LCBB6003 Leadership: Theory and Practice Analysis of Sainsbury Plc

This report provides an analysis of leadership and management theory and practice within Sainsbury Plc, a major UK supermarket chain. It reflects on various leadership styles, concepts, and theories, including trait theory, great man theory, behavioral leadership theory, situational theory, and contingency theory. The report also discusses Katz's skills approach (technical, human, and conceptual skills), Michigan leadership studies, and the Ohio State model of leadership. A leadership development plan is included to highlight areas for personal improvement, focusing on decision-making, management, and time-management skills. The study concludes that effective leadership is crucial for organizational success and outlines how the discussed theories can be applied in a practical business setting.

Leadership and
Management Theory
and Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals:.....................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
In any business entity, leadership plays an essential role which aims to influence,
motivate, direct and control the activities of individual or a group of individuals within the
organization. Leaders makes individuals directed to attain certain goals and aspirations of the
business. Sainsbury Plc is selected to complete this assignment (Brown and Kasztelnik, 2020). It
is known as the second largest supermarket chain, across United Kingdom. John James
Sainsbury was announced the company in the year 1869. In the following report, the reflection is
mentioned to demonstrate the leadership styles, concepts, theories. It also outlines the areas that
needs some improvisation. Leadership action plan will help to develop and improve the required
skills, abilities or knowledge.
TASK
I learned that leadership has a very deep meaning that is important to acknowledge.
Leadership carries the ability of a person to direct or influence the followers or group of
members of a company. Leaders plays the role in creating business's vision, take important
decisions, set attainable objectives while indulging individuals with the knowledge and tools
required to accomplish the objectives. I got an opportunity to be a leader of a team within the
business of Sainsbury. Being a leader, it was necessary for me to be efficient in many ways and
possesses required traits and characteristics such as strong communication, self-confidence,
creative and innovative thinking, management skills, openness to change, willingness to take
risks, reactiveness in times of crises and many more (Castellano and et.al., 2021).
Due to the improvement of knowledge as a leader, I needed to went through different
models and theories of leadership so as to apply them practically to attain the desired outcomes.
During my learning experience, I came to know about trait theory of leadership which states
that effective leaders have defined traits of personality that creates differentiation among leaders
from their followers. I learned that leaders neither can be made nor they can be taught about
certain skills, but rather there are specific traits that mean individuals are more likely to seek out
the position of leaders. As a leader, I am quite extrovert oriented person who likes the company
of other people and look more out of the opportunities of public positions. Being a leader, this
concept was essential for me to know the key traits to lead or direct a human or group of them. I
learned that motivation is one of the key traits that desires to direct and lead followers, it helps in

making understand employees that where the Sainsbury Organization should be. The other key
trait is to be self-confident which means that I had to be emotional stable while doing things or
leading my team. Cognitive ability is also an essential trait that helped me to show intelligence of
working as I needed to lead people for which I must possessed the enough knowledge (Chon and
Zoltan, 2019).
I also came to learned about the concept of great man theory of leadership. The famous
scholar Thomas Carlyle was the founder of this theory who believed that the history of the globe
is the biography of great individuals. He stated that effective leaders are heroes with courage,
intellectual superiority and important influence on the masses. These leaders were often acted as
role model for the society. This theory suggests that some individuals are born only to lead and
direct people, these cannot be made because qualities of leadership are innate. I found that great
leaders are already having political skills, charisma, wisdom and intelligence which are all
natural qualities of a successful. Somehow I believed that this theory is based on assumptions
and myths which have little logic and cannot be considered in external environment or
circumstances that often impact human attitude and behaviour. I also think that this theory
mainly ignores the contributions of other employees who drove a leader to success.
I also acquired knowledge about the concept of behavioural leadership theory which
argues that the success of a leader is based on his behaviour rather than its natural traits or
characteristics. This theory contains assessing and observing the actions and behaviour of a
leader when they are reacting to a certain situation (Faupel and Süß, 2019). While working as a
part of Sainsbury, I got evaluated on the basis of criteria created by the behaviour leadership
theory. It helped me to promote an idea in which I am capable of learning and building through
adopting advantages behaviours while performing them in the workplace. It also encouraged me
to be self-aware of the attitude and behaviour while identifying how it influences the employees’
morale and productivity.
Situational theory of leadership believes that no single style of leadership is best.
Instead, it relies on which form of leadership or strategies are best suited to the activity or
project. I experienced that most effective leaders are those persons who are able to change their
leadership style to the circumstance or situation and look at the aspects such as kind of tasks,
characteristics of the team and many other factors that might affecting to finish a certain task. I
think that this kind of leadership is a flexible style created to increase the potential of workers

and employees while attaining the business objectives and meet various deadlines (Mahmood,
Uddin and Fan, 2019).
I also read about the theory of contingency in which the effectiveness of a leader is
contingent on whether or not their pattern of leadership fit s a specific situation. As per the view
point of this theory, a person can be an effective leader in one situation and ineffective leader in
another one. Being a leader, there were many situations held in the Sainsbury organisation such
as employees sometimes lack with responsibilities and knowledge and there should be a
necessity to adopt a directive leadership style so that I could help followers to attend certain
objectives. While in order to be a productive leader, this theory positioned me to examine each
and every situation and then I made the choice if such leadership style is going to be effective or
ineffective. It required me to be objective, self aware as well as adaptable. To lead the team of
individuals, I was also required to change my leadership style to the existing situation while
delegating some of the responsibilities to my followers and other employees so that the goals can
be accomplished in the effective way (Podsakoff and Podsakoff, 2019).
KATZ skills approach: While leading people, I came to know about Robert Katz
leadership skills- technical skills human skulls and conceptual skills. I realised that these are
some basic personal skills which is important for leading a group of people. Technical skills are
all about the expertise and proficiency in a certain kind of work. It involves competencies in a
specialised area ability to use right tools and techniques and analytical ability. I was a leading a
marketing team so there was a necessity to have the knowledge about basic principles of
marketing and more. I realised that there was a need to enhance my such area so that I could
better direct the team of marketing. Human skills are those skills which are relatable to the
ability to work with humans. It is essential for me to enhance and develop significant skills so
that I could effectively work with peers, subordinate and superiors (Reynolds and McKimm,
2021). I also got a chance to know the areas where I am good such as effective communication,
having positive attitude and more. On the same way, I realised that I was lack at motivational
skills and team spirit skills to lead a team. Conceptual skills are also important for a leader to
think through and deal with the things with ideas. With an intent to become an effective leader, it
was essential for me to have higher levels of conceptual skills such as decision making skills,
creativity, problem solving, strategic thinking and many more.

Michigan leadership was also studied by me. I got a chance to know the principles and
forms of different kind of leadership styles that led to improved job satisfaction and greater
productivity among employees. Due to such concept, I studied about two styles of leadership-
job-centred leadership in which I paid close attention to the employees’ work while explaining
them the procedures of work and growing interest to performance. Employee-centred leadership
are mainly focus on building a cohesive team group and make sure that workers are satisfied
with their work (Shen, and et.al., 2021).
Ohio State model of leadership can be termed as a survey framework on the studies of
leadership conducted by a team of researchers to consider the question of how leaders’ behaviour
influences team of individuals’ satisfaction and job performance. I studied about the two
categories of a leader’s behaviour- consideration and initiating structure. Consideration explains
the level to which a leader shows concern for the employee’s welfare which include two-way
communication as well as responding to the teams’ requirements by requesting desires, believes,
opinions and many more. So I mainly used group activities and team discussions. It supported
me to set mutual trust between me and my team members while they show warmth and respect to
me. Initiating structure refers the level to which a leader organises and explain the activities and
rules of team members. It contains establishing aspiration and representing what is to be
completed, how it will be completed, where it will be completed, when it will be completed or
who is accountable for certain activities (Sklaveniti, 2020). This style of leadership generally
embroils only one-way communication where leaders tells team what to do to achieve an
objective.
Leadership development plan:
What are my
leadership
development
objectives?
What leadership
activities do I need
to undertake to
achieve my
objectives?
Where will I
develop my
leadership to
achieve my
objectives?
Target date for
achieving my
objectives
Decision making
skills
I believe that the
leadership skills
within me need some
kind of improvisation
By observing other
leaders in the selected
company will help
me to improve my
4th April 2022

to make smart
decisions for the
growth of employees
and organisation.
decision making
skills.
Management skills I realised that
organisation face
heavy work load
during a specific
period of time so that
I need to specifically
improve this skill.
I will take guidance
and tips from other
leaders in the chosen
organisation that how
they manage heavy
workloads while
understanding criteria
it is depend on.
1st June, 2022
Time-management
skills
I felt that initially in
my project I required
to ensure that the
activities are
highlighted and
should be
incorporated within
the time limits.
I will try to follow
the priority list and
schedule to meet
certain objectives and
deadlines for the
activities (Waylen,
2021).
1st May 2022
CONCLUSION
From this study, it is concluded that leadership is essential for an organisation through which
employees are influenced, directed, guided and motivated to attain certain tasks and projects
effectively and efficiently. In this report, there are different concepts and theories of leadership
are discussed. Along with this, Michigan and Ohio studies are outlined that is can be used in
leadership. Lastly, leadership development plan is highlighted through which a person can
accomplish aspirations and goals of leadership.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Brown, E. and Kasztelnik, K., 2020. The Observational Microeconomics Study of the
Phenomenon of Entrepreneur Resilience and Collaborative Innovative Financial
Leadership in the United States. Financial Markets, Institutions and Risks, 4(3), pp.24-
41.
Castellano, S. and et.al., 2021. Impact of self-leadership and shared leadership on the
performance of virtual R&D teams. Journal of Business Research, 128, pp.578-586.
Chon, K.K.S. and Zoltan, J., 2019. Role of servant leadership in contemporary
hospitality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Faupel, S. and Süß, S., 2019. The effect of transformational leadership on employees during
organizational change–an empirical analysis. Journal of Change Management, 19(3),
pp.145-166.
Mahmood, M., Uddin, M.A. and Fan, L., 2019. The influence of transformational leadership on
employees’ creative process engagement: A multi-level analysis. Management
Decision.
Podsakoff, P.M. and Podsakoff, N.P., 2019. Experimental designs in management and leadership
research: Strengths, limitations, and recommendations for improving publishability. The
Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), pp.11-33.
Reynolds, D. and McKimm, J., 2021. Educational management and leadership in Wales:
promise, performance and potential. School Leadership & Management, 41(1-2), pp.54-
72.
Shen, B. and et.al., 2021. Collaborative innovation in supply chain systems: Value creation and
leadership structure. International Journal of Production Economics, 235, p.108068.
Sklaveniti, C., 2020. Moments that connect: Turning points and the becoming of
leadership. Human relations, 73(4), pp.544-571.
Waylen, G., 2021. Gendering political leadership: hypermasculine leadership and Covid-
19. Journal of European Public Policy, 28(8), pp.1153-1173.