Management and Operations Report: Primark Leadership Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of leadership and management practices within Primark, a multinational retail company. It begins with an introduction to operation management, defining the roles of managers and leaders, and differentiating between them. The report then examines the management structure of Primark, highlighting the roles of leaders and managers in various organizational situations, such as technology advancements and conflict resolution. Furthermore, it delves into the application of different leadership theories, including situational and system leadership, and their impact on Primark's growth and sustainable performance. The report concludes with recommendations for future improvements, drawing on the analysis of leadership and management strategies within the organization. The report uses various academic sources and references to support its findings.

Management And
Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
1)- Introduction of management structure ..................................................................................1
2)- Roles of Managers and Leaders and differences between them............................................1
3) Roles of management and leadership in application to different organisational situation.....4
4) Leadership theories and their support in growth and sustainable performance......................5
5)- Impact of leaders and managers on organisation and recommendation on future
improvements..............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Operation management refers to overall administration of business activities to create the
maximum level of efficiency possible and practical within an organisation. This process includes
converting raw materials and labour into product and services in a most efficient way and helps
in increasing the profitability of the organisation. Operation management is an activity concerned
with manager and leader where they try to balance costs and revenue by managing all the
practises going on in a business to maximize net operating profit. Primark is an international
retailer opened its first store in 1969 in Dublin, Ireland but in 1973 it reaches UK and opened its
store in Derby. Today it operates in over 350 stores in more than 11 countries across America
and Europe. It mainly deals in latest fashion, beauty and home ware at the best value i.e. offering
amazing fashion at high or amazing prices. This project consists of difference between leadership
and management, role of manager and leader in various business situation and different types of
leadership theories.
1)- Introduction of management structure
Primark is a multinational company which is Irish fast fashion retailer and its
headquarter is in Dublin. This organisation deals with different range of products including
womenswear, children and baby clothing, accessories, footwear, beauty products, and so on. It
serves in various countries like Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain,
United States, United Kingdom, etc. Primark has a tall structure of managerial activities. In this ,
managers form various ranks and each one of them has a small area of control. This organisation
has many layers of department and company go through these levels in order to derive
information.
2)- Roles of Managers and Leaders and differences between them
According to the views of Kim, Kumar and Kumar (2012) a leader is a person who
commands, guides or leads other individuals, team or entire organisation. Their main role is to
delegate tasks to all members of an organisation including themselves and they are responsible
for guiding a group of individuals to complete a task.
According to the opinions of LaGanga (2011), a manger is an individual who manages
all activities related to organisational structure. They are responsible to control and administrate
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a group of people, staff or employees. Their basic role in a company is to design and coordinate
system in which roles and responsibilities of employees are clearly stated.
Difference between leaders and managers
Basis of
Differentiation
Manager Leader
Interpersonal
Role
Managers manages various
activities of an organisation and
assign roles and responsibilities to
its subordinates in order to perform
given task.
Leaders influences their
subordinates to achieve a specified
goal and motivate them by
maintaining healthy relationship
with them.
Administrative
Role
The role of managers is to
communicate targets and goals of
an enterprise to its employees so
that company can meet its
objectives.
Leaders set direction of work and
advise its subordinates the way
through which goals of an
organisation can be achieved within
a certain period of time.
Differences in characteristics of Leader and Manager
Basis of
Differentiation
Manager Leader
Orientation The aim of managers is to design
effective system to carry out
functions of an organisation.
Leaders are vision oriented and
their basic aim is to achieve
overall growth of an organisation
by motivating employees.
Communication
skills
Mangers should have good
communication skills in order to
exchange data related to certain
tasks to their employees (Laudon
and Laudon, 2016).
leaders should be good
communicator so that they can
influence subordinates to meet
targets of a company.
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Conflict
Management
Managers don't deal with
conflict between their
subordinates. They just delegate
work among team members.
Leaders forms healthy bond with
their followers by interacting
with them and resolves if any
conflicts arises between them.
Differences between leadership and management
Basis of differentiation Management Leadership
Focus Managers focuses on planning,
controlling, organising,
monitoring and reviewing
various activities of an
organisation.
The basic focus of leaders is to
influence and motivate
employees in order to perform
assigned task within given
period of time (Frey and
Embrechts, 2015).
Objective The basic objective of
managers is to manage
different tasks and activities
taking place in an enterprise.
They need to plan, control and
organise set of activities
occurring in a company.
Managers assign work to their
subordinates and took report
from them time to time
(Mollenkopf Frankel and
Russo, 2011).
The objective of leaders is
wider than mangers. Their
basic goal is not limited to a
particular task but to achieve
overall growth of an
organisation. They direct their
employees and influence them
to achieve different goals and
objectives of an enterprise.
Motivation Managers allot work among
their subordinates and
communicate the way in which
particular task should be
performed by them. They don't
On the other hand, Leaders
play an vital role in
influencing their employees.
They motivate their
subordinates to do better work
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motivate them to work in an
efficient manner instead they
just give them work that is
needed to be done within a
particular period of time.
and achieve overall goals of an
organisation. Leaders guide
them and provide guideline
about how a particular task
should be done.
3) Roles of management and leadership in application to different organisational situation
Primark is an international retailer working at large scale thus leaders and managers have
to play a vital role for its success and growth. It is their duty to keep a check on each and every
activity going on in the organisation and at the same time they need to check the efficiency and
overall performance of employee(Kim, Kumar and Kumar, 2012.). Managers and leader are
having the responsibility of motivating the employee and boosting their moral to ensure the
success of organisation. For this purpose they are making use of different theories and concepts
of leadership and motivation. For better understanding of role leader and manger in Primark,
following two situation can be taken :
Technology advancement
With span time and to remain successful and competitive in fast changing environment it
become necessary to timely upgrade technology or keep a pace with new innovative
technologies. Technology up gradation is an important tool use by leaders and managers to beat
the competitors and improve quality of product to attract more customers. It is not easy to bring
technology advancement, it requires many steps and procedures(LaGanga, 2011.). Proper
learning, training and motivation of employees is required to take full advantage of new
technology. In Primark, it is the responsibility of manger to provide timely and adequate training
and learning to employees to understand the proper use of new technology.
It is the responsibility of leader to motivate their employees to become more skill full
and upgraded to efficiently work with new technology. For this purpose leaders Primark makes
use of transformational leadership as they are going beyond their day to day operation, so that,
needs to focus more on team building, motivation and coordination between employees at
different level. Here leaders set target and provide incentives to push employees at a higher level
of performance to accomplish both personal and organisational goals. Employees are getting
more opportunities and challenges for their professional growth and at the same time increasing
profitability and growth rate for success of organisation.
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Conflict resolution
It is obvious to have conflicts between employees or managers or leaders, but it is the
responsibility of leaders and manger to dissolve or solve these conflicts within the organisation.
As Primark is working at large scale therefore there are more chances of conflicts in its day to
day operation(McNeil, Frey and Embrechts, 2015.). Managers and leaders of Primark try to
understand the cause or reasons behind the conflicts and to reach or find a solution on mutual
basis by taking responses and views of all concerned employees. For this purpose managers and
leader make use of different team -bonding activities and also provide motivation to reduce the
chances of conflicts. Primark make use of transactional leadership theory to maintain the
normal flow of operation. It make use of disciplinary power and incentives to motivate
employees to work properly and make sure that everything in organisation should go on
smoothly.
4) Leadership theories and their support in growth and sustainable performance
To ensure success and future growth of an organisation, their mangers and leaders make
use of different approaches and theories. The main aim behind these theories is to motivate and
encourage the employees to work with maximum efficiency and therefore, play a vital role in
improving the performance of an employee as well as improves the overall performance and
growth of an organisation(Laudon and Laudon, 2016). Primark is making use of these leadership
theories which are explained below to motivate their employees to make sure the success and
growth of organisation.
Situational leadership
This style of leadership is developed by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey. Situational
leadership is a flexible leadership in which leader and manager adjust or modify their style to fit
the development level of employees I.e. leaders are required to change their strategy or style of
motivation not the followers needed to adapt according to leader's style. The main advantage of
this leadership is that it works according to prevailing situation and easily adapts to existing
work environment and also helps in meeting the changing needs of an organisation. This helps in
providing a direction to employees and if the situations demands for training, the leader can
provide coaching to their team(Mollenkopf, Frankel and Russo, 2011). Leaders provide a
detailed instruction as per the situation and guide employees to achieve the target more
efficiently, thus playing a important role in success of assignation.
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In Primark situational leadership is used by managers and leaders to make their
employees more comfortable in working in a rapidly changing environment by adopting styles
best suited with abilities and skills of workforce . This motivates team in a positive way and
increase their productivity and performance(Nassiri and et. al., 2016.). The only drawback of
this approach is, it focuses more on ability of employees and not on targets so some time targets
or goals may left unachieved in set period of time.
System leadership
The main focus of system leadership is to create a conditions where all employees can
work efficiently to their maximum level of potential (Leadership Theories, 2019). It has been
developed by Dr Ian MacDonald, which provides a modal to create good leadership as per the
market demand, and understand and predict the people behaviour in organisation to make a
effective organisational strategy(Oakland, 2014). As per this style of leadership, leader and
manger communicate or explain market situation to employees to make them work accordingly
to achieve the goals of organisation. Proper communication is offered to increase the
productivity of employees and proper direction is provided for achievement of organisational
target and improving its overall performance . The focus of this approach is on timely
achievement of goals so sometime not able to maintain a healthy relationship with employees
but ensures success and growth of organisation.
Contingency leadership
This theory is given by Edward Fiedler. According to this a company can not fix at any
one approach that can be considered as best suitable for its employees. Approaches or decisions
are required to get changed according to the prevailing situation both inside and outside the
organisation I.e. things get changed according to the conditions in the market and inside the
organisation. Proper orientation is provided to employees to keep them encouraged and
motivated towards their work. This helps Primark to give sufficient value to views and opinions
of employees regarding the prevailing situation(Peng and Lai 2012). This provide a healthy
relation and encourages workforce to perform in a better way. As contingency leadership implies
modification of system with every change in internal and external environment it sometimes
brings complexity.
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5)- Impact of leaders and managers on organisation and recommendation on future
improvements
Both managers and leaders are important for overall growth of an organisation and plays
an vital role in achieving targets by taking initiative actions. Managers helps in smooth running
of a business by assigning tasks and duties to team members appropriately. On the other hand,
leaders motivate and influences employees to perform a given task. They themselves indulge in
that task to present as an example in front of their followers. Leaders create a vision and take
risks whereas managers create goals of an enterprise and control risks. In short, both of them are
important for smooth functioning of an organisation. Primark is a successful multinational
company because it is filled with great managers and leaders who work hard in achieving goals
of an organisation (Nassiri and et. al., 2016).
Recommendations-
 Primark should value both leadership and management so that the balance between them
should be maintained. Leadership training and development programmes should be
provided in order to emphasises on leadership and managerial skills (Peng, and Lai,
2012).
 Primark should extend general management networks by providing opportunity to leaders
and mangers for networking through national leadership development programmes. This
will aid them to lead and manage much better and boost up their confidence.
CONCLUSION
From the given report, it has been concluded that leaders and managers play an
significant role in overall activities of an organisation. This report recognized that there are roles
of leadership and management in different situations of organisation in context of different
theories like transformational and transactional leadership and theories of motivation. It also has
been analysed that leaders and managers have large impact on growth of an enterprise. Further,
it has concluded some recommendations for future improvements in context of growth and
development of an organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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India.
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techniques and tools. Princeton university press.
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contracting companies: a case study. Archives of environmental & occupational health.
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management: Understanding the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
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Slack, N., 2015. Operations strategy. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Online
Leadership Theories. 2019. [Online] Available through<
https://www.projectmanager.com/training/top-5-leadership-theories>./
Cherry. K., Leadership Theories. 2019. [Online]Available through<
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