Analysis of Leadership and Management Styles at British Petroleum

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes leadership and management at British Petroleum.

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS

Table of Contents
An introduction to the organisation and management structure......................................................3
Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, highlighting the differences between
management and leadership.............................................................................................................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
The different roles of management and leadership in application to different organizational
situations, supported by theories and concepts................................................................................8
Conclusions on how managers and leaders have made an impact on the organisation and
recommendations for future improvements...................................................................................11
Reference List................................................................................................................................13

An introduction to the organisation and management structure
Petroleum industries include the process, which is global and includes the process of extraction, exploration,
and transportation. The study deals with the British Petroleum who is the world’s one of the super major oil
and petroleum industries and comes in the seventh number. The company was established as a subsidiary of
Burmah Oil Company and it dates back to the Anglo Persian Oil Company in the year 1908 (bp.com,
2019). The company has almost 18300 service stations all over the world and is listed in the London Stock
Exchange.
Figure 1: Management Structure
(Source: Frynas, 2015)
The above figure shows that the management structure of a company should be very strong in order to keep
the activities in place. The British Petroleum follows the structure where first come the CEO under whom
comes the CFO, COB, HSE, Chief Executive of OIL. They impart the leadership and under them come the
marketing and the production department.

Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, highlighting the differences between
management and leadership
Contemporary and Seminal Theories of Management
The concepts that are derived from the efficiencies of the underpinning theories of contemporary
theories of management are quite beneficial to the alleviation of the leadership style and
managerial qualities at the organisation of British Petroleum.
Behavioural theory
The facets described by the theory are on the lines of the identification of the sentiments and
emotional considerations that has assertive influences on the human productive outcomes.
Theory of Management of Mary Parker Follet
The terms of the leader and the manager are defined at British Petroleum through this theory by
working on the advents of providing extensive training in the identification of the coordinated
efforts as the means of progression in the objectives of optimum productivity. The managers are
asked to participate in the training programs of building an effective team and ascend on the
imparting of the learning within the employees.
Elton Mayo’s Theory of Motivation
The responsibilities of the manager are defined through the Theory of Management by the
accomplishment of the requests that is put forward by the employees (Berman and Van Buren,
2014). The organisation of British Petroleum has been observant to numerous occasions where
the managers have accepted the wage hikes to motivate in the times of arduous working
schedules while actuating on the drilling process. This is in turn has resulted in the alleviated
motivation of employees. This upliftment of morals could be imposed on the features of Elton
Mayo’s Theory of Motivation.
McGregor’s Theory of Management
This theory consists of two different models. The perspectives of the Theory Y, define the roles
of the manager and leader that are asserted in their operations at British Petroleum. This has been
implemented due to the contributions it has been reflecting on the prospect of maintaining a
positive organisational culture. The managerial efficacies on developing the employee
motivation are undertaken through the aspects of instantiating the programs, which initiates the
advents of voluntary participations in the programs alleviating the employees striving hard for
performance (Lawter et al., 2014).
Contingency Theory
The definitions of the contingency theories exerts dominance on the descriptions of the
developing a leadership style that produces responses in accordance to the developing adverse
situations. The company of British is vying their trade in the energy industry and delves in the
activities of petroleum extraction. There are numerous occasions, which could prop up
hindrances while undertaking the oil extraction processes. The managers and the leaders have

been observant to the circumstances where they have incorporated flexibility in order to address
the situations of accidents in the oil rigs with viable accommodations in the administration
policies. It assisted in providing the employees with the efficacies in their productivity and
alleviating their roles even in the most critical of situations (Huczynski and Buchanan, 2014).
The institution has been instantiating the roles of the manager and leader through the William
Ouchi’s theory Z in the subjects of the alleviating the job satisfaction of the employees by
enlightening the emotion of belongingness to the organizational cause. The organisation has been
ardent follower to the aspects of the maintaining a substantial contribution in the disciplines of
professional ethics and the Corporate Social responsibility. The manager at British Petroleum
conducts a seminar on a weekly basis to educate the employees about the organisational
objectives and thus it justifies the introduction of William Ouchi’s theory Z.
The main objectives of the petroleum industries are to ensure the presence of energy. It helps in
transportation. The British petroleum produces the petroleum and they meet the objective of
potential reserves and the resources. Technically, the resources can be produced and their
performances can be measured with the help of some principles. The principles include Just in
Time management, Six sigma Principles, and Kaizen.
The Just in Time management technique is a type of lean methodology, which has been
designed to increase the efficiency, to cut the cost and to decrease the waste the waste.
Advantages - The advantages lie in the lower holding cost of the inventory. The cash flow is
improved and the dead stock is less as the time is managed properly. There are little rooms for
error in this inventory management.
Disadvantages – The supplier does not deliver goods to companies exactly on the time and in
correct amounts. This could affect the production process. There might be natural disaster that
can interfere with the flow of goods to companies from the suppliers (Filippini and Forza, 2016).
Kaizen - The petroleum Industries link to the Kaizen system also. This means the companies
concentrate on the continuous improvement of themselves. This is a slow process and ongoing
one. The Petroleum Industries use this system in order to implement the changes. This process
might affect many teams and hence are discussed with the parties before implementation (Kumar
et al., 2017). Since related to the energy resources, the petroleum industries are highly concerned
about this process.
Six Sigma - The six sigma principle is actually an approach, which is systematic in order to find
and then eliminate the errors. The Six sigma uses the statistical methods to improve the quality
by minimising the variability in the processes of the business (Allen, 2019). The business ranges
from engineering to purchasing. The British Petroleum is an UK based organisation who uses the
Six Sigma principles also to improve the quality of the business. The Six Sigma mainly focuses
on the seven core factors. Some are-
Manage and improve the smooth flow of processing – This step is different. This talks about
improving the process by removing the non value added steps and the potential wastes.
Advantage – This improves the flow smoothly.

Disadvantage - However, removing the non-value-added steps sometimes hamper the important
stages of processing and delay them.
Through commitment in the project, the company can manage everything and can smoothly
process the flow of work. British petroleum
Removing the potential waste and non value added steps. –The organisation needs to remove
the non value added steps but while doing so, the vital steps should not be ignored.
Advantage – Removing the wastes in the very first stage increases the potentiality.
Disadvantage – Sometimes while removing the wastes, the real service gets denied.
The BP has put effort in delivering the products in time and in reduced time cycle. They have
been able to meet the criteria with the help of the removal of potential waste. The British
Petroleum treats the water, the rod-pump and their designs all these are designed in accurate
manner (Forman et al., 2016). Little waste in managing these products would reduce the non
value steps. The effort can be used in the choosing of proper candidates who can deliver good
work.
Managing by the facts and reduce variations – All the steps should be taken very accurately and
they should be measured while performing. The variations are not accepted while doing the six
sigma principles.
Advantage –Helps in reducing the variations in data.
Disadvantages – High accuracy is needed. A slight mistake will lead to irrelevant data
collections.
The British Petroleum gets itself involves in managing the matters by facts which helps in
engaging more people and getting the work done (D’Andrea and Reddy, 2016). They involve the
strategic objectives and reduce the variations where they keep count of exact data. They include
measures like safety, employee engagement, and Hedging. All these help in managing by the
facts accurately.
Involve and equip people in the process – This is very important to involve people and equip
them with proper work to improve the standard of the institution. Involving the right amount of
employees and equipping them with work will give them proper growth. However, this lean Six
sigma process needs to be thought differently.
The BP equips different people from different segments including the upstream, downstream and
the other business like petroleum pre-cuts and transportation. This helps in managing the
workforce and helps in getting a better delivery of work.
To undertake the improvement activity in a systematic process – DMAIC comes to play the
pivotal role here. This process helps in defining the problem, to measure the capability of the
process, to analyse the data, to improve the variations and finally control the process comes
altogether to form the method for performing systematic activities (D’Andrea and Reddy, 2016).
This process helps in proving the existing measures in a systematic way and this process is

equally applicable to Lean Six Sigma. This gives competitive advantage to British Petroleum
over other companies.
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
Functions of Manager and Six Thinking Hats
Planning
The purposes include the Operation Manager of British Petroleum who is indulged in the
activities of devising the procedures of the extraction strategy. This would inquire on the terms
of the Green hat as it imparts creativity and that is quite necessary to bring innovations into play
while the extraction process in undertaken. The aspects of Yellow Hat are also drawn due to the
assertions of identifying the benefits are necessary for such plans to actuate (De Bono, 2017).
Organising
The advents of the project manager are extremely important, delving in the activities of over
viewing the processes that plays in the maintenance of the distillation processes. The prospects
of the Blue Hat is observed to align with the functions as the managers plan for scheduling the
monitoring and evaluation processes (De Bono, 2017) .The aspect of the Black Hat is also
demonstrated as the project planners actuate on the addressing the cautions of possible oil spills.
Leaders Managers
The responsibilities mainly reflect on the
ventures of motivating the employees and
influence on the motivational virtues of the
employees.
The leaders at British Petroleum play a crucial
role in the setting up of the business policies.
The activities include the instantiation of the
economic policies that it would transcend on
the generation of income.
The functions are defined by the features of
developing procedures and strategies that the
team will adhere to the prevalence of the
extraction processes.
The managers assert their influences while
developing the training programs.
The managers are more focused on the
propagating the employees on the lines of
higher productivity.
Table 1: Comparison of Leaders and Managers
(Source: Created by Learner)
Transformational leadership at British Petroleum

The organisation has been observed to the efficacies of leading the employees in the right
direction through the changing times in the petroleum industry. As the disposable income has
taken a hit and the wages have taken a fall the employees are observed to be low on confidence,
the organisation has been observed to transcend on the efficacies of highlighting the
transformational leadership (McCleskey, 2014). The leadership style has considered these
adverse contributions and has conducted seminars and cultural programs that has asserted on the
means of maintaining employee engagement in the times of adversity. This has been done to
impart the organisational behaviour with optimism and describes the alignment of the leadership
styles in the domains of multidimensional approach, reflected by the transformational leadership.
The different roles of management and leadership in application to different organizational
situations, supported by theories and concepts
Slow to moderate changing situation of organizational situations
The aspects of the changing market demographist in the department of oil and energy sector has
given rise to some serious challenges in the reflection of the roles and responsibilities of leader
and manager. The recent predicaments in the facets of changes in the economic policies that is
associated with the decrease in the household incomes has been cropping up as Slow to moderate
changing situation of organizational situations. As the UK market has been infiltrated with the
adversities of economic recessions, this has led to the decrease of the minimum wages and this is
something that has not spared the employees of the British petroleum. The employees have been
delving in the decreased motivation to strive on better performances due to the psychological
incursions. The role of the manager has been asserted on the changes in the administrative
policies in order to maintain the harmony and welfare among the organizational culture
(Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy, 2014).
Role of a leader and the function of a manager slow to moderate changing situation
The manager has been observed with the efficacies of empowering the employee base with the
assertions of moral and ethical alleviations. The functions of the manager have been accorded for
the conducting of the vocational programs and the programs where the emphasis is laid on the
spread of knowledge to the non-adherences of the superficial needs. The managers provide
session that describes the development of human being on the lines of morality and ethics
(Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2014). The preaching revolves around the concepts of the non-alliances of
materialistic appeals to the propagation of the individual as a whole. The manager
responsibilities also include the prospects of staging cultural events and the organizing of
recreational activities and business tours.
The participations of the employee in such events help the employee to grow in confidence and
reflect on maintaining employee relations (Buble et al., 2014). As the employees are provided
with the scopes for deviating their prefabricated influences on the terms of demotivation, the
employees finds renewed job satisfaction through such programs. The ideologies of the
employees reflect on the facets that even though the monetary conditions does not transcend on
the assertive numbers but the emotional aspects are being accomplished with absolution. The
manager’s role of taking the employees on a business tour would include the prospects of
exposing them to the facets of the predicaments faced by the other employees and the employees

needs to be flexible in the adversity of economic recession and deliver on meeting the objectives
of British Petroleum.
Fast changing organizational situations and the roles of a leader
The political situations in the UK landscape have been inflicted with the instabilities in the form
of Brexit. The formation of Brexit and its consequent exit from the European Union has resulted
in the substantial changes in the operations of the British Petroleum. As the organization is no
more member of EU nations it has to pay higher import and export taxes and this has resulted in
creating apprehensions within the employee base. The predicament also surrounds on the
prospect of generating lower annual profits. Thus, it has surfaced on the lines of Fast changing
situation in organizational context of British Petroleum. The prevalence that are asserted through
the means of efficiently performing manager has been reflected through the organisation. The
role of the manager has been actuated on the efficiencies of understanding the changes in the
political system and how it has influenced the parameters of the oil industry. The roles of leader
also includes the subjects of the forecasting the leaner TQM models and innovating the
manufacturing process, that would incorporate the sudden changes in the disciplines of
aggravating import duties and assert on the maintenance of the quality of petrol simultaneously.
Situational leadership
The situational leadership resonates on the frequencies of modifying the leadership style on the
accords of the subordinates (Storey, 2016). The models help in defining the aspirations shared
by the employees are superimposed by the commitments that are asserted by the organization. As
the oil rigging processes are quite labor intensive and the aggregated verses on the facets of
diverse operations, demonstrated by British petroleum adds up to it , it is quite obvious for the
new trainees to be perplexed. The leaders asserted on their responsibilities by making them
realize the organizational objectives and their value of their contribution in the propagation of the
company as one of the leading companies, by conducting several seminars. Thus, it demonstrates
how the leadership styles are changed in accordance to the employee’s requisites.
System Leadership
This model is inscribed through the features of the logical reasoning and asserting on the
generations of the solutions with the implementation of the problem solving skills. One of the
rationales that alleviate the leadership style includes efficient input (Senge et al., 2014). The
organisation of British Petroleum are quite engrossed with the advents of diverse organisational
culture, hence the leaders has to be observed to impart influential input in order to align the
cohesiveness within the employee engagement and address the conflict of interest. This in turn
demonstrates how the leadership style overlaps with the features of efficient input, described by
the model of system leadership style.
Contingency Leadership
The advents of the contingency Leadership is described by the incursions of adapting to diverse
situations and asserts the leadership styles accordingly (Mikes and Kaplan, 2014). The aspects of
the development of contingency revolves on the faction of developing a backup plan in case of a
fire breakout that adversely affects the employee and would lead the employees with benevolent

behavior. The tending attitudes in caring of the employees have been one of the influential parts
of the contingency leadership style demonstrated by the leaders at British Petroleum.
In the logistics department, the managers are entitled with many duties.
They manage the stock levels using the IT systems. They look after the transportation cost and
delivery times. They are associated with using the IT in order to coordinate and to control the
order cycle. The managers also use data from the IT systems in order to evaluate the
performance and the quality planning. They negotiate with the customers and the suppliers.
The leaders- the leaders in these departments look after the shipping, warehouse personnel, and
the receiving of the goods. They directly contribute in these activities. The leaders monitor the
key performance indicators by supporting the overall performance and efficiency through proper
monitoring and developing the cycles (Terziev and Nichev, 2017). The leaders also manage the
inventory levels. They manage the report and the safety of the employees.
Many organisations already have invested heavily in the corporate social responsibility or the
CSR. This is a program, which is taken in bid to restore the trust amongst the share holders, the
employees and the customers (Cossu, 2016). This initiative helps in the improvement of the
company as well the increment of the corporate brand. In CSR, the HR of the company likes to
take the role of the leader in deciding the impact of the CSR. The British Petroleum is engaged in
the CSR initiatives to improve the ethical culture in order to do the right job (Fanti et al., 2015).
The leaders, the stakeholders all are treated well and they maintain a balance in the long and the
short term. This is the most important trait of a leader to make the sacrifices for the short term in
order to make the long term. To nourish the long term deals, the CSR comes into concept and the
leaders play the role to do this.
The leaders and the managers both of them lead a team and when, it is important to perform an
activity, the sustainability of the company as well the employee comes into notice. When the
strategy and the new targets are set, then the leaders take important parts and impart the CSR into
the employees to make them knowledgeable about the sustainability of the company and together
they perform the work. When a team gets a good leader, they can focus in doing the activities.
The petroleum industries need the import and export of the products (Terziev and Nichev, 2017).
These activities need a skill of leadership of supervise the operations to complete them fully.
The leaders take the pivotal role to complete a project successfully. The main relation between
leader and the manager is that they ensure the good co-ordination with the employees. The task
of the leader is not finished in just directing the task. They take the full responsibility of the after
work management of the strategies. British Petroleum is presently working on the conservation
of the national parks in the British landscape in order to contribute socially with the terms of
business policies (Zhao et al., 2017). The British Petroleum has taken the initiative in investing
the promotion of the renewable sources of the energy, they have aimed at tackling the climate
changes, and have involved in many range of activities partially.
Conclusions on how managers and leaders have made an impact on the organisation and
recommendations for future improvements
Through the report, it can be concluded on the factual description that the organisation has been
taking up the effective practices of leading and managing the employees to the mutual

beneficiaries. It can also be assessed that the leaders have asserted on the lines of acquiring
knowledge in the Elton Mayo theory of motivation in order to transcend on the efficacies of its
practical applications on the organisational backgrounds. The process of the Sigma Six has been
exemplified through the approaches to maintain the quality of the petroleum production. The
aspects of maintaining the logistics through the JIT is alleviated in the instantiations of the
report.
The leaders should involve the employees to work more and invest in the new fields for further
developments. There are new exploration by the UK Government which have helped the
companies to find the resources and the leaders and the managers should carefully take the
advantage of these resources and make full use of them.
The functions of the managers and the leaders have been accorded for introductions of the
vocational courses but only this will not help in the development. There should be some smart
activities, which would help the employees to gain knowledge of work in the toughest situations
and how to handle those situations.
The business tours that the managers do should also have some free and leisure time where the
leaders and the managers would mix with the employees and they would have a free time
without any workload to discuss. This releases the stress and help to get more outcomes. This
leisure times must be used to make the employees aware of new challenges through games and
sports in holidays.

Reference List
Allen, T.T., 2019. Design for Six Sigma. In Introduction to Engineering Statistics and Lean Six
Sigma (pp. 543-550). Springer, London.
Berman, S.L. and Van Buren III, H.J., 2015. Mary Parker Follett, managerial responsibility, and
the future of capitalism. Futures, 68, pp.44-56.
Bolden, R., 2016. Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook
of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
BP global. (2019). Home. [online] Available at: https://www.bp.com/ [Accessed 6 Feb. 2019].
Buble, M., Juras, A. and Matić, I., 2014. The relationship between managers’ leadership styles
and motivation. Management: journal of contemporary management issues, 19(1), pp.161-193.
Cossu, P., 2016. Clean last mile transport and logistics management for smart and efficient local
governments in Europe. Transportation Research Procedia, 14, pp.1523-1532.
D’Andrea, M.A. and Reddy, G.K., 2016. Adverse health effects of benzene exposure among
children following a flaring incident at the British Petroleum Refinery in Texas City. Clinical
pediatrics, 55(3), pp.219-227.
De Bono, E., 2017. Six thinking hats. Penguin UK.
Fanti, M.P., Iacobellis, G., Ukovich, W., Boschian, V., Georgoulas, G. and Stylios, C., 2015. A
simulation based Decision Support System for logistics management. Journal of Computational
Science, 10, pp.86-96.
Filippini, R. and Forza, C., 2016. The Impact of the Just-in-Time Approach on Production
System Performance: A Survey of Italian Industry. A Review and Outlook. In A Journey through
Manufacturing and Supply Chain Strategy Research(pp. 19-39). Springer, Cham.
Forman, C., Muritala, I.K., Pardemann, R. and Meyer, B., 2016. Estimating the global waste heat
potential. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 57, pp.1568-1579.
Frynas, J.G. and Mellahi, K., 2015. Global strategic management. Oxford University Press,
USA.
Huczynski, A., Buchanan, D.A., 2013. Organizational behaviour (p. 82). London: Pearson.
Kumar, S., Dhingra, A.K. and Singh, B., 2017. Implementation of the lean-Kaizen approach In
fastener industries using the data envelopment analysis. Facta Universitatis, Series: Mechanical
Engineering, 15(1), pp.145-161.
Lawter, L., Kopelman, R.E. and Prottas, D.J., 2015. McGregor's theory X/Y and job
performance: A multilevel, multi-source analysis. Journal of managerial issues, pp.84-101.
McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership
development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), p.117.