Case Study: Leadership's Effect on Job Performance at Woolworths

This report investigates the impact of leadership on employee performance, using Woolworths Limited as a case study. The research addresses the problem of poor employee performance attributed to a lack of effective leadership skills. The study aims to determine how leadership affects Woolworths' employee performance and offers recommendations for improving leadership styles. A literature review explores leadership theories and their effects on staff satisfaction and job performance. The report examines various leadership styles, including autocratic, democratic, transformational, and transactional approaches, and their influence on employee outcomes. The research design employs a quantitative method using questionnaires to gather data, considering ethical considerations. The report includes research questions, a discussion of leadership factors, and the potential outcomes of adopting effective leadership practices, providing valuable insights into leadership strategies and their effects on organizational performance.

Effect of leadership on job performance (case
study of the Woolworths limited)
Student name
Student number

Industry partner
 supermarkets based in Australia
 company with over 1000 stores and
branches within Australia
 The company has minimum employees
of 1115001 working in its branches and
stores.

Research problem
 Lack of these skills in leadership is the
key reason for poor employee
performance which later attributes
organizations lack of objective
fulfillment
 This is a factor that has greatly affected
employee performance in the Woolworth
limited company thereafter affecting the
overall output for the company.

 Woolworth branches have been facing
employee performance related
challenges which has ended up affecting
the company with a decline in the
quality of services being offered. This
has led to decline in some of the
business branches

Research aim
 determine how leadership has been
affecting Woolworth’s employee
performance . It also gives some
recommendations on the strategies that
can be adopted to change leadership
style behaviors and developments that
can be a corrective response to the
current situation.

Literature review
 The style of leadership and the nature of the
work organization can affect staff
satisfaction which a contributing factor in
determining their levels of job performance.
(Bass and Bass 2009)
 leadership is the capacity to translate vision
into reality
 leadership has adverse effects on the
employee performance of every organization

Leadership factors that affect employee performance
Leadership style
If a leader adopts a good and effective leadership style this
affects the employee performance with an improved service
 leadership is a prolific area of study that can be explained
by a variety of theories. Such include kurt lewins
leadership styles theories, the theory of the Blake-
mouton managerial grid, the Hersey- Blanchard
situational leadership theories, the path goal theory, the
six emotional leadership style theory and the
transformational and transactional leadership style theory

 Autocratic leadership
leaders are known for giving orders with
an instance response of obedience from
the workers and there is always neither a
room for arguments nor negotiations.
 the leader does not involve the team of
employees in making plans and policies

 Democratic leadership
type of leadership whereby the decision
making and planning is not made by one
person but the entire group of members
harmoniously.

 Participative leadership
. Employees are involved in decision
making process whereby the leader seeks
for their opinions and later uses the
opinions for decision making.

 Transformational leadership
leaders tend to motivate their employees to meet
certain expectations by providing them a vision.
 Transactional leadership
leadership that can be used by a leader who is goal
oriented
 Laissez faire leadership
leaders don’t make decisions. They are always
reluctant in taking actions and avoiding situations and
therefore this exposes them in high risks of
encountering problems

Research questions
 What are some of the leadership related factors that
affect employee performance in the Woolworth Company?
 How does each individual leadership factor affect the
Woolworth company employee performance?
 What is the state of the leadership practices in the
Woolworth Company and how does it affect employee
performance?
 What are some of the ways and strategies that can be
used to realize effective leadership leading to good
employee performance?
 What are the outcomes to the company if effective
leadership is adopted?

Research design
 the most appropriate research design will be
quantitative method.
 We shall consider sampling of data in the
research as well. The best sampling method for
our research will be random sampling method.
 This will enable us to represent the whole
population of manager/ leaders and the
employees who have been employed in the
organization for a minimum period of two years.

Research tools
 Questionnaire
The questionnaires have been designed
with a five point likert scale to provide the
sampled respondents ease when answering
the questions. The scale takes the format
of: 1) strongly disagree, 2) disagree), 3)
neither agree nor disagree, 4) agree and 5)
strongly agree. The following are the
questions and design for the questionnaire.

Ethical considerations
 We have considered approaching the
Woolworth limited company human
resource managers. We have come up
with a consensual agreement that will
ensure that no complication relating to
breach of privacy act will arise

References
 ass, B M, and R Bass. The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and
managerial applications. . simon and schuster press, 2009.
 Cherry, Kendra. "what is democratic leadership." very well mind journal , 2018: 3.
 Daniel, G. The new leaders. little brown: lancaster press, 2002.
 Dininni, Jeanne. "management theory of Warren Bennis." Business, 2017: 5.
 gabzhalilov, Askar. "does leadership style affect employee work performance ." the
market mogul, 2015: 1-22.
 Heneman, R L, and M T Gresham. "the effects of changes in the nature of work on
compensation." leadership, 2000: 21.
 Mohammed, Hussein, and Hagi Hassan. "The Impact of Leadership Styles on
Employees’ performance in Telecom Engineering companies." Autralian journal of
basic and applied sciences, 2015: 1-10.
 Moorad, zeenat. "why woolworths is getting whipped." business live, 2017: 1-8.
 Nebel, E C. "Motivation,leadership and employee performance." Sage journal, 2003:
11.
 woolworth group. About us. 2018. https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/ (accessed
August 9, 2018).