Analysis of Leadership and Management in John Lewis & Partners, UK

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Management and Operations

Executive summary
This present assignment aims to discuss the roles, responsibilities and differences of
organizational managers and leaders. The work has been done on the backdrop of
John Lewis & Partners, UK. Different theories, approaches and practices made by the
leaders and the managers have been discussed in detail. Some practical suggestions
have been recommended for the betterment of the organization.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction to the organization and management structure.....................................3
2. Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, highlighting the differences
between management and leadership (P1, M1, D1)........................................................4
3. Different roles of management and leadership in application to different
organisational situations, supported by theories and concepts (P2, P3, M2)...................7
4. How classical theories and behavioural theories apply to the organisation and how
these have supported growth and sustainable performance (P4, P5, P6,M3, M4, D2)..11
5. Conclusions on how managers and leaders have made an impact on the organisation
and recommendations for future improvements.............................................................15
References.....................................................................................................................16
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1. Introduction to the organization and management structure
A group of people working towards a common goal makes an organization.
Organization, irrespective of being big or small, needs a proper planning, distribution of
various works and their supervising, production related management, a close watch on
sales and framing of strategies to increase it etc. To ensure the smooth going of the
company and keep the status high, it is the duty of an operation manager to look after
these important matters of an organization. The literal meaning of operation
management which was previously known as production management is all about the
planning, organizing, leading and controlling of all the processes going in a company
and to make necessary improvements to gain higher profit (Jarvis et al., 2018). This
needs regular monitoring and analysis of various plans, theories, past records etc to
make a better strategy for the future. The present report is done on the context of John
Lewis & Partners, UK which is a chain of departmental stores that deals with everyday
items. The roles of an operation manager for the betterment of the company structure,
productivity and sales will be discussed in this study.
Background of the company
John Lewis & Partners, UK was established in the year 1972 and now has its
headquarter in London, SW, United Kingdom The company deals with everyday items
such as clothing, furniture, electrical, sports goods, kitchenware, laundry, garden tools,
beauty products etc. The company has a total of 51 stores including “at home “stores
and airport stores along with more than 38000 employees. The annual turnover of the
company is about four billion Euros (Johnlewis.com. 2019). These statistics make the
company an achiever in the competitive market of UK.
John Lewis Partnership has its unique strategy to operate its organizational
management. The managing body of the company is formulated by the Chairman of the
company, the Board of partners, the division board of managers and the Group
Executives. The company allows its employees of every level to discuss and put
forward their own views and suggestions to the management to have a reliable view of
any problem and many possible suggestions of the solution. The governing body of the
company permits the employees to put their opinions on different issues anonymously.
All these applications generate many ideas and solutions as well as give a feel of
satisfaction and repute to the employee. The company values its members and
distributes its profit in them as company’s yearly returns.
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2. Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, highlighting the differences
between management and leadership (P1, M1, D1)
A manager is a person who deals with the operation, organizing, control and
administration of a company and is responsible for the overall performance of the
company (Donaldson-Feilder et al., 2019). A leader is a person who leads and
motivates a team or followers in the right direction by his personal skills (Ulmer, 2018).
Figure 1: Roles of a Manager
(Source: Donaldson-Feilder et al., 2019)
Managers and leaders are two important responsible members on whom the company
depends most to run its daily operation (Seaman et al., 2018). According to Mintzberg,
every manager should have ten leadership roles headed under three categories as
stated below:
Interpersonal Roles
It is the role of a manager to build and manage a relationship with organizational
members (Sarpin et al., 2018)
Figurehead: As a manager of a company, it is important to maintain an image as a
figurehead so that the employees can always look upon him for the source of ideas and
planning.
Leader: To excel in performance and responsibilities, a manager has to be a leader not
a boss, to bring out the best work flow from the employees.
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Liaison: Using internal and external communication system the manager has to
maintain a watch over the company.
Informational Roles
Managers are responsible for the procurement and distribution of different information
with the stakeholders (Prajogo et al., 2018):
Monitor: This role enables to gather information on a regular basis along with its control
to have an overall situational view.
Disseminator: providing potential information to the other colleagues and team is the
motto.
Spokesperson: It is managers role to stand and speak for the company and
responsible for all the outcome of the organization.
Figure 2: Ten leadership roles
(Source: Prajogo et al., 2018)
Decisional Roles
Managers are responsible for processing any piece of information in a useful way to
reach a conclusion (Fischer et al., 2018).
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Entrepreneur: The manager has to create and control all the processes of an
organization.
Disturbance handle: On arrival of an unexpected situation, it is the manager's role to
plan to overcome it
Resource allocator: How to apply the resources in the best possible manner.
Negotiator: The manager has to take part in discussions to resolve different problems
of the employees of the company.
For a leader it is important to have influence and power to motivate the subordinates.
Without influence on the people there is no leadership and this concept generating the
changes fit for the company. This unique feature develops power within the leader. The
power could be from position or from power.
Difference There is a clear difference in between management and leadership as
pointed out below:
Management Leadership
This involves the systematic control,
coordination and maintenance of an
organization in an efficient way (Chiu et al.,
2017)
It is a skill by applying which the
followers could be lead for the
business generation of the company
This is done by controlling the subordinate
people and circumstances
This is done by showing trust and
depending on the subordinate
It requires managing capabilities of a person
to stand out in any situation
It requires to inspire a group of
people and to motivate them to
perform a work
It brings stability to the company It brings change an degrowth to the
company
This follows different procedures and policies This follows principles and guidelines
It requires a lot of direction giving It requires a lot of asking questions to
have a clear idea
Table 1: Difference between roles of management and leadership
(Source: created by author)
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3. Different roles of management and leadership in application to different
organisational situations, supported by theories and concepts (P2, P3, M2)
Thus, from the above discussion, it is clear that the roles of management and
leadership are very different from each other while performing for a company. The
managers of John Lewis Partnership aim to create and maintain a high standard of
employee operation and the leaders put their best to bring out the expected level of
performance by motivating them by their speech or action (Teller et al., 2018).
Therefore both managers and leaders bring the best performance of the employees by
working in an associated way.
There are mainly three organizational situations that may occur during the operation of
a company. All of them have three different types of responses to deal with. This is
described in details:
Situation Condition Effect
Stable
situation
This depicts a stable condition for the
company and indicates that most of the
operations are going smooth,
generating good profit and creating no
unnecessary conflicts. Also, the plans
taken by the management is good
enough to keep the pace with the
situation. Almost no or very little
changes in/ outside of the organization
does not put a considerable effect on
the company.
Almost no or very little changes
are required depending on the
situation.
No need to change or modify
strategies framed by managers
or leaders of the company until
any noticeable change occurs
Slow to
moderate
situation
In this situation, some changes occur
inside or outside of the company which
starts to affect the organizational
activity to a limited border. Therefore it
requires some changes from the
management to deal with the situation
to avoid any negative circumstances in
future
Some modifications have to be
done to make the situation
normal again.
A manager should make some
changes taking a considerable
time period and make changes
in his management function or
leadership style
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Fast
changing
situation
In this scenario, rapid or fast changes
happen within or outside of the
company that leads to a great impact.
Therefore the management have to act
fast on the policies and procedure of
the company to bring back a stable
situation
Big changes need to be done.
There should be big alterations
in the organizational policy or his
leadership/managerial style to
adjust with the new situation.
Table 2: Roles of management and leadership in application to different
organisational situations
(Source: created by author)
Theories and concepts
There are many theories and concepts that help to understand the operational
management process of a company and give an idea that how an operational manager
imply them in necessary situations to be successful in every case. There is an old idea
of leadership that says that leaders have a different attitude and approach towards a
situation, which could not be taught (Tuczek et al., 2018). They have it in them by birth.
There special ability helps them to achieve the goal in a different and easy manner than
others and make all the difference.
Situational leadership theory
Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard proposed this theory. According to this theory, it is
important to change approaches by a leader according to the situation. The best
possible idea should be implemented to overcome a situation which may not have done
before. This entirely depends on two essential elements (Thompson and Glasø, 2018).
One is leadership style of the leader and another is the maturity level of the followers.
The cumulative implementation of both can bring success and desired outcome for any
situation.
There are four approaches of leadership:
 Telling: The leaders take an authority and take the decision. They let the
employees know about the decision and the followers follow the instruction.
 Selling: In this method also, leaders make the decision but before the
implementation they have a discussion with the employees
 Participating: Leaders do not make decision on their own but works together
with the co-worker to frame it.
 Delegating: Leaders give the decision making responsibility to the team
members and monitor the whole process.
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Not only leaders are essential for this theory but the followers also. They should have
four levels of maturity as stated below:
Level M1: Low competence: low commitment
Level M2: Low competence: high commitment
Level M3: High competence: low confident and commitment
Level M4: High competence: high confidence and commitment
Figure 3: Maturity level of followers
(Source: Thompson and Glasø, 2018)
System leadership theory
This theory was proposed by Dr. Ian Macdonald. This theory suggests the leaders to
build a friendly relationship with the employers to earn their trust which will build a good
professional environment to perform better than ever (Gill et al., 2018). This theory
advocates for good leadership skills, personal behaviour, and design of the running
system. This theory has some special operational tools which help leaders to foretell the
behaviour of an employee. Managers of John Lewis Partnership have implemented this
theory on their employees to keep a healthy relationship between them.
Contingency leadership theory
This theory was developed by Fred Fiedler, who suggested that the personal leadership
style of a leader is related with the effectiveness of his strategy. This depends on his
personal skills to overcome any given situation. The unique leadership skill of a leader
helps to understand the complicacy of a situation which is of great importance to find a
perfect solution. Also, this inspires the followers to understand and follow him for any
working condition (Bachrach and Mullins, 2019).
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This theory says that:
• There is no best leadership style to be followed
• The concept of effective leadership is dependent on the personal style of a
leader to overcome that particular situation
Chaos theory- It is referred to a situation in which the overall system of any
organization behaves unpredictably. It is a process of determining the randomness and
the unpredictably of the organizational system. According to these theory managers and
the leaders are responsible to determine the chaos situation and incorporate innovative
strategies in order to minimize this randomness.
The management of John Lewis Partnership should apply the perfect theory for their
organizational situation to deal with employees and make them happy and satisfied
while gaining the maximum work done by them to gain more profit for the company.
Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to situations
As discussed above, there exist different approaches for different situations for a
company. These situations demand different solutions and have their strengths as well
as weaknesses
Strengths
An organization can make benefits by implementing different managerial and leadership
approaches. These approaches can help to generate more production leading more
profit while maintaining the stable environment within the company avoiding any chance
of conflict. Managers and leaders are responsible to complete a task within prescribed
time frame while maintaining the quality. This needs good performance of employees
which depends on the managerial/ leadership practices. Good communication,
understanding and working in a collaborative way between the managers or leaders
with the employee team can bring the success for the company.
Weaknesses
There is no as such noticeable weakness. Good managerial/ leadership practices
always keep in mind that there are customers, employees and stakeholders to make
happy. So they do not ignore any of them and this result in a good bonding. But one
should keep in mind that doing it in an opposite way can grow grievances in all of them
and become the weakness of the company.
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4. How classical theories and behavioural theories apply to the organisation and
how these have supported growth and sustainable performance (P4, P5, P6,M3,
M4, D2)
Application of classical theory for the growth and sustainable performances of an
organization
Classical theory mainly focuses on the efficiency of growth of an organization. This
theory included three different approaches namely scientific management, Bureaucratic
management and Administrative management.
Scientific management: This management approach was invented by Frederick
Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). According to this theory, managers of a particular
organization should be more intelligent than the other employees in order to arrange the
desired works as per the intellectuality of the other employees. This leads to run the
organization smoothly. This theory also helps the managers to introduce a task to their
employees in a well-specified and well-controlled manner.
Bureaucratic management: This management system was introduced by Max Weber
(1864-1920), which ensures an organization to have a bureaucratic structure within it in
order to enhance its productivity. Basically, it includes an organizational system which is
based upon certain rules and regulations, a fixed hierarchy, and a certain procedure.
According to this theory, an organization should focus on technical competence and the
critical evaluations of employees should be done according to their merit.
Administrative Management: This theory was invented by Henri Fayol (1841-1925)
which focuses on the efficiency of the managers of an organization. According to this
theory, successful managers have to understand the basics of the managerial functions
in order to influence the employees about their tasks (Naser, and Al Shobaki, 2016).
The main four managerial functions which are needed to be incorporated by the
managers are planning of the necessary operations, leading the employees in order to
meet the objectives of the organization, organizing various training and development
programs and controlling all the functions related to the organization’s operations.
The human resource management of John Lewis Partnership discusses with the
employees about their well-being and the respective organization has also introduced
incentive structure in order to reward the employees according to their performances.
The managers of this organization play an effective role in order to motivate their
employees to enhance their productivity.
Application of behavioral theories for growth and sustainable performance of the
organization:
Behavioral theory is used to gain knowledge about human practices in organizational
practices. This process includes:
Elton Mayo method: According to this method, managers of this company should be
co-operative with the employees in order to gain efficient productivity (Laudon et al.,
2016). The managers should engage the employees into groups to gain an effective
work culture. Lastly, according to this method managers should pay attention to the
employees work.
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