Leadership and Management in Operations: M&S Case Study Report

This report analyzes the distinctions between leaders and managers within the context of Marks & Spencer (M&S), exploring their roles and responsibilities in achieving organizational success. It delves into various leadership styles, including situational, system, and contingency approaches, and their impact on employee performance and business productivity. The report further examines key approaches to operations management, such as Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, and Lean theory, emphasizing their importance in enhancing product quality, customer satisfaction, and overall efficiency. It also highlights the factors influencing operations management, providing a comprehensive overview of leadership, management, and operational strategies for business growth and competitiveness.

MANAGEMENT
OPERATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................3
P1 Difference between a leader and a manager................................................................3
TASK 2......................................................................................................................................4
P2 Roles of a leader and the functions of a manager in any organisation........................4
P3 Different theories and approaches of leadership styles...............................................5
TASK 3......................................................................................................................................7
P4 key approaches to operations management and the role of leaders and managers .....7
P5 Importance of operation management ........................................................................8
TASK 4......................................................................................................................................9
P6 Factors that impact upon operation management .......................................................9
CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
In this report, one of the most renowned clothing company of UK has been
considered. Addition to this report will describe the difference between the leaders and
managers. It also explains the different leadership styles which helps leader to enhance the
performance of employees. Furthermore, report also explains the different approaches which
are used by operations management to beat the competitors. Moreover, the importance of
managers for the growth of the company has been emphasised. Apart from this, the report
also focuses on the factors which impact on the function of the operations management
positively and negatively.
TASK 1
P1 Difference between a leader and a manager
M&S is one of the renowned and large retail company of UK. This company mainly
focuses on their quality of services and products. The main aim of this company is to satisfy
their customers at the highest level. Leaders and the managers both are important for the
success of any organisation. They are the backbone of cited corporation. Leaders and
managers make appropriate strategies to serve the organisation in an effective way. (Shah and
Papageorgiou, 2013).
Leader: Proper direction and motivation is given by them to the employees for enhancing
their performance and to accomplish the task in effectual manner.
Manager: They help to plan, control and supervise the activities for accomplishing the task.
Manager and leader of a firm provide different roles and responsibilities to
accomplish the success. Leader and manager have different roles and responsibilities which
are given as follows:
Leader Manager
Leader creates vision within the company. Manager creates goals.
Leader takes risk in accomplishing the task. Manager controls the risk in business
environment (Li and Feng, 2014)
Leader uses different leadership styles such
as system, contingency etc.
Manager follows different policies and
management strategies.

Leader mainly focuses on the motivation, Manager focuses on the quality of products.
 Leader: leader of cited company plays the main role in the success. Leader focuses on
the guiding, controlling and directing within the company. Leader is person who
motivates the individuals to put more and more efforts. The guiding process of leader
helps other employees to understand the task. Good leadership helps an organisation
to improve the benefits and productivity of business. Leader of cited company is able
to motivate his subordinates in effectual manner. Motivated employees are the success
key of any organisation because they are able to accomplish the task in systematic
manner and this process increases the productivity and growth of business. Workers
of cited company are able to provide extra efforts to complete the task. Leader has
responsibilities to provide the resources to employees so that they can complete the
task within given time frame. With the proper guidance and monitoring, leader of
cited company are able to increase the productivity of business.
 Manager: manager is person who focuses on the over all operations of company. The
main of manager of chosen company is to manage all operations and functions with
the help of controlling, planning and leading. Manager has responsibilities to manage
the whole staff of company. The manager of cited company is able to manage all the
staff members. In addition to this, manager supervises the practices to have an
appropriate feedback about the same. With the help of different policies and
strategies, the manager of cited firm examines the quality of products and services
which help mentioned organisation to increase its reputation and brand image at
global level.
Leader and manager both are playing different roles in cited firm. Both are playing crucial
role in the success of mentioned organisation. With the good leadership, cited firm is able to
increase the productivity of business. Manager also able to manage all the operations and
functions of company with effective planning.
TASK 2
P2 Roles of a leader and the functions of a manager in any organisation
Managers and the leaders help to give direction to the employees to accomplish a
particular task to attain the target. With the help of suitable strategies and leadership styles
proper functioning can be implemented in an organisation. In this context, manager of cited

company have to take all the factor into an account which are affecting the efficiency of the
company (Niknam and Baziar, 2015). Healthy relationship works as a tool to have a proper
interaction between the employees and the managers. This will help to solve the disputes or
confusions in a better way. When employees feel valuable and motivated, they provide their
extra efforts to accomplish the tasks.
When conflicts are occurred in the business environment, leader is only person who
examine the all the situations and collect the information about the matter. With the help of
effective communication skill, leader of cited company is able to solve the issues which are
occurred in among the team members. Leader faces various problems in leadership styles.
At the conflict's situation manager has responsibilities to analysis all the situations
and discuss with the leader. Manager has responsibilities to provide the solution with
effective planning.
Role of managers
 Planning: manager of chosen company has responsibilities to make suitable strategies
to achieve the target. Moreover, manger has responsibility to make plan to innovate
new things into the organisations to beat the competitors. Manger should examine the
quality of products and services and should provide the way and techniques.
 Organising: for achieve the all task on right time, manager of cited company has to
follow the different market strategies and policies. With the help of different
approaches, manager can make effective plan within the company. High quality
services are one of the best way to attract new customers and to maintain their loyalty.
Manager of cited company can attract more customers by providing the high quality
services to the customers.
 Leading: with the help of best root and easy path manger of cited company can
complete more targets and tasks which will improve the productivity of business.
P3 Different theories and approaches of leadership styles
There are different theories and approaches of leadership style which is used by leader
to enhance the performance of employees and with the help of these approaches and model
leader can accomplish the task in systematic manner and over all this process improve the
productivity of business and increase the benefits of business. These theories and approaches
also helps leader to improve the quality of products which help company in competitor

advantageous (White, 2016). Different theories of leadership which are following by the
leader of cited company are as following
1. Situational leadership: this leadership styles depends upon the skills and knowledge of
employees. According to this style leader should adopt different leadership style
according to situations. In present situations marks and Spencer facing some problems
such as increasing in production cost etc. this leadership style can use to solve this
problem. This style is based on the relation between the leaders and workers. This
style mainly focuses on leader's different role such as guidance, direction, controlling
etc. directing is process in which leader assign the task to individual according to their
knowledge and skills. When employee get task according to their interest they will
easily accomplish the target with their extra efforts. Leader should have ability to
direct the work according to qualification. Effective communication skills are used by
the mangers to give appropriate training to the employees. With this coaching, the
leader can enhance the performance of employees and can easily achieve the target.
With the help of this theory, cited company can improve its business on regular basis.
Moreover, it also expands the business at global level.
2. System leadership style: this leadership style is used to improve the efficiency in the
work environment. To increase the business productivity, advanced technologies are
adopted by the managers. This leadership style can help to innovate more new things
into the organisation. According to this style, managers have to supervise the affairs
of the company on regular basis to have a feedback about the task been done. With
the help of this style, leader can improve the performance of employees and can also
expand the business in different countries. Apart from this leader can control the
working of employees with the help of this style.
3. Contingency leadership style: this style is also focuses on the relationship between
employees and leaders. This style focuses on the different skills of employees such as
communication skill and positive behaviour (Brown and Lee, 2015). With the
effective communication skill, leader can build a good relation with employees and
enhance their performance. This style also focuses on the team work. According to
this style leaders should offer teamwork to the employees. Through the team work
workers can share their knowledge and skills with each other can learn new skills.
This style focuses on the personal skill of leaders. Leader should have all these skills
to improve the business of cited firm.

TASK 3
P4 key approaches to operations management and the role of leaders and managers
Operation manager plays a crucial role in the success of any organisation. Operation
management department of M&S has responsibility to manage all the operations and tasks in
systematic manner. He has responsibilities to manage the quality of products and services
within the company. Operation manager needs different skills such as creativity, innovation,
technology knowledge etc (Liu and Guo, 2016). Operation manager of M&S serve the
function of managing the process of converting inputs in term of row material, people, labour
into output in the form of goods and services. To enhance the performance and productivity
of business, various approaches are used by operation managers. They are as follows:
 Six sigma approach: With the help of this, quality of products can be improved since
this is one of the factor to attract the customers and to increase the productivity of
business. Operation manage of chosen company should use this approach to beat the
competitors in the present era. Continuous improvement in the quality of services can
be accomplished using this. Customers can invest their money to get the quality
products. If company provides high quality products, customer will attract more.
Trending charts, calculations and other ratio are used as tools for this approach. This
approach also focused on the resource utilization. If workers of any organisation are
not able to use resources in systematic manner then it will increase the production
cost. With the help of this approach operation manager can focus on the resource
utilization.
 Total quality management approach: with the help of this approach firm can increase
the productivity (Futaki, 2014). This approach mainly focuses on the product quality.
To stand out in the target market, this approach has been used by the managers.
According to the need of the customers the services are provided to keep them
satisfied. This will help to attract more number of customers which is in the favour of
the organisation. Only this way, a company can set its valuable image in the target
market. With the help of this approach management can build a good relation with
customers and this process will help firm to attract new customers and also help to
maintain their loyalty level (Saldinger and Thomas, 2015).
 Lean theory: This is used by organisation to remove the waste and unwanted products
form the workplace. This will help to increase the productivity of the organisation

since efficient working style is been used. According to the demand of a particular
product the raw material is procured. This way the wastage can be minimised.
Through this approach manager does not feel work pressure and he does not need to
store waste and unwanted materials and products.
P5 Importance of operation management
Operation management involves various responsibilities which helps an organisation
to operate in efficient manner. Operation manager play crucial role in managing both raw
materials and personnel (Baziar and Kavousi-Fard, 2013). To accomplish the task effectively,
operation manager should have personal skills such as high communication skill, positive
attitude, creativity etc. with the help of these skills operation manager can complete the task
on right time. Responsibilities of operation management are as following
 Planning: operation manager has responsibility to identify that which product are
bought and sold. For this purpose operation manager of chosen company has
responsibilities to make effective plan by collecting the important information. Apart
from this operation manager also plays a main role in the coordination activities
between various departments.
 Communication: this is another responsibility of operation director. He is responsible
to keep the company running smoothly with the help of communication with other
management professionals within the enterprise.
Resource utilization and to provide effective customer services are key factors for the
success of company. With the help of approaches he is able to manage all the functions from
bottom level to high level. With the help of approaches operation director of chosen company
is able to focus on the long term and short term objectives (Muttaqi and Perera, 2014).
1. Customer's service: operation management is responsible for customer's satisfaction.
Different organisations have different techniques to satisfy the customers. Operation
manager has responsibility to manage the customer's loyalty level towards the
company. To satisfy the customer operation manger should examine the quality of
products and services on regular basis. When firm provide high quality products and
service to the customers they will feel satisfy and this process also help an
organisation to attract new customers (Damron and Damron, 2013). To satisfy the
customer's he has responsibilities to offer trainings and development to the employees
to raise their performance. Proper training must be provided to them, so that they can

deliver the requisite services to the customers. This will help to satisfy more number
of customer and this process will increase the productivity of business (Ziaei and
Shokri, 2013).
2. Resource utilization: Managers should have to plan the strategies to have a proper
utilization of the resources. This is to maintain the equilibrium between the demand
and the supply. This will help to minimize the wastage in the organisation and this
way the production becomes cost-efficient. Continuous tracking must have to be
done by the managers for the same. Operation director have to provide proper
trainings and techniques to employees therefore they can learn how to use the
resources in systematic manner (Sun and Guerrero, 2016).
One has to manage the quality of the products to set the image in the target market to
beat the competitors. Addition to this operation director of chosen company has to provide
different trainings and activities.
TASK 4
P6 Factors that impact upon operation management
Some factors such as political, social, technology, competitors affect organisation.
Manager and leader of cited company has responsibilities to make plan and strategies to
remove the negative effect of these factors. Factors that affect the organisation and decrease
their productivity are as following:
1. Economic Factor: this factors is directly connected with the economy of country. This
factors include political factor, stability, interest rate etc. changes in economic directly
affect the organisation productivity.
2. Social factor: every nation follow different culture and different people follows
unique culture. Leader and manager have responsibilities to provide the services and
products according to customer's need and desire. These factors impact on the sales of
products and services of cited company. The need and thinking of people changes
with the time, these changes affect the organisation's growth positively or negatively.
In this context, operation manager has duty to maintain the quality of products
therefore, he can attract more customers.
3. Political factor: The chosen company has to follow the rules and regulations of
government; sometimes, these rules and changes affect organisation positively and

sometime negatively. All taxes system and government policies affect the business
environment.
4. Technology factor: It also affects the growth of business because when a new entrant
comes with unique and high level technology then competitive is increases. To attract
more customers, chosen company has to bring new technologies at their workplace.
Technology also provides positive effect in the company. Using advanced
technologies such as internet, social media etc., and any company can attract the
attention of more and more customers. This will really help to promote the business in
an effective way.
5. Environmental factor: natural disaster, earth quack etc. includes in these factors. All
these factors affect the organisation negatively and decrease their productivity.
6. Legal factors: The managers have to follow the rules and regulations while
accomplishing any task of the organisation. Since government restrictions are
everywhere. For the sake of the community, managers have to follow this rule to
avoid any harm to the society.
CONCLUSIONS
To conclude, we can say that mangers and leaders play a vital role for the success of
any organisation. Leader helps to motivate and direct the employees to enhance their
performance. With the help of proper planning, the managers can assist in the growth of the
organisation. Furthermore, report also explained different leadership styles such as system,
situational and contingency which helps cited firm to increase the productivity of business.
Form the report, it has been summarised that operation manager of cited firm plays main role
in the success. He has responsibility to maintain the quality of products and services in an
effectual manner. Apart from this, it also explained the different approaches which have to be
followed by operations management. It described: Six sigma and TQM approach to enhance
the productivity of business. In this way, we can say that operations management is very
important for the success of any organisation.

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