Global Leadership and Management: Examining Gymshark's Approach

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Business Report to approaches to Leadership and
Management in Global Context
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
1. Decsribe the functional areas of one chosen business and its hierarchy of management............3
2. Why is communication central to leadership and management?.................................................4
3. What are the current drivers in globalization? How do they impact businesses?........................6
Government Drivers:...................................................................................................................6
Competitive Drivers.....................................................................................................................6
Market Drivers:............................................................................................................................6
Costs Drivers...............................................................................................................................7
Impact on business:......................................................................................................................7
Trade Liberalization:...............................................................................................................7
Costs Differences between countries:......................................................................................7
Rapid change in technology:...................................................................................................7
4. Compare and Contrast two chosen styles of leadership and management..................................8
Which style is most..........................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
Introduction:
Every leader is a manager, but not every manager is a leader so goes a management adage. Any
person can become a manager, but only a few go on to become leaders. Many a times a person
gets into the managerial chair just because of seniority, or because s/he has done a good job in a
particular year or just because there is no one else to give that responsibility to. The subordinates
respect the chair/ designation but not the person. The essay is about leadership and management
and how can a manager become a leader.
1. Decsribe the functional areas of one chosen business and its hierarchy of management
The company that has been chosen is Gymshark, which was established in 2012 by a then
teenager Ben Francis. This is an online fitness apparel company that has only 220 employees, but
sell gym clothes to nearly 131 countries (Gymshark EUR 2019).
They manufacture fitness clothes and sell them only through digital marketing channels. They
are able to do this huge business as they have adopted a modern way of doing business and
dumping the traditional way of doing business.
To acquire customers they are highly engaged in social media channels such as Instagram,
Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. They have more than 3 million dedicated followers on these
channels. (Best Companies 2019).
Though this company is present in almost all the parts of the world the hierarchy is remarkably
flat. The founder is Ben Francis; CEO is Stevie Hewett, Paul Richardson - Chief Strategic
Officer, Noel Mack - Chief Creative Officer, Dave Parry - Chief People Officer, Réne Skytte -
Chief Apparel Officer and Chris Perrins - Chief Operating Officer. The staff reports to these
heads. (Gymshark EUR 2019).
The reason this company has been chosen is the way they take care of the staff. The average age
of the employees is 25 years and 48% are male and 52% are female.
To promote the company values of fitness each staff member gets nutritious breakfast and fruit
every day. They are encouraged to join the gym and have a free sports massage once a week.
They are treated to luxurious events like river cruise, barbecues and over-night accommodation
at 5 star hotels.
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
The company offers health insurance for all employees and 10 weeks maternity holiday with full
pay for its female employees. Employees are also paid a portion of the profits generated. 25% of
the staff earns more than £35000 (Best Companies 2019).
Gymshark is one of the best examples of participative management and visionary leadership.
Their founder Ben Francis decided to carve a niche market at a very young age and took the risk
of launching his business in a fairly new model of doing business that is, online marketing.
He understood that having goods sold on the online platform will give him access to customers
on a global scale and he need not confine himself to local markets of UK. This was applying
globalization principals in real earnest. Gymshark also manufacturers its clothes in areas where
the both the material and labour are easily and cheaply acquired.
By being active on social media they have harnessed the ability to approach millions of young
customers who are trying to be fit and want to try out clothes that fitness models wear. They
have a band of fitness enthusiasts and professionals called influencer who youngsters like to
follow. This is another feather in the cap for the company.
The success story of the company has been innovation throughout every segment. They have
captured a niche market, where there were only big brands as competitors. By adopting the
online platform they have access to cheap manufacturing at the same time boundary less
customers from 131 countries. They have achieved the best advantages of Globalization. And
finally by having a participative leadership they are able to keep the employees motivated and
happy.
2. Why is communication central to leadership and management?
Organisations have short term goals and long term goals. A culmination of short terms goals go
on to meet the long term goals of an organisation. An example of a short term goal can be the
goal sheet that every employee gets at the start of the year, where it is clearly spelt and mutually
decided what are the expectations of the management from the employee. For sales it is usually
target achievement, for HR it may be recruitment and attrition control (Ulmer, Sellnow, and
Seeger 2017).
 It is necessary to communicate these goals to the employees to provide them with clear
direction of where and how to go there.
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
 In case the employee gets side tracked or is unable to meet with the expectations then
again communicating with the employee will help both the management and the
employee to understand where the issues lie (it may be training requirement or some
personal problem) that need to be addressed so that performance can be matched with
expectations.
 To encourage creativity. Any issue can be solved in any number of ways and if people sit
together and brainstorm will lead to out of the box ideas that can propel the firm forward.
To manage crises. No company is without crises and there are always some fires that need to be
put out. If there is no 2-way communication either the management or the employees will be
operating in the dark and only when the issue is blown out of proportion and unmanageable will
people come to know about it (Ulmer, Sellnow, and Seeger 2017).
There are many ways to have effective interdepartmental communication.
Email is always the official channel and is quite indispensable as a communications tool. It also
is an effective tool that can be used as evidence. However a good manager will depend upon
having face to face meetings as often as possible to understand the currents at the ground level.
To have effective interdepartmental communications, it is necessary for the departmental heads
to empathize with each other and have frequent meetings and share information on the projects
they are pursuing and ensuring that other departments are kept in the loop (Austin and Pinkleton
2015).
3. What are the current drivers in globalization? How do they impact businesses?
Globalization is not a new phenomenon, it has existed throughout history. Colonial endeavors of
the Europeans were based on capturing international markets. Today globalization involves more
people and interactions.
The 4 main drivers in globalization are government, market, competition and cost. These are
external drivers and beyond the control of individual firms (Wood and Wilberger 2015).
 Government Drivers: Examples of government drivers can policies that lead to reduction
in trade barriers, having an open market economy. The government’s trade policy opens
doors to their economy.
 Competitive Drivers: Globalization can give companies competitive advantages, by
allowing access to newer markets. The growing trade between nations along with FDIs
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
can help interdependence between the countries and firms. It will also expose the firms to
new competitors.
 Market Drivers: Getting customers who have common needs and transferable marketing.
It also helps firms to manufacture standardized products to cater to the demands of the
new markets. Globalization also streamlines the products to cater to all customers
domestic and abroad.
 Costs Drivers: Companies are able to acquire new economies of scale by selling at larger
quantities. They can also explore the benefits of low cost production through import and
outsourcing. Difference in costs also provides incentives for investment.
Impact on business: Apart from the above mentioned benefits other advantages provided by
globalization are lowering of trade barriers, access to rapidly changing technologies and the cost
difference between countries (Wood and Wilberger 2015).
 Trade Liberalization: Normally governments regulate what goods and services go out
(exports) and what comes in (imports). They have tariffs in position to ensure that the
local industry is protected. Because of globalization, there has been liberalization of trade
barriers. This has been done as many governments reciprocate with one another and trade
between nations is encouraged. There are many international governing bodies such as
World Trade Organisation (WTO), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for
example in which member nations have common foreign trade policy which encourages
countries to reduce internal trade barriers. The EU (European Union) very existence was
allowing free trade between European countries (Beck 2018).
 Costs Differences between countries: Cost of production, land costs, labour costs, capital
costs all change from country to country. These differences fuel international trade and
investment. Asian countries are known for cheap labour and therefore western nations
continually outsource their services to these countries. Even highly skilled workers from
the developing nations can be acquired at very economical prices rather than their
domestic counterparts. For example, BPO industry that came to India as Indian are well
conversant in English (Beck 2018).
 Rapid change in technology: This has led to major improvement in global connectivity.
This can be seen in all sectors from Agriculture to finance to production line to logistics.
Rapidly changing technology accelerates the fast diffusion of free enterprise by new
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
means improved mobility and communication. Internet and smart telephony has been
enabled anybody to access information from any part of the world. Webinars, Skype etc.
are tools that save travel costs at the same time help people from across continents to
have face to face conferences (Beck 2018).
4. Compare and Contrast two chosen styles of leadership and management. Which style is
most suitable in modern global management and why?
There are mainly three different styles of leadership.
a) Authoritarian
b) Participative
c) Delagative
According to Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube (2015), in the Authoritarian, the leader is in
absolute command and the others are his subordinates. It is ‘either my way or the highway’. In
this form, the leader is very clear about his/her vision and expects others to follow. Expectations
are clearly spelt out to each member of the team. These leaders control themselves and their
followers also. They take independent decisions with no inputs from other team members. This
type of leadership kills creativity. This type of leadership is best suited when dealing with people
who are unskilled or those with no experience. This is also an excellent leadership to have in
times of decisiveness and in crises.
Delagative leaders hope that the team members know what they are supposed to do. They offer
little or no guidance to the team members. Decisions are made by group members and this type
of leadership is only good when all the team members are equally qualified.
Participative leadership ensures everyone is on board. These leaders offer guidance to group
leaders, but they also lead from the front. They see that members contribute and their suggestions
are duly noted. There is mutual respect for the leader and the team members. There is harmony
in these types of teams.
These leaders participate and allow other to have an opinion, but the decision making remains
firmly with them. This is what separates them from Delagative leadership. Creativity and
motivation go hand in hand in this type of leadership.
Hunt and Fitzgerald (2018), mentioned that in management today, this is the best type of leader
to have. It is encouraged by organisations for leaders to be sensitive to the people in their teams
and ensure that they grow within the system. Indeed this leadership is so preferred that some of
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APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
the KPIs of the leaders ensure that they practice participative leadership actively. For example
having “controlling attrition” as one of the KPIs ensures that only those leaders who are able to
retain people are taken forward. Participative leadership is based on the ground realities and the
leaders are savvy enough know what they are; therefore they are able to take accurate decisions
that will give results. This is not the case with either Authoritative leaders who only want to push
their agenda or Delagative leaders who have no agenda of their own.
In conclusion, it is ok to have Authoritative leaders in the lower rungs of the hierarchy as it is
here where most of the work gets actually done. But as the management goes higher up
participative leadership is most likely to succeed and bring about positive results (Hunt and
Fitzgerald 2018).
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References
Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P., 2015. A review of leadership theories,
principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1), pp.6-14.
Austin, E.W. and Pinkleton, B.E., 2015. Strategic public relations management: Planning and
managing effective communication campaigns. Routledge.
Beck, U., 2018. What is globalization?. John Wiley & Sons.
Best Companies. (2019). Gymshark Company Profile | Best Companies. [online] Available at:
https://www.b.co.uk/company-profile/?gymshark-102939 [Accessed 8 May 2019].
Gymshark EUR. (2019). About us. [online] Available at: https://eu.gymshark.com/pages/about-
us [Accessed 8 May 2019].
Hunt, J. and Fitzgerald, M., 2018. STYLES OF LEADERSHIP. Leadership: Regional and
Global Perspectives, p.62.
Ulmer, R.R., Sellnow, T.L. and Seeger, M.W., 2017. Effective crisis communication: Moving
from crisis to opportunity. Sage Publications.
Wood, V.R. and Wilberger, J.S., 2015. Globalization, cultural diversity and organizational
commitment: Theoretical underpinnings. World, 6(2), pp.154-171.
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