Comparison of Leadership and Management in Marks and Spencer Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management within the context of Marks and Spencer (M&S). It begins by comparing the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers, differentiating their functions within the organization. The report then delves into the roles of leaders and managers in various situations, highlighting their responsibilities as analysts, motivators, thinkers, and team builders. It explores different leadership theories and models, including situational, system, and contingency leadership, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. The report further examines key approaches to operations management, emphasizing their importance in meeting business objectives. It identifies factors that impact operational management and decision-making within M&S, analyzing the business environment and wider community influences. The report concludes with an evaluation of the application of these concepts and factors within the retail context, providing a detailed understanding of leadership and management practices at M&S.

Management and
Operation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1: Comparison of roles and characteristics of leaders and managers...................................1
M1: Analysis and differentiation of the role of a leader and function of a manager.............3
P2: Roles of the leaders and functions of the managers in different situations......................4
P3: Different theories and models of approaches...................................................................5
M2: Strengths and Weaknesses of Leadership models of approaches and theories...............6
D1: Analysis and evaluation of different approaches and theories........................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P4: Key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play7
P5: Importance and value of key approaches of operations management..............................8
M3: Evaluation of operational management to successfully meet business objectives.........9
P6: Factors that impact upon operational management and decision-making.......................9
M4: Analyse different factors affect the business environment and wider community.......10
D2: Evaluation of application and factors that impact on wider business environment......10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Management and operations are the two main tools which provide direction to the
management in organisational activities to attain objectives and goals. The manager distribute
liabilities to the employees and guide them to fulfil the liabilities (Baboli and et. al., 2014). This
project report is based on Marks and Spencer which is a major British Multinational retailer of
clothes. It provides various kind of products such as food and wine, clothing, home decor and
furnitures, and clothing. It also provide different type of services M&S bank, energy, TV and
online services etc. Its headquarter is In the City of Westminster, London by Sir Michael Marks
and Thomas Spencer in 1884. This report includes roles, functions and characteristics of leader
and manager, leadership theories, key approaches in operation management etc. to understand
various aspects of management and operations. It also focuses on the importance and value of
business management and the business environment that affect the decision making of the
leaders and managers.
TASK 1
P1: Comparison of roles and characteristics of leaders and managers
Marks and Spencer is a London based supermarket company which deals various
products such as clothes, furnitures, home décor etc. and services like bank, energy and online
services. Its headquarter is in the city of Westminster.
A leader is a person who leads team and is liable to direct the team members. Leadership
is a quality or a function in the leader. The leader sets the vision and goals for the whole
organisation. Leadership is the ability that cannot be taught and is inbuilt. A manager is the
person who manages the activities of the organisation and keep a record of execution process of
organisation's operations. Management is the process of dealing and controlling the activities
within an organisation. Management is very important for the smooth running of a business.
Basis Leader Manager
Meaning Leader is a person who leads or direct
a group of people within Marks and
Spencer. Leaders should have the
quality to lead and motivate the
Managers of Marks and Spencer are
liable to control or administrate the
organisation or h group of employees.
A manager has a staff of people who
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group. It should have a sound quality
of commitments to the goal it will
seek to achieve even if there is no one
to follow. Marks and Spencer
believes in developing global leaders
by providing them various
opportunities and proper training.
are responsible to him. If any
customer is not satisfied with product
quality of Marks and Spencer, the
customer have the right to speak to the
manger at a higher level to resolve the
problem.
Roles  Inspirer: Leader of Marks
and Spenser creates inspiring
vision and shared values for
the employees.
 Motivator: Leaders are liable
to motivate and demonstrate
confidence to each team
member.
 Representative: They are
main representative of the
organisation.
 Leaders in Marks and Spencer
uncover the quality of each
person of their team for better
performance, resolve issues
and grow careers.
 Regulator: The primary role
of a manager is to regulate the
daily operations of Marks and
Spencer.
 Measurer: Managers measure
data and work performance of
employees to encourage
adequate work.
 Administrator: They
complete administrative work
and communicate with other
departments.
 Conflict handler: They are
liable to resolve conflicts
between employees and
management.
Characteristics  Good communicator: A
leader should be good
communicator. Hence, M&S
leader must understand the
importance of better
communication.
 Commitment: Leaders should
 Time management: A
manager should be able to
complete his work on time.
 Knowledge of industry: The
managers of Marks and
Spencer should have
knowledge of retail industry,
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always fulfil their
commitments, because its
their commitment pulls the
team forward during bad
times.
 Honesty: A leader should
have the quality of honesty
because it helps to gain trust
of employees.
 Ability to inspire: Leaders in
Marks and Spencer should be
able to inspire the team it will
increase the work quality.
no knowledge can harm the
organisation.
 Flexibility: Great managers
can respond positively in any
kind of situation, because they
have the ability of flexibility.
 Effective decision making:
Managers of marks and
Spencer collect lot of
information and make effective
decisions.
M1: Analysis and differentiation of the role of a leader and function of a manager
A leader inspires and motivate the workforce of Marks and Spencer. The manager
regulates the daily activities of the organisation and measure the performance of the employees.
Leaders have to follow the leadership theories such as great man theory, trait theory, behavioural
theory etc. In great man theory says that the leaders are born they are not made, trait theory says
that people have certain qualities that make them good leaders such as intelligence, sense of
responsibility and creativity. Behavioural theory explains that leaders are divided in to two
categories, first that are concerned with task and another concerned with people. A manager
follow the management concepts like planning, organising, directing, controlling etc. that include
to plan control and direct the employees of the organisation (Burke, 2013).
P2: Roles of the leaders and functions of the managers in different situations
There are many situations when the the leaders have to perform various roles:
Roles of leaders
Analyser: The leaders in Marks and Spencer need to play the role of analyser when they
have to analyse any kind of situation whether it is positive or negative. They analyse the future
risks and uncertainty for the organisation. The leaders should have the strategic eye toward the
future.
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Motivator: The main role of leaders is to motivate the employees of Marks and Spencer.
They should motivate them when employees loose hope or break down, in this situations the
leader have to support them and motivate them to work hard and achieve their target.
Thinker: A leader always have to think about various factors such as different functions
of Marks and Spencer, strengths and weaknesses of the company, ways to achieve target and
how to form such strategies which can help to defeat competitors.
Team builder: Leader have to gather employees and form a team. They have to resolve
employee's issues and teach them how to work in a team. In any type of negative situation the
leader have to support the team and team members in such way he is able to build a team with
his good behaviour with team members (Fayol, 2016).
Functions of managers
Managers have various function in different situations:
Planning: This function is related to the creation of a elaborated plan towards achieving
predetermined goals of Marks and Spencer. For example if the company have a motive to
increase the sales in upcoming months. The leader have to find out different plan to do the same.
Organising: This function is related to the execution of the plan to bring together
physical, financial and other resources to attain the goal. For example; to increase the sales the
manager have to provide funds to the promotional team to create a campaign to attract more
customers.
Staffing: This function is used to set right people on the right position for each task in
Marks and Spencer. For the same project which have been mentioned above the manager have to
select best person to lead the promotional team (Functions of Management, 2017).
Directing: It include the direction that will be provided by the manager to the team for
the successful execution of plan of increasing the sales of Marks and Spencer. The manager have
to direct every employee for his task.
Controlling: This is the last function of manager, it focuses on the control of other four
functions. It ensures that the above mentioned four functions are persuaded correctly and
execution of work is pushing Marks and Spencer towards the goals it has.
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P3: Different theories and models of approaches
In regard of achieving business objectives and managing practices properly, this is
fundamental for Marks and Spencer to analyse numerous theories associated with this which is
discussed as below:
Situational leadership: It is a leadership style which has been introduced by Kenneth
Blanchard and Paul Hersey. It is a flexible form of leadership, in which the leaders or managers
of Marks and Spencer try to adjust their mode to fit in the development level of their followers. It
includes the ability of leaders to modify their management behaviour according to the employees
to increase the effectiveness of work. It is a timeless and repetitive structure for leaders to apply
it in Marks and Spencer.
System leadership: This approach is developed by Dr. Ian Macdonalds and Professor
Catherine Burke. It refers to the approach where a leader provide opportunity to the employees to
work productively according to their potential. It provide such tools to the leaders of Marks and
Spencer that helps to analyse the people's behaviour within the organisation. This theory is used
by leaders to bring out the capability of the employees while performing the given task.
Contingency leadership: This style of leadership is developed by Fred Edward Fiedler
who was as Austrian psychologist. It express the importance of attribute of leader and the state in
which he performs. It shows that effectiveness of leadership is dependent on meeting a leader's
style to right situation which have been provided to him in Marks and Spencer. This theory is
used to build good relations and understanding between leaders and his followers. (Mohammadi,
Soleymani and Mozafari, 2014).
Marks and Spencer apply Contingency theory of leadership within the organisation. This
theory is used to assess the effectiveness of each staff member in a particular role and look at the
reason for their strengths and weaknesses. It is also used to determine the capability of the
workers of Marks and Spencer that they are able to perform effectively in only one situation or
can perform good in various situations. For example if there are end numbers of customers in the
store and the staff is not enough to handle them. The leader have to face this situation and have
to deal with it by distributing responsibilities to the employees to handle the same situation.
M2: Strengths and Weaknesses of Leadership models of approaches and theories
Theory Strengths Weaknesses
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Situational
Leadership
 It is functional, easy to
understand can be implemented
easily in Marks and Spencer.
 It is prescriptive and shows that
how leaders should attempt to
achieve organisational goals.
 It is difficult to define how
seriousness is abstracted
according to this theory.
 It takes too much time to
implement.
System
Leadership
 It increases company's ability
towards situational changes.
 It focuses on individual as well
as organisational goals.
 It cannot be implemented in
small companies.
 It bound the workers to
complete the work in fixed time.
Contingency
Leadership
 It is helpful in deep research.
 The nature of this approach is
flexible.
 It does not match in various
kinds of situations.
 It is difficult to use in retail
companies like Marks and
Spencer.
D1: Analysis and evaluation of different approaches and theories
Managers and leaders of Marks and Spencer always try to improve performance of the
organisation. Managers try to hire such staff which is able to work in the organisation and give
full efforts to attain organisational goals. Leaders try to improve work quality of employees so
that they are able to work hard and also try to motivate and inspire the employees. Managers
keep record of every activity of the organisation and leaders perform tasks in given situation.
Managers have many functions like planning, controlling, organizing etc. Leaders follow
leadership theories like situational, systematic and contingency (Parisio and Glielmo, 2013).
TASK 2
P4: Key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play
Operations management refers to planning, organising and directing processes and make
important improvements for achieving higher profitability. It covers all operational processes
which helps in daily maintenance and management of company's resources and processes. Marks
and Spencer management follows operations management as conversion processes which
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converts it's inputs like land, labour, capital, materials, method into desired outputs of products
and services. Company adopt several operations management techniques which helps
management in focusing on implementing processes that make it's business run more effectively
(Rushton, Croucher and Baker, 2014). These techniques are explained below:
Six Sigma Methodology - It is a techniques used for quality improvement by eliminating
defects, cost reduction and saving time. Marks and Spencer follows this methodology for
improving the quality of it's products without any faults. With the help of this technique,
company increases the satisfaction level of customers. Marks and Spencer follows two tools of
Six Sigma for identifying errors and providing quality product in the market. Six Sigma tools are
described below:
Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control (DMAIC Approach): It is the most
focused tool which Marks and Spencer follows. This approach includes five steps process which
are proceed in the same order as given below:
 Define the business problem, potential resources, objective, project scope which are
required to be constituted.
 Measure current performance as the basis for improvement by measuring process and
issues from where they originate.
 Analyse by creating a list and prioritize actual causes of the problem.
 Improve the process by identifying, testing and implementing a solution to the issue.
 Control to sustain the profits by monitoring the improvements to ensure future success of
business.
Just in time: It is a manufacturing philosophy which involves on integrated set of
activities designed to achieve an output of production using minimal inventories. Marks and
Spencer uses JIT as highly integrated processing system in which products and services are
performed just as they need. This helps in minimization of resources wastage and labour cost
because they produce the product as per it's demand in the market (Sedaghati and Kavousi-Fard,
2014).
Lean Principles- It approach works on maximization of customer value while
minimization of wastage. Value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection are the five important
lean principles that can assist M&S in achieving business objectives. It includes customer's need
for a particular product, its value for creating that product, create a flow with no delays and by
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removing wastage, pull with deliver product as customer need and follow perfection (White,
2016).
Roles of leaders and managers
 Leaders and mangers plays a critical role in the success of the organisation. Leaders of
Marks and Spencer create organisation image as an unique brand among the society and
give efforts to make the brand more demand-able from others. For achieving this, leaders
and mangers do promotional activities through website as it helps in connecting with
large customers.
 Managers of Marks and Spencer should coordinate properly with their workers. They
distribute work departmental wise among the employees according to their capabilities so
that organisation achieve maximum productivity with minimum risk.
 Leader must be innovative and respond frequently to market change. Marks and
Spencer's leaders establish several innovative ideas for their business expansion like
extensive range of clothing brand according to customers culture and values that are not
offered by competitors.
P5: Importance and value of key approaches of operations management
Operational management is a sub system of whole organisation. Marks and Spencer's
overall objective is to provide conversion of capability by monitoring and controlling the
activities to produce favourable outcomes for meeting desired goals and strategies (Zhang Shah,
and Papageorgiou, 2013). Here are discussed the basic significance of operation management
approaches to function the operations of M&S adequately:
Utilization of available resources: This is the most important approach which Marks
and Spencer follow its operations process by optimum utilisation of resources. This is most
decisive for Marks and Spencer to utilize their resources for customer's satisfaction and increases
productivity. Company should follow utilisation planning which is a process of using each
resources in such a way that is optimally utilised in each time period. Marks and Spencer
properly utilize limited resources with no wastage which enhances their business profitability.
Improve productivity: Importance of product quality and healthy employees at the
workplace are the basis of improving productivity for effective and successful business. Marks
and Spencer improves their productivity by using operations management approaches like six
sigma and lean principles that increases the quality of product with minimum wastage. Managers
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and leaders uses updated technology that helps in improving productivity by maximising
resources and maintaining quality of product. Company can also increase productivity by
motivating and rewarding their employees for good outputs.
M3: Evaluation of operational management to successfully meet business objectives
Leader and mangers of Marks and Spencer can adopt two key approaches i.e. six sigma
methodology and lean principles of operations management. They can use Just in time and
DMAIC approach of Six sigma methodology for improving efficiencies of company's products
and services with reducing product costs. Leaders also can opt lean principles for maximizing
customer's belief and minimizing losses. They improve brand image by maintaining product
quality and increasing sales of clothing. Leaders also innovate new ideas for business expansion
through introducing new range of clothing according to customer's demand (Kristiansen, 2013) .
P6: Factors that impact upon operational management and decision-making
Operation management of an organisation is also influenced by external environment in
their policies formations, future forecasting and decision making. Company produce goods and
services by considering these factors. There are various external factors that impact upon
operational management and decision making by leaders and managers. The organisation has no
control over these factors and they are known as PEST that is explained below-
Political factors: This dimension refers to the government laws of business and its
impact on business. Marks and Spencer deals with change in government and taxation policy. It
also faces problem in business expansion regarding alteration in trade policies.
Economical factors: It also affect generally on organisation growth. Inflation and
interest rates are the economic factors. During inflation, company pays more for resources which
increases the cost of product and that raise product prices. Currency impact of Brexit affects the
price rise of Marks and Spencer products which leads to conflict with small retailers.
Social factors: This factor indicate the goods, services and regulations of conduct which
society is likely to appreciate. This factor impact on Marks and Spencer by considering
customer's choices and preferences which helps in attracting large scale customers with healthy
prices and future growth.
Technology factors: This factors plays an essential role in converting resources into
products and services. Marks and Spencer managers are careful about technological dimension
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for that they uses updated technology which helps in building a strong position in the
marketplace (Wright and et. al., 2014).
Above are factors which affects in decision making of Marks and Spencer of creating
opportunities for retailers to expand because Brexit increase the currency in the UK. Leaders and
managers create its application more innovative with easy trade policy so that company attract
large scale of customers by increasing the business sales.
M4: Analyse different factors affect the business environment and wider community
Marks and Spencer analyse various external factors that affects business environment.
Management prefer PEST analysis for operational management and decision making. In political
factor managers identify alteration in government and taxation policies which impact in business
expansion. In economical factor influence business environment by rise in price of product due
to inflation. Social factor affects company in focusing on customer's choices and preferences for
increasing sales practices. Lastly technological factor that helps in enhancing business with the
use of latest technology which improves productive and sales.
D2: Evaluation of application and factors that impact on wider business environment
Marks and Spencer follows operations management methodologies for future
improvements by maintaining the quality and effectiveness in business working. Company
consider Just in time and DMAIC (design, measure, analyse, improve and control)
methodologies for improving product efficiencies. Leaders and mangers plays important role in
creating brand image and effective decision making by proper utilisation of resources and
productivity improvement. Management is also interpreted various external factors like
economic, political, social and technological which influences on business activities. Its political
and economical factors shows negative impact on and social and technological factors display
positive impact on business environment.
CONCLUSION
This project report consist of two tasks which concluded that leaders and managers are
decisive part of an organisation. In first task, it have being described that managers follow
essential functions that are planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling. Managers
and leaders play various roles in different situations. Leaders follow leadership theories like
situational, system and contingency leadership. In second task management follows various
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operational techniques for maintaining effective product quality, innovation and improvements
so that they attract more customers value. Mangers are also liable for identifying various external
factors that widely affects business environment and evaluate those factors which helps
organisation in achieving desired objectives.
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