Leadership and Change Management Report: Woolworths Group Analysis

This report examines leadership and change management within the context of Woolworths Limited, a prominent Australian retail company. It begins by highlighting the company's success and the significance of effective leadership in navigating industry dynamics and challenges. The report delves into various leadership theories, including situational, contingency, behavioral, participative, and McGregor's theories, and their relevance to the Woolworths case. It analyzes the leadership skills of key figures like CEO Brad Banducci, emphasizing the importance of adapting leadership styles to organizational needs. The report discusses the application of different leadership approaches, such as transactional and transformational leadership, and the need to overcome barriers to change. Ultimately, it concludes that a balanced approach to leadership, incorporating insights from multiple theories, is essential for Woolworths to maintain its success and achieve global prominence. The report underscores the importance of teamwork and employee motivation in achieving organizational goals.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Leadership and Change Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Leadership skills..............................................................................................................................1
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References:......................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Woolworths Limited is one of the topmost companies in Australia and has extensive
areas of retail interest in several parts of Australia and also in New Zealand. Though the
company had incurred a significant loss recently, the trust and the success of the company were
not at all hampered. This is due to the fact that the company has succeeded in providing a good
and a wide range of services to its customers. From the start of opening its new store to the
present scenario, the company has gone a long way. The situation for the company was not
always favourable but it was due to the proper management or leadership of the authorities and
managers that Woolworths has achieved the stature it has reached at present.
Leadership skills
While understanding the leadership skills of the managers and the leaders of the
Woolworths group, it is essential to keep in mind that it is their constant support, dedication and
valuable inputs that have helped the company reach the heights it has achieved today. The
industry dynamics can be static as well as evolving. The dynamics of the industry help in
understanding the future performance of the industry in the different sectors it is present in. It is
found according to popular studies and reports that the biggest of the retailers feel the pressure of
numerous challenges on a daily basis as well as over a longer period of time.
Of the few dominant retail giants and several other smaller competitors, the Woolworths
Group is huge and has almost 30 million customers. The Woolworths industry has faced
problems with the strategic management of the branding and made changes to the advertising

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agency framework. The organisation expects highly competitive market positions and
concentrates on improvement of the supply chain productivity by the method of cost reduction.
The organisation belongs to an industry where there is high risk as well as intensive competition.
There are several existent theories of leadership including the situation theory,
contingency theory, behavioural theory, participative theory and McGregor theory.
The situational theory of leadership suggests that there is no particular leadership style by
itself which is the best. It is dependent on the situation at hand, the people involved with whom
the managers have to work and also the type of tasks and work at hand, including the several
other factors which contribute towards the completion of the work (Doppelt, 2017).
The contingency theory of leadership is a bit similar to the situational theory of
leadership in the sense that it suggests that there is no single style of leadership and it has to be
adapted to context and situation as well as the dynamics of the system. The nature of the people
being led, the mindset of the leader, his mental strength as well as the tasks facing a particular
group are different factors that influence a leadership role and responsibilities based on the
contingency theory (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2012).
Behavioural theories of leadership focus on the study of particular characteristics of a
leader, as the best predictor of leadership influences is a leader himself, and he is also the best
possible determinant of his leadership success (Hornstein, 2015). Behaviours have a huge
amount of possibility to be conditioned as different leaders are bound to have specific stimuli to
specific circumstances. There are specifically two types of leaders according to the situation
namely task oriented leaders as well as people oriented leaders. These leaders are not much

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concerned with the staff motivation but usually favour behaviours involving initiating, clarifying,
organising as well as information gathering (Cameron & Green, 2015). Another type of leaders
are people oriented, who focus on satisfying the inner needs of the people who work with them.
These leaders focus on staff motivation through emphasis on human relation. These leaders
achieve goals by encouraging, observing, listening as well as coaching and mentoring their staff
(Hayes, 2014).
Participative leadership is a type of leadership style that takes into account t he
suggestions as well as the ideas of others. The participative leadership is one in which leaders
encourage all sorts of participation and contribution from group members and help them feel
more accountable and committed to the decision making process (Matos Marques Simoes &
Esposito, 2014). In this particular leadership style the leader works in order to enhance the
teamwork and ensure the improvement of communications among the employees and also better
their morale (Hargreaves & Fink, 2012).
The McGregor Theory of leadership considers the assumption that there are two different
types of leadership, style X and style Y. The authoritative style of leadership is the most
important leadership style in style X, where system of work commitments rewards and
punishments are incorporated. Theory Y comprises of the thought that different people have
different needs and they can work towards their goals by the organisational objectives and they
desire to gain the most by methods of rewards appreciation as well as motivation (Daft, 2014).
In the backdrop of the Woolworths Company, it is to be noted that the company has been
able to prosper due to proper guidance and management from the higher authority. The CEO
Brad Banducci was instrumental, in the success of the Woolworths Company and had significant

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traits which are worth studying. He has always been a huge performer and has dominated
whatever category of responsibilities he has been assigned with. The CEO, Banducci is a fitness
enthusiast and also desires to bring about a zen-like approach to the steady improvement of the
supermarket business of Woolworths. He has adopted several plans for bringing about the
desired supremacy of the Woolworths Group.
There are several reasons which contribute to the success of Brad Banducci as a leader.
He has been educated as well as experienced in the retailing forte as many of the commerce
lessons where experienced quite early in his life. He is extremely well educated and possesses
degrees in law as well as commerce. He possessed the qualities of being argumentative as well as
logical from a very early age and this made him even more successful as a CEO (Northouse
2015).
The different types of leadership being discussed it can be said that the Woolworths
company is such a type of organisation which demands active engagement with the people and
also needs to give proper motivation to the employees and the group members. The members of
the group also need to be aware of the company state at all times and should be asked for
valuable suggestions which are a characteristic of participative leadership. The CEO Brad
Banducci fulfils his role promptly and always tries to maintain the culture of the company. It will
be wrong to pinpoint therefore on a single leadership style which best suits the company. Instead
it might be said clearly that the best traits of leadership need to be incorporated taking help of the
models and the CEO, managers as well as the people in other authoritative positions need to
successfully establish the company in a top position and lead it to heights of global success
(Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2013).

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It should be a duty of the leaders to maintain a balance between the concepts of
transactional as well as transformational leadership in order to improve the leadership activities
and responsibilities suitably. It needs to be understood that a balance is necessary between
getting work done and motivating the employees and members of each group to perform better
which are mentioned in transactional and transformational leadership styles.
An important aspect of organisational performance improvement is the overcoming
barriers for change. In this connection, anticipating the change barriers is an important step. In
case of large organisations often it becomes difficult to maintain a connection between the
topmost positions and the workers at the bottom levels. In order to overcome this issue, the
managers at the topmost authoritative positions need to hire intermediary managers to overcome
such barriers in the communisation which might negatively impact the overall performance of
the organisation and it might continue to operate with inherent flaws in the internal management
system.
Conclusion
From a proper study of the Woolworths organisation, it being a retail chain having
extensive services all around Australia and even New Zealand has been able to maintain and
improve its position with each passing day due to the successful leadership abilities of its
managers and the skilled and high level performance of the workers in all the centres. It is
necessary to understand that a company is not made by its managers alone but survives because
of its workers and also by the joint efforts of each individual of the society. It is necessary
therefore to work as a team and it is crucial for the leaders to maintain the balance between the

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transactional and transformational leadership methods to emerge better leaders and contribute to
the overall success of the organisation.

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References:
Aaker, D. A., & Joachimsthaler, E. (2012). Brand leadership. Simon and Schuster.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
Doppelt, B. (2017). Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of
emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Press.
Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2012). Sustainable leadership (Vol. 6). John Wiley & Sons.
Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
291-298.
Matos Marques Simoes, P., & Esposito, M. (2014). Improving change management: How
communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management
Development, 33(4), 324-341.
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.