Marks & Spencer: Leadership, Management, and Development Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership, management practices, and employee development strategies at Marks & Spencer (M&S). It begins with an introduction to motivation and leadership, highlighting their importance in business success. The report then offers an overview of M&S, detailing its history, core values, and organizational structure. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to exploring the evolution of leadership styles within M&S, from autocratic to consultative approaches, and how these styles have influenced the company's performance. The report also examines M&S's management practices, including its approach to cultural cohesiveness, collaborations with designers, and the use of technology and supply chains. Furthermore, the report discusses the company's strategies for developing its employees, including the use of soft and hard approaches in human resource management. The conclusion emphasizes the need for continuous innovation and customized leadership to maintain a competitive advantage. The report provides references to support the findings.

CONTEXT OF
BUSINESS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
COMPANY OVERVIEW...............................................................................................................1
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................1
Leadership, Management and Development of People in M&S............................................1
Recommendations..................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Motivation and Leadership Styles are two of the many crucial factors that determine the
success or failure of any business. Motivation, in the context of business, is the level of desire at
which an employer or employee performs (Cerasoli, Nicklin and Ford, 2014). Here, motivation
is one of the driving factors for productivity, engagement and commitment to their work. On the
other hand, Leadership is an ability to tackle competition and challenges by effectively
undertaking the practice of goal setting, decision-making process and acting upon them. Here,
leadership drives direction for a company.
This project report aims to provide a conceptual as well as practical understanding of
motivational theories, leadership styles, management practices and strategies adopted by Marks
& Spencer. It also provides suitable recommendations in terms of the considered variables to the
management of Marks & Spencer.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Marks and Spencer is one of the most famous retail brands based out of Westminster,
London, UK. The brand deals in a wide assortment of categories including food, clothing and
Home-ware. The company was founded in 1882 by Michael Marks and Tom Spencer. The
company envisions to become the epitome of sustainable development and standard against
which all others are measured through its current and future course of actions. It aims to achieve
this vision through effectuating organisational core values of inspiration, innovation, integrity
and in touch. Currently, the operations of M&S is divided into two categories viz. UK and
International (Covin and Slevin, 2017).
Marks & Spencer's diverse work culture, prominent ethical approaches and behaviours as
well as well-focused leaderships at its heart of operations are some of the main reasons
contributing to the rationale behind choosing this organisation.
Leadership, Management and Development of People in M&S
Leadership Styles
Leadership can be defined as the process of directing the course of a business by
influencing the activities of an organised group, mainly including employees and other internal
participants of the business through goal setting and their achievement. In present scenario, the
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concept of leadership has become more of a distributive one that allows creation of vision based
on personal capabilities and strengths.
Back in 1882, M&S Venture was initiated by two individuals in England and was
primarily a family business. As the time flew by, the company gained wide recognition
domestically as well as across borders. Since then there have been a number of leaders, both
lineal as well as otherwise (Deci and Ryan, 2012). The first and foremost leadership style came
with Simon Marks, the twenty-eight year old son of Marks who helped in breaking the traditional
time-honoured retailing by eliminating the wholesalers and connecting with manufacturers
directly. Marks' style was an autocratic yet visionary and innovative one. The company had a
much more centralised line of authority with a top-down management style. Simon was
interested in quality enhancing, on-time deliverance of products, employee performance as well
as development, customer service and satisfaction. This helped the business in establishing itself
as a store with a modernised business model.
Even though an Autocratic Leadership Style results in dissatisfaction among employees
as there is no encouraged or empowerment of such groups, Simon primarily focused on
employee development by providing them a highly comfortable work environment that resulted
in a team of highly satisfied individuals working cohesively towards achieving business goals.
Thus, making an almost a visionary as far as his thought process is concerned. On the other hand,
the it is important to note that Simon still used the centralised top-down line management under
his prerogative making him an Autocratic Leader nonetheless (Kerr, 2013).
If observed closely, these practices have been furthermore encouraged by the succeeding
leaders of the business too. In the present scenario, the leadership is consultative in nature. A
consultative leadership style is one which involves others while making a decision regarding a
particular issue or event. Hence, a group individuals consult among each other before coming to
a definite conclusion. A consultative Leadership Style is somewhat similar to that of Democratic
Leadership. Under Democratic Leadership Style, there is a presence of high cohesion among the
employees as well as across the authority levels prevalent in the organisation. Its main focus is to
empower the parties associated with the workings of the business.
One distinctive example of such leadership style can be seen in company's Leadership
Team (Krause and et.al., 2015). This team comprises board members as well as operating
committee that discuss various matters before formulating a strategy or decision. However, in
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certain circumstances, more than one leadership styles may be adopted by the company so as to
best address the given matter at hand. This can be illustrated through Vandevelde's leadership
style who brought back M&S from an underperforming business to a stellar one. Under his reign,
the company was able to implement a recovery strategy in terms of its core operating concept,
thus, restoring its product quality values and customer service in the late 90s. Vandevelde's
leadership style was a consultative one wherein he empowered others by encouraging them to
become a part of the business' strategic decision-making procedures. This not only helped in
restoration of company's reputation but also tradition (Mayer and et,al., 2012).
A company as big as Marks and Spencer is prone to using more than one leadership style
in its operations. Hence, an autocratic leadership style, even today, can be adopted by Marks and
Spencer at the top-management level but it is only suitable to implement a democratic or
consultative or a mixture of both at middle and lower management levels of the organisation.
Management Practices
Management practice refers to the techniques used by the mangers for improving the
inconstancies or gaps in the management. Management Practices include work culture of the
organization as well as its perception towards its stakeholders, both internal and external. New
ways are needed to be found in order to deal with future uncertainties and increasing the
productivity of organisation. This involves empowering staff, launching innovative ways to hold
their interest in the company and taking measures to improve quality. It ensures achievement of
targets through the coordination of each team member that is working in the organisation. Marks
and Spencer is a well known British retailer that deals in the business of clothing, home products
and food products. This organisation has achieved success through it's effective management
practises (Mayer and et.al., 2012).
Cultural cohesiveness is one of the tools of management practices that involves attracting
diverse group of people towards the organisation. People differ in terms of race, religion,
ethnicity etc the company has adopted this policy and included hijab in their garments category.
Though this decision of the company faced lots of criticism on various media platforms. This
was considered as regressive move, but this initiatives has proved one thing that company is
open to accept different cultures and shows that management is welcoming towards various
communities.
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The company encourages collaboration in order to increase its synergies in the market.
Along with that Marks and Spenser has collaborated with various designers such as Marie
Chantal who is child-wear designer, Baartmans and Siegel is a menswear designer known for its
classic design. Collaboration with various designer and forming alliances with them has helped
company to deliver wide range of supreme quality product. Thus, this has enhances the product
portfolio of company which finally lead to development as well as expansion of M&S. A
company is liable to its society as well as it is to its other stakeholders.
Respective company has diversified product and services with unique design that help to
maintain the good financial position as well as cash flow of company. In addition to it company
uses various supply chains that helps in transferring of goods and services overseas to form long
term relationship between supplier and employees which helps in development of company.
M&S has always remain flexible while adopting latest technology like they have database where
all the information regarding the customers of M&S are stored electronically. This data can be
further utilised to build long term relationship with existing as well as potential customer. Along
with that selected company has organised brick and mortar retail as well as online stores that
showcases various product and deals with the customer (Spalding and et.al., 2014). Furthermore,
with the increase in number of people working outside respective company has provided on;line
delivery facility where customer can track the location of their product. Therefore, this has
increased the transparency and lead to the development of overall company.
Development of People
Marks and Spencer is known to be highly dynamic in its approaches when it comes to
managing its operations and development of strategies. Since the business environment of retail
sector in UK as well as internationally is highly competitive one, it is important for M&S to be
agile and adaptable to the new changes as and when they occur. As far as its Human Resource
Management Practices are concerned, the company tends to use a Soft and Hard Approach. The
decision to implement either of these approaches rests in the hand of company's line manager.
Soft Approach is used in order to ensure that the employees are always motivated, committed
and developing new skills, thus, striving to create a positive environment at the workplace. For
this purpose, proper training is provided to the workforce which ensures that the workforce
remains highly flexible as well as adaptable to change and other innovations.
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On the other hand, the line managers apply a hard approach while addressing a
contingent situation. This tactic helps the company's management in ensuring that the human
resource capital present with it is able to closely link itself with the business strategies of Marks
and Spencer. Here, employees and their authoritative figures interact in a much more formal,
rational and dispassionate manner so as to develop a strategic approach. This type of approach is
mainly adopted by managers of M&S when they need to minimize cost incurred on deriving
human resources (Spencer and et.al., 2012).
Design and development of Marks and Spenser
Marks and Spenser is a largest retailer of United Kingdom that provide premium quality
of clothes, home product as well as food in both national as well as international market. They
have always come up with latest trend in term of design to enhance the brand loyalty of company
and expand its reach. Moreover, for the overall development of company they have build strong
relationship with suppliers to get the premium quality product at reasonable prices. This has
increased the profit margin for the company.
CONCLUSION
Though M&S believes in innovation and adoption of latest design to satisfy the need,
interest as well as preferences of customer. But still they need to continuously move with the
innovation otherwise their prospects will find the gap between their demand and offering of
company that will result into breaking the loyalty of company. Also, the leadership styles and
approaches to development of people must be more customized based on the line of authority it
is applied to so as to gain more competitive advantage and effectiveness in Marks & Spencer.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M. and Ford, M. T., 2014. Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives
jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin. 140(4).
p.980.
Covin, J. G. and Slevin, D. P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic
leadership. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M., 2012. Motivation, personality, and development within embedded
social contexts: An overview of self-determination theory. The Oxford handbook of
human motivation, pp.85-107.
Kerr, J. H., 2013. Motivation And Emotion In Spor. Taylor & Francis.
Krause, G., and et.al., 2015. A revolution without people? Closing the people–policy gap in
aquaculture development. Aquaculture. 447. pp.44-55.
Mayer, D. M., and et,al., 2012. Who displays ethical leadership, and why does it matter? An
examination of antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Academy of
Management Journal. 55(1). pp.151-171.
Mayer, D. M., and et.al., 2012. Who displays ethical leadership, and why does it matter? An
examination of antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Academy of
Management Journal. 55(1). pp.151-171.
Spalding, M. D., and et.al., 2014. Coastal ecosystems: a critical element of risk
reduction. Conservation Letters. 7(3). pp.293-301.
Spencer, F. A., and et.al., 2012. Uncertainties in baseline risk estimates and confidence in
treatment effects. Bmj. 345. p.e7401.
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