MG629: Report on Developing Leadership and Management Skills

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management skills through a reflective lens, focusing on the experience of a leader at Unilever, a prominent UK-based retailer. The report begins with an executive summary and an introduction that highlights the significance of leadership and management in organizational success. It delves into the self-reflection of leadership qualities and management skills, utilizing Kolb's and Belbin's tests to assess learning styles and team roles. The core of the report outlines an action plan to address skill gaps, incorporating various leadership theories such as situational and transformational leadership. Furthermore, the report suggests practical activities, like survival leadership and team-building exercises (All Aboard, Minefield), to enhance skills such as communication, problem-solving, and teamwork. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of continuous development in leadership and management. The report references relevant books and online resources to support its findings.

MG629 Developing
Leadership and Management
Skills

Executive Summary
Leaders and managers are the backbone of any organisation and also considered as the
supporting pillars. Leadership and management plays the most significant and major role in the
companies as managers are responsible for developing the strategies and the leaders encourage
the employees to perform the tasks effectively to implement the same for achieving the
organisational goals. The report will be based on the reflection of the leader of Unilever which is
one of the best and the top most retailers in the world becoming the market leader in UK. The
report will highlight the skills of leadership and management and the activities in which the
leaders engage to enhance the same. It will also include the major theories of leadership.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Self-reflection of leadership qualities..............................................................................................4
Self-reflection for management skills..............................................................................................4
Action plan to fill the skill-gaps......................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX 1...................................................................................................................................8
Kolb’s Test...................................................................................................................................8
APPENDIX 2...................................................................................................................................8
Belbin Test...................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The skills of leadership and management skills play an important role as the leader or
manager of any company or any group and also in various stages of life whether it is career or a
job. These skills include vision, communication, decision making, problem solving, confidence
and many more. The report will be a reflective writing report in which the experience of an
individual will be shared as the leader of a company which is the market leader of retailers in UK
which is named as Unilever (Unilever, 2021). This will focus on the activities in which the
person will be engaged to enhance the leadership and management skills.
Self-reflection of leadership qualities
After giving the Kolb’s test of learning styles, I found that I have accommodating style as I like
concrete experiences and experimenting actively which means I prefer feeling and doing as the
dominant learning abilities. I realized that I have some of the management and leadership skills I
have including the decision-making, communication, confidence and many more but still lacks
some skills which are required as a leader or manager. I realised this because I did not face much
problems in making the decisions when any problem arises in the company. As I am working as
one of the leader in Unilever which is the most reputed and renowned retailer company in UK
performing its operations in many different countries. I showed much confidence in making
decisions related to the business and also the teams in the company.
Self-reflection for management skills
After giving the Belbin test, I realized that I am innovator so I can be the creative generator of
the team who has a strong imagination. As the innovator in the team, I will play a crucial role in
achieving the team goals and solves every problem. Also, I realized that I have good
communication skills as I have good interaction with the employees at all the times whether it is
defining the expectations or providing clarity or even building relationships and trust between
the peers and the employees. I think that I am much confident as I try to see everything as an
opportunity and also counter the fear and doubt with positive actions instead of getting
demotivated and discouraged (Chow, Salleh and Ismail, 2017).
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Action plan to fill the skill-gaps
The leaders and the managers must engage effectively in the planning, development,
participation and execution of all the activities of leadership which helps in enhancing and
closing the gaps in the leadership capabilities. There are various theories of leadership that I must
keep in mind such as situational leadership theory, transformational leadership theory and many
more. As the situational leadership suggests that the leaders and managers cannot stick to one
leadership but must be adaptable to every leadership style in order to manage different situations.
Every situation in the company demands different leadership style. So I realized that I must be
aware of the ways in which I can use different leadership styles like autocratic, democratic etc.
Also as the transformational leadership theory states that the leaders must be charismatic and
inspirational and also they must be able to encourage the followers to transform themselves to
perform better in every task. I must also learn from this theory and must always motivate the
employees to increase their involvement in all the tasks and must reach to their highest potential
(Millar, Chen and Waller, 2017). This leadership theory will help me in sharpening my skills
also. Furthermore, in order to improve my skills, I must engage myself in various activities like
survival leadership activities in which I will divide all the participants in groups or can say two
teams and will give them a situation like someone lost in desert, plane crash or something else.
Then I will present some lists of the items which will be used by them in those situations. Then
among all the items the groups will select only five items which they consider as the most
important in that situation. Then, they have to give the reason behind their selection of the items
and must justify the way in which they use the items for overcoming the situation. This activity
will help me in stimulating the creative, critical and strategic thinking along with enhancing the
problem solving skills which will help to become better leader of the company.
I will also engage myself in another activity which is referred as All Aboard in which I will
divide my team in two groups and then give them the new challenge every time. At first I will
challenge them to make a boat by making use of the scrap materials (Van Wart and et.al., 2017).
After they finish the construction, I will tell all the members of the team to stay on one part and
will tell others to remove the other parts. This activity will help in enhancing various skills of
leadership such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking and also problem solving.
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Another activity can be the Minefield in which I will make various teams consisting of two
employees in each team. I will instruct the team members to make one of the members of team to
become blindfolded and the other must act as a guide. There will be various obstacles in between
which can be furniture of the company also. The one person who is not blindfolded will be
guiding the other by using the words like right, left, backward and forward. I can also organise
this activity in the playground of the office also. This will help in increasing the listening,
communication skills along with building trust among the members of the team. This is how; I
can engage myself in these activities and can be a part of the activity as a player also which will
help to experience these things more clearly (Covelli and Mason, 2017). I organised these
activities to monitor the effectiveness of my existing skills and will participate in such activities
as the member of the team to enhance my various skills and building effective relationship with
the colleagues and the employees. When I plan and execute the activity, then I will be following
the transactional theory of leadership as I will be aware of the role of organisation, supervision
and the teamwork. When I become the member of the team, I will be using the behavioural
theory when my behaviours and actions will be laid emphasis upon rather than the qualities and
the traits (Harrison, 2017). This is how I will enhance my leadership and management skills by
engaging in such activities in Unilever.
CONCLUSION
The above report shed light on the skills of leadership and management by presenting a
reflective report regarding the experience of a leader in Unilever which is a UK based retailer
company and the third largest in the world. It laid emphasis on the activities which helps in
enhancing the leadership and management skills. The various theories of leadership were also
highlighted.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chow, T.W., Salleh, L.M. and Ismail, I.A., 2017. Lessons from the major leadership theories in
comparison to the competency theory for leadership practice. Journal of Business and
Social Review in Emerging Economies. 3(2). pp.147-156.
Covelli, B.J. and Mason, I., 2017. Linking theory to practice: Authentic leadership. Academy of
Strategic Management Journal. 16(3). pp.1-10.
Harrison, C., 2017. Leadership theory and research: A critical approach to new and existing
paradigms. Springer.
Millar, C.C., Chen, S. and Waller, L., 2017. Leadership, knowledge and people in knowledge-
intensive organisations: implications for HRM theory and practice.
Van Wart, M. and et.al., 2017. Integrating ICT adoption issues into (e-) leadership
theory. Telematics and Informatics. 34(5). pp.527-537.
Online
Unilever, 2021. [ONLINE]. Available through :< https://www.unilever.com/>
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APPENDIX 1
Kolb’s Test
Best-Fit Self-Assessment
To determine the preferred Kolb Learning Style, descriptions below are reviewed and ranked the
learning styles according to which fits the best (1) and which fits the least (4) so all four
Learning Styles have a ranking between 1 and 4.
____1____Accommodating Style, which falls between AE & CE (feeling & doing)
____3____Diverging Style, which falls between CE & RO (feeling & watching)
____4____Assimilating Style, which falls between AC & RO (thinking & watching)
____2____Converging Style, which falls between AC & AE (thinking & doing)
The learning style preferred is accommodating style.
APPENDIX 2
Belbin Test
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