Leadership Roles and Operational Management Analysis Report

This report examines the role of effective leadership in business operation management, contrasting the roles of managers and leaders. It assesses how leadership quality influences decision-making and operation management, identifying factors affecting the business environment and their impact on operation management. The report covers leadership theories such as situational leadership, contingency theory, and Herzberg’s two-factor theory, analyzing their positive and negative aspects. Using McDonald's as a case study, the report discusses the responsibilities of leaders and managers in operational management, the significance of operations management in achieving business objectives, and provides recommendations for improving operational efficiencies to meet business goals. Desklib provides comprehensive study tools and solved assignments for students.

MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
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Executive Summary
In the following report, the usefulness of effective leadership in the business operation
management is elaborated. The difference in roles of managers and that of a leader is
also stated here. The way that decision making and operation management is affected
by the leadership quality is also stated. The factors which affect the business
environment are identified and how they impact on the operation management is also
jotted down. In conclusion the, recommendations are also stated.
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Table of Contents
Task 1 – Case problem......................................................................................................4
Introduction:.......................................................................................................................4
Leader Vs Manager and explain their characteristic and traits.........................................4
Roles of Leader and functions of manager in context with chosen organisation..............4
[D1] [P3] Leadership theories and models and critical explanation:................................5
[M1] Variation between the responsibility and duties of a leader and a manager............8
[M2] Positive and Negative sides of different leadership theories:...................................8
Task 2 - Case problem....................................................................................................10
[P4] The roles and responsibility of leaders and the manager in the context of
operational management:................................................................................................10
[P5] [D2] Analysis of the significance of operations management in achieving business
objectives.........................................................................................................................11
[P6] [M3] [D2] Critical analysis of the factors prevailing in the business environment and
their effect on operational management and decision making:.......................................12
[M4] Commendation for improving efficiencies of operational management to
successfully meet the business objectives......................................................................14
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................15
Reference list:..................................................................................................................16
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Introduction:
Leadership and management is an essential key to any successful business or
organisation. It is very important to understand the management process within an
organisation for a good team leader or owner and is also important to motivate the
employees or staff and to create a better environment within workshop (Avolio and
Yammarino, 2013, p.30). The aim of this chapter is to introduce or make understand the
learner about the functions of the manager and the role of owner or leader and the
different behaviours, characteristics and traits that help to support the management
process. Here, the researcher has taken McDonald's like a food industry to discuss or
analyse this topic.
Task 1 – Case problem
Leader Vs Manager and explain their characteristic and traits.
The major difference between the managers and leaders is the manager, people or
workers work for them and in context with leader, workers or people follow them. Both
are important for a successful business. Leadership defines as the potential that
manipulates and impels the group efforts towards the achievement of goals while
managers focus on the organisational activities, Planning, controlling and directing the
staff. As, manager have to follow some organisational procedures and policies while the
owner has followed their instinct (Goetsch and Davis, 2014, p.52).
There are some characteristics and traits that make a strong leader are honesty and
integrity, vision, communication skills or power to make them understand, the ability to
face challenges and inspirational views. These are some factors that influence to
achieve the aims, goals, and objectives of leaders. While in context with managers,
some traits that include the ability to direct focused on people as their needs and listen
to their opinions, ability to execute a vision and process management comes under the
process of establishment of work rules, operating procedures and standards and some
other organisational activities that worker has to do.
Roles of Leader and functions of manager in context with chosen organisation
As the researcher has chosen McDonald's like a food industry, the roles of leader within
this organisation firstly focus on the organisational work culture and how it can maintain.
They take highly skilled or experienced employees that help to lead them in this position
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of success and always try to work in a team and motivate their employees is their main
role as they believe that a happy or satisfied worker can only lead them to a success
and to achieve their objectives. They also follow some leadership theories as
Contingency theory, Herzberg’s two-factor theory and situational leadership
theory that help them to explain the good working environment, employees requirement
through motivations that make them satisfied. As their slogan is ‘happy employees lead
to happy customers’ (Kim et al. 2015, p.18).
Now come to the point of functions of manager are to establish some rules and
regulation that worker has to follow, observe each and every staff working behaviour,
and their satisfaction and needs, maintain the teamwork environment, provide training
for untrained or fresher worker, organising some extra curriculum activities which make
their employee happy and also that is good for the organisation and also focus on the
customer's needs and satisfaction that is very important to know that help them for the
organisational development as well as for the training process of the employees
(Mcdonalds.com.au. 2017).
[D1] [P3] Leadership theories and models and critical explanation:
In the following section, different theories of the leadership are critically evaluated along
with a citation of proper example in the context of the chosen organisation. There are
some leadership theories and models are available in the universe among them, in this
assignment situational leadership, system leadership and contingency theory of
the leadership has discussed the illustration of correlation with the leadership and
management roles of the contextual countries.
Situational Leadership is based on the contingency theory proposed by Fiedler in the
year 1958 in his famous work on group efficiency as well as the attitudes of a definite
leader. It has been seen that there are four quadrants in the situational leadership
theory. The directive, coaching, supporting and delegating are the four different aspects
of situational leadership ship theory (Deming, 2013, p.5). On the contrary, the
contingency theory of the leadership style describes that efficiency of leadership styles
depends on some factors as the nature of some the member of the group, the
relationship of the leader with the member of the group and types of the task.
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However, these different theories of the leadership have one thing in common that is the
roles of the leadership are crucial for each and every organisational structure. In the
given organisation it has been seen that they encourage their employees to apply
situational leadership theory top a larger extent. Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey
described this theory at first. According to Renz (2016, p.87), the only similarly between
the contingency theory and the situational leadership theory is the gauging the situation
and determine the appropriate leadership style.
In the previous time, it has been taken that the leadership is largely an inherited quality;
the Great Man theory also supports this idea. However, the modern sociological and
psychological development pinpoint that the leadership quality can be achieved like
other achievable human quality (Zhang et al. 2015, p.1898). The contingency theory
says that leadership must be by the demands of the situation, nature of the team that
are led and on many other theories. On the other hand, the situational leadership
argues in favour of the demands of the situation on the appropriate leadership style.
While discussing the situational, it is important to know the team that one is leading and
determines the types of the leadership by the team members' attitudes along with the
types of the work assigned to the team.
As discussed in the previous portion, there are four types of the situational leadership
namely directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. In case the team members have
lows motivation for work along with low skill the first techniques that are directing is
applied. In this case, the main responsibility and objective of a leader are to make the
team member motivate to do the work along with making them efficient in the concerned
job description (George and Leasure, 2016, p.59). Authoritative leadership quality is
effective in this leadership type where the concerned leader is expected to take a highly
directive position. In this case, scenario, if the leaders try to make a viable relationship
with the respective team member, it will not help the team t\rather make the team
member more confused.
In the second situation when the enthusiasm for the concerned job is very but each of
the team members is lack of the skills necessary for the job role coaching technique is
applied where the team member are taught with the appropriate skills and techniques
necessary for the job role and enhance the confidence of each and every employee
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regarding the appropriate job skills (Maier et al. 2015, p.382). In this leadership styles,
the leader also needs to define the roles as well as assigned the task to each of the
team members to avoid discrepancy and conflicts among the team member. This is
mainly due to the facts that conflicts can reduce the work efficiency. Unlike with the
former type of the leadership style, in this case, the commutation is two-way, and there
are teacher-student kinds of relation present between the leader and the subordinate.
The third type of the leadership style is best suited for those team members who has
low enthusiasm for the assigned role but highly skilled for the given work ( Fayol, 2016,
p.54). In this case, the best leadership quality that needs to be applied is supporting
leadership style. In this case the leadership style, the concerned leader need not worry
about showing the technique for completion of the work but just need to motivate them
so that they become enthusiastic for the concerned job role. Here the elucidation and
detailing regarding the job need to the concern of the respective leader. All the need
that the leader is expected to do is to make the team member motivated for the job
description in their respective job role.
In the final leadership style under the situational leadership, comes the delegating
leadership style. This type of the leadership is effective for that team member who is
already highly motivated along with appropriately skilled in their assigned job roles
(Morden, 2016, p.65). In this care there is already high amount of faith and trust are
present among the leader and the respective team member. In this case, only the
decision making and troubleshooting regarding the job whereas how the job needs to
proceed is totally left upon the team member, and the team leader only needs to
supervise.
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Situational Leadership Model
Level of
skill SUPPORTING DELEGATING
DIRECTIVE COACHING
Level of enthusiasm
Table 1: Situational Leadership Model
(Source: Created by Author)
[M1] Variation between the responsibility and duties of a leader and a manager
There is a fine line of difference between the manager and the leader. It is also a
noteworthy fact that a manager can be a leader or in other words, a person with a
leadership quality can be a manager. However, the roles of a manager or a leader can
be different by the assigned job role as well as the organisational structure.
It has been noticed that in an organisation where the important decisions are taken by
the higher authority the manager’s only reflects the decision of the higher authority to
the subordinate team member. Hence, it can be said that a manager imitated the roles
and decision taken by a leader who belongs to the higher authority (Gollenia, 2016,
p.74). Managers can be compared with a photocopy of original leaders. The processes
or the modes of action were developed by the leaders, and the same is applied and
maintained by the different manager at different levels of the organisational structure.
It also has been noticed that the leaders or the higher authority of an organisation
concentrated on people whereas the managers concentrated on the structures and the
systems (Ruggles, 2014, p.65). It is also another noteworthy difference between a
manager and a leader that manager depends on the control over the team member
whereas the leaders inspire as well as encourage on trusts among the subordinates.
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[M2] Positive and Negative sides of different leadership theories:
Light is always linked with the darkness. Similarly, every theory is linked with the both
the positive as well as the negative sides. In the case of the contingency as well as the
situational leadership theory, their common drawback is given in the next line (Reiman
et al. 2015, p.80). Both the theory put stress on the mismatching between the situation
and the leadership style whereas no recommendation is given how to deal that and
minimise the effects. Furthermore, the situational leadership also creates immense
pressure in the psyche of the leaders as they constantly judge the situation before
taking any action (vom Brocke et al. 2014, p.530). In the positive sides, it can be said
that these theories help the leader to decide what kinds of the leadership techniques
need to be applied in what situation. Moreover, it also makes the leaders understand
their team.
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Task 2 - Case problem
[P4] The roles and responsibility of leaders and the manager in the context of
operational management:
Being the market lead in the food industry McDonald constantly faces the pressure of
expectation from their target. They have to maintain their quality that also being in the
competitive range of pricing. Otherwise, there is a chance of being replaced by less
costly products of their competitor. To make this happen the concerned company need
to focus on their organisational structure as well as in the operation management (Ukeje
et al. 2015, p.80). The key strengths of an organisation are their employees.
It has been observed that a loyal base of employees is efficiently produced a loyal base
of dedicated customer. Though apparently, it seems that both are not related; however,
the reason behind this facts is very simple and intricately related to each other
(Dombrowski and Mielke, 2014, p.565). The employees itself can be the part of the
customers base. On the other hand, a satisfied and motivated employee will go few
more extra miles to satisfy their customer.
It is a well-known fact that word of mouth is the best marketing, promotion techniques.
Being the largest international company, it is quite obvious that the company already
have a large number of employees base (Efferin et al. 2015, p.130). Now, if the
company ca ton make the employee satisfies then these satisfied employees will help
the company to promote their products by words of mouth.
Here comes the effectiveness in the leadership and the managerial role. They way the
leaders, and the manager performs their duties largely impacted the satisfaction and the
employee loyalty (Strom et al. 2015, p.82). The first and foremost goal of the
management, as well as the leaders, is to understand the capability as well as the
demands of their employee and plan the process accordingly. Their roles are to support
them and make them feel valued.
The managers also need to pay attention to the problems and inconvenience of their
respective employees and address and solve them as soon as possible. This will
increase the hygiene factors mentioned in the Herzberg’s two-factor theory (Uhl-Bien
and Arena, 2017, p.54). Apparently, this has nothing to do with motivating the
employees so that the level of the production can be increased, but this helps to
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strengthen the employee retention and diminishes the chances of employee turnover,
which is identified as the main problem in the operation management of the concerned
company.
There is a derogatory term for Mac job prevailed in this industry which signifies the low
pay job with minimum respects. Employee turnover hugely costs the concerned
organisation. Hence, it is wise decision to reduce that and convert it to the profitable
situation by changing the management and leadership roles (Deming, 2013, p.25). It is
also recommended that the organisation can fragmentise the total work form by the
criteria of the situational leadership.
Another important aspect of operation management in the context of escalating the
quality while reducing the cost is the intelligent management of the inventory. As this
industry deals with perishable goods, wrong calculation and projection of the inventory
requirement can lead the concerned organisation to increase in the inventory (Zhang et
al. 2015, p.1923). Only, a proper manager with adequate experience and insight can
solve this problem. What the person need in doing this is to project the potential number
of the meals that will be sold in the next day and order the inventory accordingly.
[P5] [D2] Analysis of the significance of operations management in achieving
business objectives
The prime and foremost business objective of the concerned organisation is based on
three facets namely Good food, good people and a good environment (vom Brocke et
al. 2014, p.537). The company recently takes an oath to serve quality of the food
without harming the nature. They are also trying to decrease their carbon footprint. They
developed a new approach towards sustainable managing of the business. The
effective operations management can help the company to achieve their goal without
many hassles. In this context, it can be said that operation management is a process of
simplifying the complex process of management.
There are many aspects of operation management such as margining the resources as
well as the finances to achieve higher productivity. The objectives of the concerned
organisation are to be a people’s brand where each and every employee from the grass
roots levels to the management levels is cared for. This is why the operation
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management of the concerned company includes an effective training session in which
they make their employees efficient in delivering the job (Gollenia, 2016, p.91).
The concerned organisation put stress in the convenience of their employees by the
process of operation management through training and education, and then their end
objective of good people will be easily fulfilled (Morden, 2016, p.122). Moreover, the
company also includes environment management in their operation management plan
so they show their concern for nature and can make a difference.
Hence, it is quite evident that an effective and systematic operation management plan
can enable the company to achieve their end objective. In another word, it can be said
that operation management is the ladder to reach the business objectives (Reiman et al.
2015, p.90). Business objectives are the motto of business. Though the core objective
of any business is to make a modern profit world demands that each and every
organisation must attain that in an ethical way without exploiting their employees as well
as nature.
[P6] [M3] [D2] Critical analysis of the factors prevailing in the business
environment and their effect on operational management and decision making:
There are six factors of the business environment namely; Political Environment,
Economic Environment, Social Environment, Technological environment and the Legal
Environment. These are collectively called as PESTEL.
Opportunity Threats
P Political
factor
1. Policy on GMO and organic food
2. Free-trade concurrence
3. Low labour benchmark in
developing countries
4. Rising global trade policies
5. Anticipated tax modification
1. Growing public
health policies
2. Changing nature of
the international politics
E Economi
c factor
1. Economic stability in Australia
2. Higher rate of employment in the
Australia
3. Stable growth of the Australian
1. Increasing labour
costs in developing
countries
2. Turmoil in European
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