Developing Teams in Business: Leadership and Teamwork at M&S

This report examines the multifaceted aspects of team development and leadership within a business context, using Marks and Spencer (M&S) as a case study. It begins by defining various types of teams, such as virtual, support, and strategic teams, and elucidates their benefits for organizational success, including improved goal attainment and resource utilization. The report then delves into the crucial elements of building cohesive, high-performing teams, emphasizing the importance of communication, recruitment, effective role assignment (leveraging Belbin's team role theory), team development (incorporating Tuckman's team development theory), and motivation (applying Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Furthermore, it outlines the essential attributes and skills of a team leader, including adapting leadership styles, fostering innovation, and applying leadership models like Tannenbaum & Schmidt and John Aldair's model. The report also discusses the practical aspects of working within a team to achieve specific goals, highlighting the roles and responsibilities of team members and leaders, and the importance of ethical conduct and effective communication. The author reflects on their experience as a team member and leader at M&S, demonstrating skills gained, such as effective communication and leadership styles, and how these contribute to business profitability and managerial effectiveness.

DEVELOPING TEAMS
IN BUSINESS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
P1. Describe different types of team and the benefits of teams for an organisation...................3
P2. Explain how to build cohesive teams that perform well.......................................................4
P3. Define the attributes and skills needed by a team leader......................................................5
P4. Working as part of team towards achievement of specific goals..........................................6
P4. Demonstrate working as part of a team towards achieving specific goals............................6
P5. Working as part of team towards achieving specific goal dealing with conflict as team
leader............................................................................................................................................7
P6. Team’s overall effectiveness together with your contribution to achievement of goals.......8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
A team is a combination of individual in which they perform a task with the common
purpose and with the commitment as to achieve it in an effective manner. Team helps an
organisation to achieve their respective goals and objectives within a stipulated period of time
and in an efficient manner. Present report has been conducted on Marks and Spencer group PLC,
a British multinational retailing organisation that engage in the functions of selling food
products, clothing and home products with high quality. Company was founded in the year 1884
and headquartered in London, United Kingdom. M&S perform their services worldwide with
having more than 80787 employees. In this report formative discussions have been made of
numerous forms of team along with their benefit in an organisation. Report include attributes and
skills that are required by a team leader and review of overall team effectiveness towards
accomplishment of goal. Lastly report includes the manner in which team build and working
demonstration in a team in order to achieve specified goals.
P1. Describe different types of team and the benefits of teams for an organisation
A team can be in many forms such as management team, strategic team, support team,
visual team, formal team, multi agency team, informal teams and operational teams.
Organisation take advantage of team as to attain a set target in best qualitative way and in a short
span of time with the help of highly skilled and experience personals. Mentioned below further
elaboration of this in context with M&S is define:
Virtual team in this form of team individuals are combined as a team with the help of
technological communication equipment’s such as Skype, Facebook, WhatsApp, video calls and
more. These individuals are geographically dispersed and work together towards a common goal.
As M&S provide their services in all around the globe thus they take advantage of this team and
combine M&S employees from all around the world and take advantage of the skills and
expertise as to accomplish goals and targets in in collaborative an effective manner.
Support team in this form of team individuals engage in the process of providing
necessary and required backup to other individuals in order to help them to get the job done in
best effective manner. Within M&S support team provide advantage that are finance, technical
support, journal office management, human resource and administrative support. This form of
team plays major essential role to keep the team together and further provide them possible
assistants to accomplish goals in efficient manner.

Strategic team in this individual with same skills and expertise are combine those who
effectively offer required direction and leadership to an organisation. In context with M&S
strategic team regularly maintain their touch with external environment and further develop
Strategies and key of objectives along with monitoring progress as to make company to gain
more competitive advantage. In simple words strategic teams holds the responsibilities to
develop goals and strategies with the help of which organisation can effectively able to achieve
predetermined goals.
With the help of all these form of team Marks and Spencer can effectively able to
perform their roles and responsibilities in timely manner and fulfil organisation objectives in
better way. All these form of team effectively provide numerous forms of benefits to company
such as achievement of goals in respective determine timeframe, utilisation of company
resources in economical manner, accomplishing task in qualitative way and more. For instance,
support team effectively provide benefits to Marks and Spencer as they effectively ensure that
each and every individual is having better resources and tools with the help of which they can
accomplish the work with the less pressure. With the help of different types of teams Marks and
Spencer can effectively able to organise each and every set of activities. Further in context with
virtual team, this team analyse situations in geographical boundaries and provide insight with the
help of which company can effectively able to accomplish the project in successful manner, this
further helps in fostering innovation within an organisation along with sharing expertise.
P2. Explain how to build cohesive teams that perform well
Cohesion can be referred to as the accumulation or integration of various team members
in order to effectively execute a specific process, task or activity. In order to accomplish
cohesiveness among the team, it is essential that members of the group get along well. For this,
they can make use of communication through which the members can provide help, support and
guidance to each other in an effective manner. Further, to enhance the motivation level of
members also, discussions within the team in Marks & Spencer can be fostered as this implies
that views and opinions of each individual are taken into account before arriving at a final
decision having a massive influence upon the team performance. Lack of coordination,
cooperation and communication among the team members leads to complexities, insecurities and
many such adversities that hold negative consequences for the output of team. This means that
the group may even fail to achieve the organisational objectives on time.

Recruitment: This refers to the process whereby company hires new individuals as per
the requirements of certain job vacancy within the entity. It is essential to carry out this activity
so that the right individual can get a place in the team and bring the right mindset, motivation
and knowledge so that team performance and cohesion can be raised.
Effective allotment of Team Roles: To develop a sense of cohesion among the team
members, it is essential that members are assigned duties and responsibilities in accordance with
their expertise, knowledge, skills and educational as well as professional backgrounds. For this
purpose, Marks & Spencer makes use of Belbin’s team role theory which is aimed at allotting the
9 types of roles stipulated within this framework to members of group as per their behavioural
characteristics.
Team Development: Cohesive team can be effectively built by carrying out development
of team. With this, a feeling of motivational drive and zeal is instilled within the members and
they tend to deliver their best performance for the accomplishment of goals. In this regard,
Tuckman’s team development theory is taken into use within Marks & Spencer which consists of
5 stages starting from forming and ending till adjourning. This 5 step process assists the
company in carrying out development of team in a manner such that organisational goals and
objectives are timely achieved.
Motivation: This is yet another crucial aspect that serves as an important basis for
building a cohesive team. Motivation is aimed at instilling a driving force within the members of
team so that they collaboratively work in coordination with each other for the accomplishment of
goals and objectives of entity within the stipulated course of time. To facilitate this in a better
manner, Marks & Spencer applies a theory within the organisational premise named Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs which consists of 5 levels of individual needs that are fulfilled by the
respective company in order to motivate the members of team.
P3. Define the attributes and skills needed by a team leader.
In order to accomplish organisational goals in best effective manner leader is require to
have different types of skills with the help of which they can lead team towards better
accomplishment of goals and objectives. Within M&S leader take advantage of following skills:
Adapting leadership style as per according to situation it is essential for a leader to
guide their team as the according to the prevailing situations and take further advantage of
suitable form of leadership style that can be participative, autocratic and democratic. With the

help of this M&S leaders can guide their team members in best effective manner and can extract
best out of them that can be utilised for Organisational Development.
Fostering innovation a leader is required to make the team work as per according to
current trends, for this they are required to Foster innovation within team with the help of which
they can make the team members to express their own opinions in relation to a certain decision
or a task. With the help of this M&S leaders can able to get best from each and every individual
and can further increase confidence within them that can be further helpful towards overall
organisational performance.
Tannebaumn & Schmidt
This is one of the simple models which is related with leadership relationship in between
freedom level that can be chosen by a leader for a team and with the level of authority that can be
used by a leader. As in context with M & S, if leader increases freedom within a team that can
lead towards decreasing authority this can be proved to be positive for both leaders and manager.
As par according to this theory a manager is required to effectively develop team with in which
they delegate work to team and ask them for their own decisions in order to judge their abilities.
With the help of this attribute leader can effectively able to increase efficiency within team
John Aldair
As per according to this theory leader who hold the responsibility towards three function which
is towards, individual, task and team. As per according to this leadership model, there are 3 core
responsibilities that are required to be accomplished by a leader that are achieving the task,
managing individual and managing the team or group. This helps M&S leaders to effectively
manage the team performance along with individual behaviour in best effective manner.
P4. Working as part of team towards achievement of specific goals
P4. Demonstrate working as part of a team towards achieving specific goals
Team is constitutes of the people with different skills and competencies along with made
with purpose to accomplish business goals or targets in the standard time of a business. Also,
working in the team is a formal practice, where working is something like professional conduct
like use of ethical measures such as usage of an ethical values, vision, mission and goals behind
working as a team. Marks & Spencer which is a leading retailer is well known for its team
management and process, in which the team works with collaborative efforts. Also, firm is also
known for its leading team and management of people along with giving them proper training, so

that people would its own work with defined responsibilities and targets. If talks into the
reflective manner, my role in Marks & Spencer previously was of team member of 10 member’s
team with different skills and positives. After one year, I was promoted as team leader by
looking at my team level skills and with help of which I can co0ordinate with other and also
motivates other’s to accomplish its own goals or targets. While working lots of skills and
competencies such as effective communication, leadership style such as democratic has been
gained by me and results of which is that I have got place as of team leader to do more along
with this contributes business with higher profitability and effective managerial functioning.
During business time, I was hired as team leader to lead team to manage group and hires
new team member’s to accomplish defined objectives or goals. As team leader, it’s necessary to
have regulation such as decent ethics, appealing attitude, effective perception and glorious
behaviour, with a help of empowering work topology has been established in the market place.
In also observed that, leadership is one necessary for me as team leader, with a help of which
harmony and resources values have been received in this firm.. With support of training &
learning, skills related to leadership, effective management have arrives in me, I was working as
team member and then converted into team leader. I would like to say that level of an experience
is balanced and optimised for purpose of this organisation to achieve business objectives or
target on a defined time. Team leader’s role is to manage sources of an information in group to
makes out goals or objectives to be achieves on an effective stage. My observation says that
leadership is one of the leading intangible tools with help of which businesses can accomplishes
its goals or objectives along with accomplishing managerial goals or targets.
In my point of time, leadership style such as democratic is suitable option for marks and
spencer to bring out an effective flavour of management and leading role to increasing workforce
needs and wants in lesser period of time. Also, my observation has gone positive, when it comes
to proper effective harmony in M&S.
P5. Working as part of team towards achieving specific goal dealing with conflict as team leader
A team is having expectations from their team leader with the help of which they can
positively able to contribute their contribution in a team. As working as, a team leader there is a
requirement to allocate numerous information’s that can be useful to complete a task. Team
leader is expected to showcase their leadership qualities such as monitoring performance with
the help of which they can effectively able to give feedbacks. If individual work together as a

team there is a possible natural chances for conflicts thus, by playing role of a leader it is
essential to select best effective form of negotiation and conflict resolution approaches with the
help of which smooth functions can be carried in a team. Further leader is required to take
advantage of different types of communication process with the help of which they can formulate
positive communication with each and every individual in a team. With the help of this
individual can get to know each other nature and behaviour that can lead towards decreasing
conflict situation. Along with this leaders holds the responsibility towards assigning goals and
responsibilities to each and every individual in a specified manner with the help of which they
can effectively able to perform their rules without any confusion.
P6. Team’s overall effectiveness together with your contribution to achievement of goals
A team can attain success in corporate world only with the help of collaborative efforts of
all team members. In this regard, I have analysed that each member of the team effectively
contributed towards the successful formulation of task and activities within the stipulated course
of time. I am going to review how my team overall effectiveness with my contribution and how
my contribution to the team helped achieved the goal. I will also talk about receiving feedback
from my team members and providing feedback for my team members. Drawing upon the
feedback received from seniors, I can say that team performed well, as per the requirements of
Marks & Spencer and effectively the goals and objectives stipulated for team performance.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can be said that teams are an essential part of an entity that
forms the core of completion of all activities on time. Any company, large or small, consists of a
number of teams which have their own significance within the organisational premises. Further,
it has been acknowledged that cohesiveness within the team can be built up by making use of
theories such as Belbin’s team roles and Tuckman’s team development. In addition to this, it has
been ascertained that teams provide aid in accomplishment of goals and objectives of company
in a timely manner as per the stipulated targets. Besides this, it can be said that review of
effectiveness of team has massive importance so as to recognise whether the performance of
team is aligned with the requirements of company.

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