the tactics of supervising the employees and allocate the
resources and all the funding required for the growth of the organization of Boots. It
deals with processes like planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Iqbal et al.,
2015).
Roles of leadership
The leaders benefit the organization by directing all the members of the organization of
Boots towards common goals and objectives of the organization, Boots.
The theories used in the leadership goals are of various kinds, and these can be
segmented as transactional leadership and charismatic leadership.
Transactional leadership- the leadership that is based on the transactional model
focuses on the interactive behaviour of the leaders and the employees (Steier et al.,
2015). The factors, which are given the most concern, are the appraisals, which are
given to the employees based on their standard of performances, the extra payments
on added performance features, analysis of the processes involved in the growth of the
organization, together with the grading prospects that are allocated to the various
designations allocated to the employees.
Charismatic leadership- in this leadership approach, the communication patterns of
the leaders with the subordinates is the most important concern. These leaders make
use of the inspirational messages and slogans to inspire the employees to complete
their assignments with constant enthusiasm. Non-verbal communication is used in this
stage. From this leadership theory, the leaders exhibit the confidence level they have on
themselves as well on others. The employees get highly motivated as the leaders set
high expectations on the achievement capability of the subordinates (Mesu et al., 2015).
In the charismatic leadership model, the individual characteristics and the traits of the
leaders as well as of the team members are determined. Based on this behaviour of the
leaders vary and this kind of behaviour consequently creates an impact on the followers
and other members of the group.
The theories present in the operations of management and leadership are as follows:
● Contingency theory- from this point of view, it can be said that there is no
particular kind of leadership which is the best for a certain situation. For the
company of Boots, the managers are the ones who perform the duty of managing
the operations of the entire organization of Boots. The contingencies that can
portray themselves as the hindrances for the growth of the company objectives
are mostly in the forms of technological factors, demands of the suppliers and
other distributors. Most often, the interests of the customers change, resulting in
the organizations, like Boots to make modifications in their strategies (Yousafzai
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et al., 2015). As the customers are the most priority of the company, therefore
the leadership aspects should change in such a manner, that the interests of
these stakeholders are fulfilled.
The competitors are yet other role players in the contingency theories, as they
constantly change their strategies and efforts so as to make their businesses make
outstanding performance in the business world. The managers, therefore, have to
carefully analyse the loopholes these competitive organizations have in their activities.
Thereafter, corrections are made in the organization of Boots and it is ensured that they
do not do the same mistakes and lose the customers in the end.
The laws formed by the government of the United Kingdom are integral factors which
can extremely influence the performance of the organization. When the protocols are
supportive in nature, the leaders feel free to make innovations, recruit higher number of
candidates and lead the success of the businesses to higher notch. Whereas, during
times of negative conditions of the government laws, the company leaders have to
carefully analyze all the nitty gritty of the conditions before taking a single step in the
operations of the business (Harrison et al., 2016).
The unions present in the organization of Boots are another contingency factor which
impacts the functionalities of the company.
● Systems perspective
In the systems approach of leadership and management, every organization like Boots,
performs as a segmented method, such that there are different systems, like the
marketing system, recruitment system, production and promotion systems and many
more.
The outputs generated from these systems wholly depend on the quality and amount of
inputs has been inserted for the implementation of the operations. The transformation
process deals with the conversion of inputs to outputs (Sidani et al., 2015). Feedbacks
are also given during the transformation process.
4. How classical theories (for example, scientific management) and behavioural
theories (for example, Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Effect) apply to the organisation
and how these have supported growth and sustainable performance.
● Behavioural perspective
The behavioural perspective helps in the management procedures of the organization of
Boots. It is the responsibility of the managers and leaders to create a stable
environment in the organization that would enable employees to heighten their scale of
productivity and make the company reach new heights of profitability (Gherhes et al.,
2016).
The renowned Elton Mayo conducted the experiments on Hawthorne effects which
helped the organizations like Boots, to improve their management and leadership goals
to a certain extent. During times of crisis, the manager has to tackle the critical situation
very intellectually. Hence, the theories involved in the behavioural approach of the
managers and the employees are coordinated with the utilization of these theories.
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Elton Mayo
Based on the experiments conducted with the help of the Hawthorne effects, it has been
found that various performance aspects and the productivity of the organization as a
whole, increased tremendously. It derives the fact the employees can improve their
efficiency, once they are taken care of, guide at all the tough situations, appraise them
very often and motivate them in times of need. The functions of the leaders are
therefore, to support the team members, understand their capabilities, and create a
positive atmosphere so that the members of the company, Boots, thrive during their
career. This leadership theory focuses on the behavioural approach of the humans
working under the purview of the organization of Boots (McGehee et al., 2015). They do
not follow the scientific approach and considers only the emotional perspective of the
employees. For instance, when the workers develop a sense of belonging to the
organizational goals, their performance status gets augmented and they do not work for
mere profits, but for their own satisfaction.
When the workers are involved in a group, rather than left alone, they feel more
engaged with the growth of the company. The Hawthorne effect mainly contributes to
the attention provided by the managers to the employees and not any other financial
concerns of the organization.
The pros and cons of the Elton mayo theory are:
Advantages
According to Ebrahimi Mehrabani et al., (2015), the workers of the organization, Boots
gets more freedom in their allocated tasks. The communication factors and the
teamwork qualities also get thumbs up. The democratic pattern of working makes the
organization boost its productivity.
Disadvantages
The responsibilities of the managers get increased and they are always under a
constant pressure. As per Freeman and Siegfried Jr, (2015), the workers of Boots are
given more freedom, therefore, the managers have less control over the workers and
there remains a high risk factor that the staff may get distracted, causing the goals and
objectives of the company get dismantled.
Douglas McGregor
The proposed expert of management gave birth to the concept of the Theory X and
Theory Y which are the styles of the managers with which their perform their managerial
roles and actions of the company, Boots (Carraher, 2015). The managers with the
perception of Theory X believe that the employees do not like their job and tends to
avoid all the responsibilities allocated to them. Whereas, the managers of the Theory Y
category believes that the subordinates or the employees enjoy their work and they
attain satisfaction from the roles they play in the organizational point of view.
● Classical perspective
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The classical perspective of the management theory takes under consideration three
kinds of managerial approach, which are scientific management, administrative
management and bureaucratic management. These are illustrated as follows:
 Scientific management
In the concept of scientific management, the founder of the theory Frederick W. Taylor
stated that it is one of the best ways to accomplish any of the tasks with the most
accuracy rate. Most of the time, the scientific approach takes into account the laws of
time and motion which comes beneficial for the completion of the tasks (Blanchard,
2015). This type of management theory took advantage of the concept of the bricklayers
and defined 17 elements of work as the system.
While seeing from a critical perspective, it has been ascertained that the scientific
management theory has several advantages and disadvantages associated with it,
which are explained as follows:
Advantages
The productivity of the employees and the organization of Boots, as a whole get
enhanced, thus improving the revenues accrued from the customers. According to
Cunningham and Sinclair, (2015), the cooperation level of the managers and the
employees gets augmented to a whole new level. The managers can control and
discipline the members with an empathetic attitude and thus leads to more accurate
results in the production and other operations of the organization. The resources of both
financial and human resources are utilized in a better way, causing more profit margins
for the company. The environment within which the employees perform their tasks gets
positively motivated, making the employees to be helpful to each other. The owners of
the company, employees, customers, managers, leaders and other stakeholders of the
company, Boots gets benefited and the conflicts that occur between the labour
department and the managerial positions get reduced (Tabassi et al., 2016).
Disadvantages
Despite the several advantages associated with the scientific management theory, there
have been many disadvantages, like the cost accrued in this scientific management is
quite high due to the training given to the employees, making enhanced standardization
of the products. The entire management develops a controlling attitude over the
employees. As per Mittal and Elias, (2016), the creativity level of the staff deteriorates,
the tasks are repeated on a regular basis and the job gets monotonous. The planning
methods undertaken in the processes reduce the productivity level of the employees, as
they do not get the opportunity to be flexible. Administrative management
The developer of the idea of administrative management was Henri Fayol. Here, the
basic functions that the managers are responsible for are given the most consideration
(Heifetz and Linsky, 2017). It is the administrative management, where the concept of
14 principles has been introduced. The functions for which the managers are
accountable includes for the process of planning, leading, organizing and leading.
Bureaucratic management
The classical theory of management integrated by the managers of Boots also
incorporates the policies of bureaucratic management theory. The techniques, which
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are used by this kind of management, are taking control of the rules and regulations of
the firms, like Boots. Moreover, a hierarchical pattern of management is used in this
kind of management type. There is also a system of division of labour followed by the
managers of the bureaucratic management model.
The rational behavioural patterns are considered in this approach and are mostly
impersonal. The employees who are selected for giving promotional opportunities are
strictly based on their performance and credibility (Koryak et al., 2015). There are
various kinds of authority integrated by the bureaucratic theories and these are
traditional authority, charismatic authority and the rational-legal authority.
Importance of operations management in the organization
The main function of the operations management is to ensure that the production
process of the company, Boots is happening in a smooth manner, thereby enhancing
the productivity of the company (Kramer and Pfitzer, 2016).
5. Conclusion and Recommendations
From the above report, it can be finalized that the roles of the managers and the leaders
are a crucial factor for the growth of the organization. The differentiation between the
leaders and the managers has been evaluated and the characteristics of each of
management and leadership are formulated. The diverse leadership models like
situational leadership, systems leadership and the contingency approaches are
discussed in detail. The importance of the operations management and the
improvements the leaders and manager’s make in the growth of the business has been
inferred. The advantages and disadvantages of the scientific management theory has
been assessed in order to determine the gaps the leaders needs to meet so that the
company of Boots can increase the profits.
The leaders and managers can improve the performance of the organization, Boots by
incorporating the transparency level between the employers and the subordinates. The
rewarding policies integrated by these individuals’ increases the motivation factor of the
staff, making them to increase their self esteem and eventually improving the intellectual
ability of the staff. The communication levels of the staff heighten and therefore all the
departments get clarity about the purpose behind the functions of the organization.
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