Leadership and Management Report: M&S - Roles and Approaches

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management within the context of Marks & Spencer (M&S). It begins by defining and comparing the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers, followed by an examination of their functions in different situational contexts...Read More

Management
and
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager.........1
P2 Examine the role of a leader and the function of a manager in different situational contexts
.....................................................................................................................................................3
P3 Different theories and models of approach of leadership......................................................4
P4 Key approaches to operations management and role of leader and manger play..................5
P5 Importance and value of operational management in achieving business gaols and
objectives.....................................................................................................................................7
P6 factors that impact upon operational management and decision-making by leaders and
managers.....................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Leadership and management play a very important role in an organisation. Leadership is
a quality of influencing people and management is a discipline to manage things in best possible
manner (Renz, 2016). Leaders and mangers work primary objective is to achieve organisation
goal by motivating people of organisation to work enthusiastically. Leader and manager work to
build trust and control activities of employee so that all employee work to achieve common
objective. Chosen company for this report is Mark and Spencer. This company is founded in
1884 by Michael mark and Thomas Spencer. This is multinational retail sector company and
headquarters are in Westminster, London. Mark and Spencer is specialised in selling high quality
clothing, home products and food products. In this report detail study of leadership and
management is conducted. Understanding about different role and function of leader and
manager in organisation. Characteristics, behaviour of leaders and manager which conduct
effective functioning of chosen company.
P1 Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager.
Leaders and managers both have different characteristic and role in an organisation which
leads to achievement of Mark and Spencer objectives. This company follows flat organisation
structure with few level, where roles and responsibilities is equally divided between employees.
Manager
Manager is a person is organisation who is responsible for controlling and administrating
organisation functions as well as employees of company. Managers are expert in their fields and
support staff of their department.
Roles of manager
 Interpersonal role – Manager of Mark and Spencer has to play various role in company
as they have to deal with social and legal responsibilities. (Goetsch and Davis, 2014)
Manager have to provide proper direction to employee and they are network of
communication with internal and external contacts.
 Informational role – It include monitoring information related to organisation and
communicates useful information in company is role of Mark and Spencer manager.
They are representatives and speakers of organisation.
Characteristics of manager
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 Knowledge – manager must have relevant knowledge about their working. Manager can
only be able to direction to employees when they have understanding and knowledge
about organisational needs as well as how to achieve objective of company.
 Confidence - Marks and Spencer managers have confidence in their ability, experience
and decisions. By confidence managers will able to provide inspiration to team members.
Leader
Leader is a person who leads or command group of people in organisation (McCaffery,
2018). Leaders of Mark and Spencer company influence employees towards achievement of
organisation goal. Leaders are in charge to convince people and inspires them to follow actions.
Role of Leader
 Inspire and motivate – Major role of leader in Mark and Spencer is to motivate and
inspire employees in such a way that all employees work effectively and efficiently to
achieve company objectives.
 Sharing vision – Leaders share organisation vision to employees so that they work with
common vision. Leaders direct individual and dedicate entire team to achieve vision
Characteristics of leader
 Creative – Creativity is a quality of leaders that helps them to achieve objective in
effective and efficient way (Bush, Bell and Middlewood, 2019). Leaders must develop
creative plan and procedure for inspiring followers.
 Positive attitude - Mark and Spencer leader have positive attitude in them. Positive
attitude help leader to deal with difficult situation and get solution for problem. Leaders
with positive attitude inspire other also.
Comparison between role and characteristic of leaders and manager
Basis Manager Leader
Roles Managers role is to control risk
for organisation benefits.
Leaders are risk taker and
willing to try new things.
Characteristic Managers build system and
processes for company by
directing employees
Leaders grow and develop
traits and skills of people
personally by guiding them.
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Difference between management and leadership:
Basis Management Leadership
Focus Management focus on
effective working or
organisation and employees of
company.
It focus on leading and
improving employees.
Essence It is responsible for
maintaining peaceful and
stable work environment
Leadership is required and
responsible to positive change
in organisation.
By comparison it can easily concluded that leadership and management both works in
different ways and believes in different approach to complete task (Gopee and Galloway, 2017).
But main motive of these two is to attain goals and objective of respective company.
P2 Examine the role of a leader and the function of a manager in different situational
contexts
In organisation, managers have to follow different function according to situations and
role of leaders also depends upon those situations. Mark and Spencer company have to deal with
various situation which affect function and overall performance of organisation. Manager and
leader of company are responsible to handle situation careful and maintain positive work
environment.
Employee turnover – In this situation turnover rate of employees highly increases
(Hallinger, 2013). Turn over rate is percentage of employees in workforce that leave during a
certain period of time. Mark and Spencer is currently facing this issue in organisation. High
turnover is resulting harmful for company productivity as high skilled people are leaving
organisation. To handle this situation role of leader is to identify problem so that employee does
not leave organisation. It is the responsibility of leader to inspire employees to work with Mark
and Spencer company. Identifying reason or problem why turnover rate is increasing and solve
those problem so that employees of organisation work effectively and efficiently with company.
Here managers function is to take strict decision after analysing situation properly. Company is
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considering systematic theory to solve this problem as it is complex problem and need proper
investigation. Manager should change policies which help is retaining employees.
Conflicts in organisation – Leaders and managers work together to solve and manage
conflicts in organisation (Hallinger and Bryant, 2013). Conflict management is a practice which
identify and handle conflicts sensibly, fairly and efficiently. It is a big problem for Mark and
Spencer as it directly affect working environment of organisation and leads to create negative
environment. Manager function is to taking various decision for company. They help in solving
problems, generating new ideas and implementing and maintaining healthy work environment in
company. Leader of Marks and Spencer identify source of conflict, understand incident carefully
and request solution to manage issues by some changes. Leader suggest creative idea to deal with
situation and solve conflicts in company. For conflict management Marks and Spencer use
situational theory approach which suggest different solution in different problems.
P3 Different theories and models of approach of leadership
Marks and Spencer can uses different theories and models of leadership in dealing with
organisation issues. All approaches have there own benefits which leads to effective working of
organisation.
Situational leadership
This theory of leadership suggest that there is no single style of leadership that is best.
Situational leadership believes that leadership approach depends upon situation (Li, 2013).
According to this theory, most effective leaders are those who are able to adapt their style to
situation they are dealing and type of task to be done. Marks and Spencer uses this leadership
approach in managing conflicts within organisation. Leaders and manager can easily identify
problem of conflict as it provide better understanding between employees and leader. By using
authoritative style in this situation problems can be analysed and required changes can be
implemented.
 Strength: Situational leadership can be applied as this theory is practical and easy to
understand. It approach is intuitively sensible and can be easily apply in different context
of Marks and Spencer organisational issues.
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 Weakness: It leadership style is quite difficult for some type of manager of company as
they have to struggle to identify style of leadership. It is unclear that how to match this
style with development of employees.
Systems leadership
This theory of leadership is based on approach that organisation is made up of different
part and each and every part of organisation play important and significant role in organisation
(Doh and Quigley, 2014). Systems theory is interdisciplinary study of systems of company. This
theory believes that all part of organisation is interrelated and interdependent to each other.
Marks and Spencer uses this approach in dealing with employee turnover as system leadership
enables leaders to create such conditions where all people work productively to their best
potential. It provide holistic view that focuses on maintaining positive relationship with
employees and reduction in employee turnover rates.
 Strength: system leadership help Marks and Spencer to deal with complex situation
likes high turnover ratio. It utilises feedback to improve and deal with problems in new
way.
 Weakness: this approach is not a prescriptive management theory as it does not specify
tools and techniques for practising managers to solve situation.
Contingency leadership
This theory of leadership believes that leadership style depends on situational
contingencies (Diamond and Spillane, 2016). Contingency leadership theory states that leaders
effectiveness is contingent upon how leadership style matches with situation. This theory claims
that there is no best way to organize company activities. Marks and Spencer can use this theory
to assess effectiveness of individual in particular roles and can identify reasons for effectiveness
and ineffectiveness. It leads to identification in roles of individual in attaining organisation goal.
It is beneficial for company in providing clarity of task to be done.
 Strength: this theory is useful in understanding impact of situations on leaders and
focuses on relationship between leadership style and demands of various situations.
 Weakness: Suggestion in this approaches are very simple and it become difficult for
manager to deal with complex situations. Individual managers may not be sufficiently
skilled to change decision and leadership styles to match different situations.
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P4 Key approaches to operations management and role of leader and manger play
Operation management is considered as the planning, arranging, maintaining, controlling
as well as guiding the manufacturing procedures. This is included into using resources from
workers, equipments, material and technology for delivering products or services to clients
according to its requirements and capabilities of the organisation. Its purpose is to assure timely
deliver goods and transform the raw material into finished goods (Diamond and Spillane, 2016.
Operational approach is usually considered to bring management knowledge together which is
related to functions of the management. There are several approaches of operation such as Just in
time, kaizen and so on. So, operation management of the Marks and Spencer applied some
approaches so that they can enhance efficiencies and productivity. Some of them as mentioned
below:
Six Sigma:
This is considered as an approach that are concentrated upon maximising the operational
management value through reducing the defects possibilities. Marks and Spencer can applied this
approach for minimising cost, remove errors that save the resources as well as time of the
organisation. As this is costly to adopt for performing the operational activities but if executed
efficaciously then they can decrease the non operative expenditure of the firm through reducing
production quality. The role of the leaders and manager is to find out the performance of their
staff members as well as enhance their performance level. The value of six sigma approach is to
develop the overall quality of producing products with less number of defects within Marks and
Spencer.
Total quality management:
This is refers as the customers focused method which emphasis upon increasing quality
of the goods for obtaining positive feedbacks from the customers. Hence, total quality
management approach aids organisation to increase its operations. In context of Marks and
Spencer, it is essential fro company to improve as well as maintain its product quality for
attracting more number of customers. So, the role of leaders and manager is to set quality
standards for its offerings and facilitate proper direction to its workers in order to maintain
desired quality of products.
Kaizen:
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This is refers as a significant approach of operation management that is applied to
improve the ongoing development (Mertkan, 2014). Kaizen is considered as the lean
manufacturing, this is mainly used into manufacturing sectors for minimising the errors, reduce
wastage, increase productivity and so on. Hence, the role of Marks and Spencer manager and
leaders in this particular approach is to find out issues in their operations, create solution and
rolling them out. Also, this maximises the group work as well as develop their morale so that
they perform efficaciously for accomplishing business objectives.
P5 Importance and value of operational management in achieving business gaols and
objectives
Operation management plays significant role in managing operation of the business and
performing them effectively into competitive market area (Avolio and Yammarino, 2013). Its
main value is to assure that operations are performing appropriately through through optimum
utilisation of resources as well as meeting the desired of the clients. So, some of the importance
and value of Marks and Spencer operational management are mentioned below: Transformation of raw materials into finished goods: In operation management, raw
material in transformed into finished products. It is significant for optimal utilisation of
resources which will leads towards organisational profitability. With the assistance of
operation management raw material are efficaciously utilised as well as transformed into
final products required to Marks and Spencer. As through this respective firm goods can
be deliver on time at market area so that they can attain organisational objectives.
 Control and Distribution system: Operation management plays crucial role into
controlling and distribution system of the firm (Gillam and Siriwardena, 2013). This
particular department coordinate and control vast range of activities at Marks and
Spencer to assure the business objectives are meet accordingly. Channel of distribution is
very important for the particular department. With the help of this all operations are
performed effectively on time to accomplish the organisational objectives.
Value of operational management:
Some of the value of Marks and Spencer operational management are mentioned below: Better quality of products and services: The consumers always prefer the standard
quality of goods or service, it can be possible only if Marks and Spencer have efficacious
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operation management team for carrying out their activities. With the help of operational
management, firm manager can evaluate overall activities for efficacious working
performance. Hence, in case team will perform effectually and develop the performance
then their objectives of the firm can be accomplish effectually. Low cost of products and services: If there is appropriate operational management in
Marks and Spencer then they can easily minimise the cost of goods and services
(Giltinane, 2013). It is the accountabilities of manager to effectually use operation
management for profitable outcomes. Hence if products cost are low more number of
individuals prefer to buy its goods which assists them to achieve goals.
 Capability to maximise productivity: The main aim of business is to enhance
productivity with standard quality and lower cost. This is only possible in there is
efficacious operation management team into Marks and Spencer to perform the task. As
company's operations are managed appropriately to accomplish their objectives in
effective manner.
P6 factors that impact upon operational management and decision-making by leaders and
managers.
Mangers and leaders are responsible for taking various important decision for Marks and
Spencer successful business activities. These decision are affected by different factor and
managers to take consideration of these factor before taking decision.
Competition – Activities of rival company affect decision-making of Marks and
Spencer. Leaders and manager take decision according to competitors to achieve more market
share than rival company. Competition factor strongly influence strategies of company. Manager
have to take right decision which help in presenting better product to customer as compare to
competitors so that company can attract more customers. Leaders have to work with high and
innovative technology and techniques used by competition. Strategies of competition should be
careful analysed before taking decisions for company.
CSR factor - Marks and Spencer have to follow various corporate social responsibilities
(CSR) for maintaining positive relationship with society. Marks and Spencer use many recourse
of society so they it is their responsibility to do fulfil social responsibilities. These
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responsibilities are towards their customers are important aspect that influence decision-making
of business. Leader and manager must take decision which act as a common good and interest of
general public. Social and cultural issue should be evaluated proper by leaders and only after
careful analyses of these factor manager should take decision which result in organisational as
well as societal benefits.
Political factor - These factors affect business in various ways. It include all the aspects
of government and political factor which have impact on functioning of business in market
(Bush, 2014). Political factors consist of tax and economic policies, foreign trade regulations,
employment law, trade rules and restrictions, government involvement and changes. Marks and
Spencer leaders and manager are responsible to follow all rules and regulation set by government
and political parties for business. This company deal in retail sector and have to trade it product
to various area. Manager have consider political factors before taking any big decision for
company.
Ethical factor – Ethical factors which are affecting business involve all processes and
actions which influence decision making of managers or leaders. These factors have direct
impact on behaviour of employee as well as customers, partners or competitors of Marks and
Spencer. Ethical factors deal with moral issues in business. Leaders must take care of right of
employees or customers and follow morel responsibilities. Mangers should take decision which
protect employees and customers rights and make sure all business operation are fair and provide
values.
CONCLUSIONS
From the above report it has can be concluded that management and leadership have
great impact on successful function of business. Leaders and managers are responsible for
different functions and goal of business operations. But major objective of leadership and
management is to achieve ultimate organisation goal. Various models and theories are properly
understood and analysed how they are beneficial for handling different situations of company.
Knowledge about importance and value of operations management is evaluated in achieving
objectives of business. Various factors which affect decision making and have impact on
operational management is also analysed.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Renz, D.O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
McCaffery, P., 2018. The higher education manager's handbook: effective leadership and
management in universities and colleges. Routledge.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
Gopee, N. and Galloway, J., 2017. Leadership and management in healthcare. Sage.
Hallinger, P., 2013. A conceptual framework for systematic reviews of research in educational
leadership and management. Journal of Educational Administration. 51(2). pp.126-149.
Hallinger, P. and Bryant, D.A., 2013. Review of research publications on educational leadership
and management in Asia: a comparative analysis of three regions. Oxford Review of
Education. 39(3).pp.307-328.
Li, M., 2013. Social network and social capital in leadership and management research: A review
of causal methods. The leadership quarterly. 24(5). pp.638-665.
Doh, J.P. and Quigley, N.R., 2014. Responsible leadership and stakeholder management:
Influence pathways and organizational outcomes. Academy of Management
Perspectives. 28(3). pp.255-274.
Diamond, J.B. and Spillane, J.P., 2016. School leadership and management from a distributed
perspective: A 2016 retrospective and prospective. Management in Education. 30(4).
pp.147-154.
Mertkan, S., 2014. In search of leadership: what happened to management?. Educational
Management Administration & Leadership. 42(2). pp.226-242.
Avolio, B.J. and Yammarino, F.J. eds., 2013. Introduction to, and overview of, transformational
and charismatic leadership. In Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road
Ahead 10th Anniversary Edition (pp. xxvii-xxxiii). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Gillam, S. and Siriwardena, A.N., 2013. Leadership and management for quality. Quality in
primary care. 21(4).
Giltinane, C.L., 2013. Leadership styles and theories. Nursing Standard. 27(41).
Bush, T., 2014. Instructional and transformational leadership: alternative and complementary
models?.
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