Leadership vs. Management: A Literature Review on Boots UK Ltd

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management concepts, using Boots UK Ltd as a case study. It begins by differentiating between leadership and management, highlighting their distinct roles and emphasizing the importance of both in achieving organizational goals. The report then delves into the trait leadership theory, exploring how inherent qualities and learned behaviors contribute to effective leadership. Furthermore, it examines the management development program of Boots UK Ltd, evaluating its strategies for cultivating leadership skills and improving employee performance. The report integrates a literature review, drawing on various scholarly sources to support its arguments and provide a well-rounded understanding of the subject matter, ultimately providing insights into effective leadership and management practices within a real-world context.

Literature review and
essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Difference between the concept of leadership and management............................................1
2. Trait leadership theory............................................................................................................5
3. Management development program of Boot UK Ltd.............................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Management is defined as the process of planning, organising, managing, controlling and
guiding the employees working within the organisation toward the accomplishment of company's
goals as well as objectives. On the other side leadership is refers to as set of actions that are
being performed by a leader in order to motivate people toward working within the organisation
in order to direct their efforts toward the accomplishment of personal as well as organisational
goals (Storey, 2016). This report is based on Boots UK Limited which is an heath as well as
beauty retailer and also maintain a chain of pharmacy throughout United Kingdom, Ireland and
other territories. This company is best known for its management practices and leadership which
also reflect its history of success from a decade. This project includes a literature review
regarding the difference between management and leadership concept. In addition to this it also
includes a detail description about leadership theory that help in motivating employees and
improving their performance at workplace. Apart from this it also includes a description about
management development program of Boots UK Ltd regarding the leadership development
aspect.
MAIN BODY
1. Difference between the concept of leadership and management
Leadership as well as management both are considered as most crucial part of an
organisation that help it in guiding, directing and motivating the employees toward the goal and
objective of a company. It help in improving the performance of employees so that their efforts
could be align in right direction which in turn support in organisational success as well as
profitability at large scale (Smith and Peterson, 2017). Both leadership as well as management
tend to be used inter-changeably but these are different things as the role of manager is just to
manage its subordinate to work toward organisational success. But on the other side a leader is
one that work toward motivating employees to achieve its personal goal or objective along with
the organisational aim.
As per the view point of Susan Ward, 2019, Leadership is refers to as a art of motivating
group of people in order to make them act toward the accomplishment of common goals or
objective. In context of business it refers to directing the colleagues as well as workers by
forming up a strategy in order to meet organisational need. This is because an effective
1

leadership is one which is based on ideas which while communicated helps in motivative
employees toward their work and as a result of which they started getting involved in
organisational practices much effectively (Renz, 2016). Hence it can be said that leader is a
person which guide, direct and influence the work as well as behaviour of its subordinates
toward the accomplishment of specific goals. It is also one main quality of a manger that help in
encouraging the employees to work with zeal and confidence.
On the other side as per the view of Kimberlee Leonard, 2018, management in context of
business is refers to as a process of leading and controlling the assets as well as resources of
organisation in order to align them toward the accomplishment of organisational goals. The
organisational management goes beyond the concept of corporate structure, it also requires a
manager to be spontaneous so that it would be able to resolve issues and develop solution that
support company in moving closer to desired goals as well as objectives (Pihlainen Kivinen and
Lammintakanen, 2016). Organisational management is consider as combination of several
components of leadership which help in forming up effective strategy after utilising the
information from organisational structure and then implementing the strategy through meeting
and employees training.
As per the view point of Surbhi. S, 2015, Leadership is refers to as a quality of
influencing people so that objectives can be achieved effectively with full of enthusiasm and
motivation. This is not similar to management, as leadership is an element of management which
is consider as discipline of managing things in best possible manner. On the other side leadership
focuses toward motivating employee to work toward their goals and not to manage things. The
main difference between management and leadership is that, management is basically belongs to
formal as well as organised group of people. But on the other side, leadership belongs to both
formal as well as informal group of people. The further differences between these two concept
can be better understood from the information given underneath:
Basis of comparison Leadership Management
Meaning Leadership is refer to as a skill
of leading people by setting up
example in front of its
followers.
Management is defined as an
art of systematically
coordinating and organising
things in a more efficient and
2

effective manner.
Emphasizes The leaders within an
organisation mainly focuses
toward inspiring the people to
achieve personal as well as
organisational objective.
The main emphasis of
management is to control and
coordinate all the activities
effectively so that task could
be performed properly and in
timely manner.
Power Leadership is meant to
perform number of activities
by leaders for influencing its
follower to work with full
motivation and dedication
toward their goals.
Management is mainly focuses
toward controlling the number
of actions that are performed
within the organisation.
Formulation An effective leader is one who
formulate certain principles as
well as guidelines that help in
directing the efforts of
employees in right direction
(Morden, 2017). This support
in motivating employees to
direct their efforts for
achieving something better.
A manager is responsible for
formulating policies as well as
procedure that are required to
consider by employees while
performing their duties. These
formulation help a manger to
provide its employees a
direction regarding their job
responsibilities so that task
would be perform in effective
and efficient manner.
Role Leaders basically have
tendency to praise the success
achieve by its follower and
drive them to make them
achieve something. This is
basically done by a leader for
The main role of manager is to
plan the number of activities
that have to be performed by
employees as per the order of
management (Kyratsis and et.
al., 2016). Managers are
3

pushing their employees to do
best and understand how to set
up a tempo in front of other
group members.
responsible to put control over
employees that further support
in return to create valuable
assets of organisation that help
in achieving maximum benefit.
Nature An effective leader of a team
is one who brings up some
new ideas in order to lead
organisation in forward
thinking to make workforce
work in more effective
manner.
In contrast, a manager is one
who usually maintain what is
already being established and
followed by organisation. A
manager is required to watch
bottom line while managing
employees in organisation with
an aim to prevent any sort of
chaos.
From the above given discussion it can be said that management and leadership both the
concept are inseparable as if there is management then leadership would also be there. The
reason behind this is that manager requires leadership skills along with the management in order
to keep its subordinates inspire in order to work effectively. In Boots limited work is managed by
both leadership as well as management (Higgs and Dulewicz, 2016)). This is usually performed
by managers that are present in department along with number of leaders who work together
with team for assisting the organisation toward the accomplishment of its goals and objectives.
Majority of times managers plays the role of leader too at the demand of time in order to keep
employees involved within the organisational work so that objectives could be achieve in
efficient and effective manner. Hence, in Boot Limited both managers as well as leaders work
side by side with one another in order to compliment each others work.
A manager is work toward maintenance of 5M i.e. Manpower, Machine, Methods,
Money and Material while leadership is all about persuading the employees toward positive
direction in order to digging out the hidden talent of employees so that it can sharpen up to
improve their performance (Haile, Emmanuel and Dzathor, 2016). So by performing controlling
and motivation together an organisation would be able to develop such as environment that
4

support and motivate employees to discover about themselves and then improving their skills or
capabilities to achieve something more.
2. Trait leadership theory
It is a leadership theory which says that leaders are born with their leadership traits. It
helps in understanding and identifying characteristics which help to lead others. This theory is
based on moral instead of intellectual efforts. In this theory individual's social, mental and
physical characteristics are analysed to gain the understanding of traits. Major advantage of this
theory is that it gives important information of leadership and managers can use these to identify
their position in the company and how it can be improved. It creates an awareness about
strengths & weaknesses of managers and what are the ways through which they can develop the
leader's quality.
As per the view point of Mark Shead, 2019, some people working in boot have inborn
qualities and traits which is related to leadership. Through this, organisation can identify the
people with leadership potential within their company. According to this theory it assumes that
people are born leaders because they have this skill in them since they were born. Identification
of these traits are very much valuable for the organisation. But according to Mark Shead, there
are many tendencies of individual's personality are affected by the way they born but it is also
possible that people can change their personalities according to the demand of company or
situation. For example if some worker of boot are honest while working in it, they can also learn
to be dishonest while working as per the situation. It says that people can easily learn bad traits
of people and can completely change themselves but they can also even learn good qualities of
people (Ciulla, 2017). There are many other examples of this concept like hedgers (people who
avoid risk) can learn to take risk. So Mark Shead says that every trait can be learned by
individuals of Boot while working, it will not be very easy but continuously working on it
worker can become competent. It says that sometime bringing changes in individual's character
is not the problem but very openly showing it creates issues. For increasing ability of of boot
workers, they need to focus on their characters and how to develop traits related to leadership.
According to the Morden, 2017, Trait theory is the modification of Great man theory in
which it says that workers of boot can acquire leadership traits and for that they does not need to
have inborn quality in them. It has also explained some highlighter characteristics of Boot
leaders or which they should posses to some extent for better performance of the organisation
5

and to increase productivity & profitability. Qualities that is inborn or which can be acquirable
are-:
Intelligence: According to this quality workers of BOOT should have enough
intelligence level so that they can understand their functions or tasks which they are asked to
perform and the environment like internal as well as external which affect their performance.
Personality: It is not related to the physical appearance because this pointing the internal
personality of a person which is as important as having good physical appearance. Some of these
qualities are strong drive, optimism, disciplined, extrovert, self confidence, purposefulness,
achievement orientation etc. All these qualities help leaders in organising and coordination their
tasks and situation, in making sound decisions, to achieve the goal of the company, to resolve
conflict and to face the dynamic organisation.
Other qualities: intelligence and personality traits are not enough for the people working
in BOOT, they also need to have some other qualities in them to completely achieve the goals of
the organisation as well as to understand their functions which they are required to perform
(Bush, Bell and Middlewood, 2019). Some of the other qualities are social sensitivity, ability to
communicate, interest in people, objectivity, abiding interest in people, pragmatism and sense of
realism.
It also says that there is no guarantee that these qualities make a leader successful but it
create probability of happening it. According to Morden, not having the above qualities is
dangerous for leaders.
According to Monte R Anderson, 2013, traits of BOOT 's individuals are defined as the
general qualities that a person posses like their motives, behaviours and their capacities. It also
says that if some traits are missing it can stops individual from becoming a good leader. Monte R
says that there are only few traits which can not be developed by individuals and this is the
reason why people believe the concept of born leaders. One publicized trait theory study was
conducted which identified these characters of a good leadership and that are supervisory ability,
seeking responsibility, intelligence, decisiveness, self assurance and initiative. From this research
it has been identified that there are different personality traits presents in a successful leader
(Bolman and Deal, 2017). Trait theory help leader of BOOT to understand some quality like
good decision making skills, assertiveness, empathy, integrity etc. which help them to lead
others. It also says that non of the quality give assurance of leader's success. These are external
6

behaviour which appear from the internal belief of Boot's leader which is must for effective
leadership.
As per the view point of Ralph Stogdill, 2010, A research was undertaken on leadership
traits and it has suggested that good leaders have strong affection toward their responsibility,
vigour and persistence pursuit of goals, task orientation, problem solving skills, willingness to
accept result of decisions and actions , willingness to absorb interpersonal stress, capability to
influence others, capacity to structure social interaction system etc. according to Ralph Stogdill,
there are some pros and cons available for this theory. Pros says that to know the potential
leaders, general traits of successful leader should e known (Bolden, 2016). It helps in being
ambitious and achievement oriented etc. Cons of the theory says that there is no awareness
about situation and it is questionable to innate characteristics.
From the view point of Gordon Allport ,2019, trait is a thought of steady characteristic
that influence individual to act in a certain way. Trait approach focuses on difference between
individuals and their personality characteristics. Gordon divided these traits on three levels:
Cardinal trait: According to this, it influence Boot's workers life by dominating it for
their entire life that this trait become the identity of that person. Cardial trait says that
individual's quality and their names are synonymous. It also suggested that these traits are rare in
nature to develop in life.
Central traits: For Boot workers these are the basic and general characteristic which
build the personality of an individual. This trait is not dominating as cardinal. Basic
characteristics which describes central traits are honesty, anxiousness, shy, intelligence etc.
Secondary Traits: These are the preference based and attitude based traits which are
situational in nature and only shows up in certain circumstances.
This theorist says that personality trait can describe the person. There are some strength
of trait theory like it is based on statistical data and not on personal experience (Bergh and et. al.,
2016). Another strength is that ease in understanding which also help in understanding trait and
comparing it to identify the characteristics which required in a person to perform better.
Criticism of this theory is that it is not good in predicting future behaviour, it does not address a
person state which is shortest way to deal with others and self.
7

3. Management development program of Boot UK Ltd
As per the view point of Natalie Shope Griffin, 2019, several organisations struggle with
the leadership development among its employees. For this companies started promoting their
high performance and skilled employees into management roles by organising few workshops as
well as seminars. This help in enhancing their skills as well as quality of work, in this learnes
with higher ability to survive and manage other people are being awarded and those without it
are reassigned. These all contribute toward developing a high skilled employee with the medium
of training and development program to make them able to guide and motivate people top work
effectively and in right direction.
Boots UK limited is also one of those organisations as it focuses toward continuously
organising seminars and workshop for leaders working within the organisation (Alefari, Salonitis
and Xu, 2017). The main aim behind this development program is to enhance the knowledge as
well as skills of people so that they would be able to motivate and guide employees effectively as
per the changes that are anticipated in external environment. This help in improving the overall
performance of employees which further contribute toward providing high quality services to its
customers that bring maximum satisfaction.
The performance of colleagues as well as care provided by them to employees is a secret
behind the success of Boots UK limited. So in order to provide best customer care, company
usually ensure that they maintain a best team along with considering health and well-being of
employees vital for the success. Therefore in order to ensure best team Boots UK limited
organise several management development program and one of them is “Boots Employee
Assistance Programme”. This program was conducted by organisation for providing confidential
as well as high quality counselling, information and well being support services to its employees.
This help in addressing or resolving the issues that are affecting the colleagues' performance,
work lives, personal lives, well-being and health. So that proper support them in resolving those
issues and supporting them for future work and life challenges.
In addition to this as per the view point of Bokulich and et. al., 2016, Boots UK limited
continuously focuses toward improving the performance of its employees by providing them
guidance or assistance through organising several workshops and seminary. These all contribute
toward enhancing the knowledge as well as skills of employees that can be further used improve
their working practices. Recently, Boots UK limited organised a program named as Boots
8

Employee assistance Programme in which several counsellors as well as skilled leaders are
called by companies. In this employees are being encouraged and motivated for their future
development and practices.
Before conducting this programme, Boots UK limited worked toward ongoing
development of employees where a report has been formed named as “Workwell Public
Reporting Benchmark”. This report allows company to measure the performance of its
employees by comparing their planned and expected performance in order to determine the
performance gap of employees so that proper measures can be taken to improve it (Al-Ali and et.
al., 2017). After conducting this, company has organised a Boots Employee assistance
Programme in which employees who are facing problem at workplace are being counselled by
expertise. This help in determining the reason behind their weaker performance and after
identifying this employees are being motivate to work effectively for future achievements.
Apart from this employees who are good at their performance are being guided and
trained by providing proper knowledge regarding their work life. In addition to this training is
also being provided to them in order to develop an effective leader that has a capability to guide
and motivate other employees to work effectively toward the accomplishment of their personal
as well as organisational goals. This is because knowledge as well management are consider as
two major part as well as skill that a leader must posses in order to guide and direct other
employees to work effectively. In order to enhance the knowledge of employees company has
also launched two edition that contain the information regarding the existing product or services
related with Pharmacy along with the ways in which these must be used to get maximum benefit.
These edition are named as “Let's make it happen 2013/14” for all the colleagues working in
Boots UK limited. The booklets contains information that are being provided by experienced
collogues over existing health care product or services that includes cancer services, flu vaccines,
eye health, Boots Smokeless Plan are the name of few (Boots UK, 2019).
This management development program was organised to make up a positive
contribution toward the health as well as well-being of employees by promoting a healthy culture
by motivating and actively engaging employees within organisational work. This is basically
done as Boots UK Limited consider its employees the asset of organisation as without them this
is not possible for the company to pursue their objectives and helping people throughout the
9

world to live healthier and happy life. Therefore taking care of employees well beings and health
at workplace remains the top priority of organisation.
But apart from this, as per the view point of Thornbory and Everton, 2017, the Boots UK
Limited also puts efforts toward providing a better place to work where they didn't found any
difficulty in term of their work as well as practices. So in order to improve their employees
performance as well as culture of organisation, Boots limited focuses toward the development of
leaders in order to provide an effective mentor that can guide the team to work effectively. For
the development of effective leaders as well as employees Boots Limited work over three basic
principles that includes employee health and well being, equal opportunities to employees and
health & Safety. These three goals of Boots UK limited that it strive to create at workplace is
explained below:
Employee health and well-being:- The Boots UK Limited also take care of its
employees at workplace by providing them an environment which doesn't have any negative
impact over the health ans well-being of people who are working at that place (Workplace,
2019). This effort of company toward the health of employees support in keeping them
motivated and indulge toward the organisational goal by performing more effectively.
Equal Opportunities:- Company always ensure that its employees must get equal
opportunities in term of policies , procedures and practices despite of any sort of discrimination.
This help employees to develop their skills and capabilities by getting job challenges to perform
more better which in turn help in their development as a leader.
Health and safety:- Under this the main goal of Boots UK limited company is to ensure
the health and safety of its employees at work place by ensuring that work performed by them
must not harm their health as well as life. In addition to this they also compensate employee if
any injury or something miss happen with them while working at office premises. This help in
keeping employees motivated toward their work and perform effectively as they have not any
risk regarding their health and life (Al-Ali and et. al., 2017). This is because a healthy and
fearless employee is more productive as compare to unsatisfied as well as employee having fear
of getting harmed while working.
By providing these benefits to employees, Boots UK Limited work toward keeping the
employees happy with their workplace and dedicated toward their jobs which lead workforce to
perform their best and become future leaders. In this way company keep its employee motivated
10

to extract best out of their work so that their skills and ability can be enhanced and on the bases
of which they are further promote as a leader who guide up others to work effectively toward the
accomplishment of organisation goals.
CONCLUSION
From the above given report it can be said that leadership and management plays an
essential role toward the growth as well as development of employees. A manager is responsible
for controlling the employees so that work can be perform on timely manner toward the
accomplishment of organisational goal. But on the other side leader work toward motivating and
guiding employees to perform their task effectively. Both the concepts are different but still
present together within an organisation and compliments the work of one another. Leadership
plays an essential role with in the development of employees but in order to provide an effective
leadership it is very essential for a manager to implement a leadership theory that complement
their direction and extract out best result. For an effective leadership, trait theory is best suited as
it focuses toward determining the characteristics of employees so that they can be lead and guide
in right manner. In addition to this an organisation must continuously organise management
development program, in order to enhance the capability of employees so that they develop as a
future leader.
11

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Ali, A. A. and et. al., 2017. Change management through leadership: the mediating role of
organizational culture. International Journal of Organizational Analysis. 25(4). pp.723-
739.
Alefari, M., Salonitis, K. and Xu, Y., 2017. The role of leadership in implementing lean
manufacturing.
Bergh, D. D. and et. al., 2016. Using meta‐analytic structural equation modeling to advance
strategic management research: Guidelines and an empirical illustration via the strategic
leadership‐performance relationship. Strategic Management Journal. 37(3). pp.477-497.
Bokulich, N. A. And et. al., 2016. mockrobiota: a public resource for microbiome bioinformatics
benchmarking. Msystems. 1(5). pp.e00062-16.
Bolden, R., 2016. Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook
of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Bolman, L. G. and Deal, T. E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
John Wiley & Sons.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
Ciulla, J. B., 2017. Trust and the future of leadership. The Blackwell guide to business ethics,
pp.334-351.
Haile, S., Emmanuel, T. and Dzathor, A., 2016. BARRIERS AND CHALLEGES
CONFRONTING WOMEN FOR LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT POSITIONS:
REVIEW AND ANALYSIS. International Journal of Business & Public
Administration. 13(1).
Higgs, M. and Dulewicz, V., 2016. Developments in leadership thinking. In Leading with
Emotional Intelligence (pp. 75-103). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Kyratsis, Y. and et. al., 2016. Medical leadership and management in the United Kingdom.
Australasian Psychiatry. 24(3). pp.240-242.
Morden, T., 2017. Principles of management. Routledge.
Pihlainen, V., Kivinen, T. and Lammintakanen, J., 2016. Management and leadership
competence in hospitals: a systematic literature review. Leadership in Health Services.
29(1). pp.95-110.
Renz, D. O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Smith, P. B. and Peterson, M. F., 2017. Cross‐Cultural Leadership. The Blackwell Handbook of
Cross‐Cultural Management, pp.217-235.
Storey, J., 2016. Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership in
Organizations (pp. 33-58). Routledge.
Thornbory, G. and Everton, S., 2017. An introduction to occupational health nursing. In
Contemporary Occupational Health Nursing (pp. 1-21). Routledge.
Online
Boots UK. 2019. [Online] Available through:
<http://www.boots-uk.com/media/3853/boots_uk_csr_performance_update_2013-14-1-
1.pdf>./
12

Cherry. K. 2019. The trait theory. [Online] Available
through:<https://www.verywellmind.com/trait-theory-of-personality-2795955>./
Leonard. K. 2018. Organizational Management. [Online] Available through:
<https://smallbusiness.chron.com/definition-organizational-management-37684.html>./
Personalize Your Management Development. 2019. [Online] Available
through<https://hbr.org/2003/03/personalize-your-management-development>./
R Anderson. M. 2013. Leadership Theories [Online] Available
through:<https://www.monteranderson-author.com/montes-blog/leadership-theories>./
Shead. M. 2019. Leadership Trait Theory. [Online] Available through:
<http://www.leadership501.com/leadership-trait-theory/22/>./
Surbhi S. 2015. Difference Between Leadership and Management. [Online] Available
through:<https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-leadership-and-
management.html>
Ward. S. 2019. Leadership. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.thebalancesmb.com/leadership-definition-2948275>
Workplace. 2019. [Online] Available
through<https://www.walgreensbootsalliance.com/corporate-social-responsibility-
report/workplace/>./
13