Developing Leadership and Management Skills: Walmart Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of leadership and management principles, specifically within the context of Walmart. It begins by differentiating between leadership and management, highlighting their respective roles and importance in an organization. The report then delves into key pe...Read More

Developing
Leadership and
Management Skills

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
Analysis and comparison of leadership and management......................................................2
Key Performance metrics of organisational sector/market/industry......................................3
Organizational leadership and management performance.....................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
.........................................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Leadership refers to a process or art through which an executive influence, guide or motivate
others towards a common goal. Its main objective is to influence the behaviour of others in such
a way so that they can get the work done by others. Additionally, management skills are the
skills which are necessary to have in any business organisation to achieve the desired goals and
targets. These skills include business planning, decision making, problem solving,
communication, time management etc. This report includes the difference between leadership
and management, key performance metrics of Walmart, management and leadership
performance in the context of Walmart.
Walmart is a multinational company of retail which is operating a chain of grocery stores,
discounted departmental stores and hypermarkets having headquarter in Bentonville, Arkansas,
U.S. It was founded in 1962 by Sam Walmart. This is a family business as it is completely
managed and controlled by Walmart family. From a latest report it is analysed that almost 11443
stores in 26 countries are currently operating with 54 different names. Various names under
which the company is operating are Walmart de, Mexico y Centroamerica, Asda, Seiyu Group,
Flipkart Wholesale etc. They are dealing in home improvement, jewellery, music, health &
beauty, footwear, clothing, electronic, movies, home furniture etc. It is also found that the
Walmart is said as the largest company of world by revenue because it’s total revenue is
US$548.743 billion (approx). Almost 2.2 million employees are working with this organisation.
Their mission is to save the money of people so that they can make their living standard better
and their vision is to provide every product at a single place so that customer have no need to go
somewhere else (Walmart, 2021).
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MAIN BODY
Analysis and comparison of leadership and management
Leadership and management both are important aspects for an organisation. Leadership is
important as it is an initiate action of motivation which provide guidance and create confidence
& morale (Parker 2019).
Leadership
Leadership refers to a group of activities undertaken by a leader with the purpose of
motivating a group of people so that they can work well and achieve the goals and targets of
organisation. Management structure of an organisation can be known as leadership. Process of
leadership is done by a person known as leader. It is necessary to have some qualities to be a
leader i.e. it is necessary to have integrity, courage, influencing, communication, self awareness,
empathy, learning agility qualities to be a good leader.
The great man theory, trait theory, behavioural theory, the transactional, transformational,
situation are the various theories of leadership. It plays an important role in Walmart as it directs
the person working there in such a way so that they can achieve organisational targets in
effective way. It influence the employees by providing guidance, initiating actions, building
work environment as per the employees of organisation.
Leader of Walmart works as coach, servant, visionary, bureaucratic so that they can
influence or motivate their employees in such a way so that they can easily achieve the target.
Charismatic leadership
This style of leadership can be defined as the leader who tries to influence and inspire
their team mates by using their communication skills, persuasive skills and charm to lead their
team mates towards goals and objectives of Walmart (Lunden and et. al., 2017). They are
mainly confident in nature, they have good creativity level, containing better visionary and
determination in performing and accomplishing their targets. This helps the company in not only
generations of sales and income but also saving unnecessary cost for further investments.
Management
It refers to the process of planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling in such
a way so that organisational objectives can be achieved effectively and efficiency. It is important
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to apply management theories in an organisation because it helps the organisation in achieving
group goal by proper utilization of resources and reducing cost (Ugaddan 2017).
Management of Walmart makes targets, objectives and hire managers to supervise,
instruct and manage all the employees in such a way so that they can achieve their desired
targets. In addition to this, Walmart is following various theories of management which improve
their work performance i.e. Scientific Management theory, System management theory,
contingency management theory, Theory X and Y.
Scientific management theory
There are some principles related to the scientific management theory such as that it must
be the clear division of work, tasks, duties and responsibilities of an employee to reduce
confusions and create more effective working in their own specialised area. Another principle is
that it must be high paid salary for the high performing employees so that other employees can
get motivation to work hard in Walmart (Leroy and et. al., 2018). Company should maintain
harmony in the firm rather than discord so that they can get smooth functioning in the company.
Walmart has adopted the cooperation style among the employees as compared to the
individualism style so that they cannot get competitive among themselves and therefore, it is
necessary to reduce the conflicts in the firm. Last principle is that it is important to develop the
employees to their greatest efficiency so that maximum utilization of human resources can be
done in the Walmart.
Behavioural theory
This management theory states that company ensure that employees get maximum
satisfaction in their work, job profile, salary and working environment because it is said that
employees are the greatest and biggest asset for the firm therefore, it is important to take care of
them as per their needs and requirements either in a personal way or professional way. Walmart
has adopted this management theory practice in order to make their employees feel special in an
organization.
Key Performance metrics of organisational sector/market/industry
Key performance metrics are the factors which shows the effectiveness of any department
or business towards their objectives (Hamlin 2017). It can be used at various levels to know
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about the performance or to measure the success of any person, team or business unit.
Ecommerce sales KPIs, Marketing KPIs, Customer service KPIs are some common Key
Performance Indicators otherwise they are depend on the industry, business, departments and
team.
A business consultant Robert H. Waterman developed a management model named as
McKinsey Framework which include 7Ss of management i.e. Strategy, structure, systems, staff,
style and skills. Walmart follows cost leadership business strategy under which they promise to
provide products on low prices to everybody (Sarabi and et. al.,2020). Because of it’s massive
size and scope, the organisational structure of Walmart has been highly hierarchical. Walmart
has a wide range of systems which is depend on the various level of complexity. Staff of
Walmart is highly motivated towards their work. They are offering the products on low prices
and following this style for increasing sells. Skills mean the knowledge of workers.
Employee turnover rate of Walmart is 44% a year, it is also found that the fully loaded cost
of replacing a worker who leaves is 1.5 to 2.5 times of annual salary. Also the company occupy a
huge market share in the market because of its high revenue in the world. They provide products
to customers at a low price which gives a huge profit to them. Profit as per January 31, 2021 of
Walmart was $36.818 billion
Organizational leadership and management performance
The success of any organisation is depend on the performance of organisation and the act of
employees. It is the reason why motivation and satisfaction is necessary for employees working
in an organisation. For understanding the behaviour or need of a person towards the work,
Motivation theories help for the same. Maslow’s hierarchy of need, Hertzberg’s two factor
theory, McClelland’s theory of needs, Vroom’s theory of expectancy, McGregor’s theory X and
Y are various theories of motivation. Some of them are given below:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a theory of psychology which explains the human
motivation under which Abraham Maslow created a system of classification which result in the
universal needs of society (Giddens 2018). He divided human needs in five steps which begin
from basic need. Physiological Need include those things which are most important for a
human i.e. food, shelter, cloth etc.
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After completing basic needs, a human move towards Safety Needs which will provide
safe and secure feel to human. These needs help the human to which provide protection from
element, violent conditions, health threats or sickness.
Next level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is need of love and belonging. It outlines the
need of intimacy, family, friends and love which gives feel to human that they are living in a
society (Saunders 2020).
Esteem needs are the needs of person to gain recognition, feel respectful and think about
status. At last, Self Actualization needs which are related to the realization of an individual full
potential. Obtaining skills, continued education, utilizing skills, knowledge and talents, pursuing
life dream, seeking happiness are some need for self actualization can manifest in various ways.
Managers of Walmart are motivating their employees by identifying there needs and then
by providing various rewards and incentives so that they can fulfil their personal requirements in
the proper desired way. If the employees satisfy their needs they will get highly motivate towards
their work.
Because of this theory, employees of Walmart are able to satisfy their personal needs in a
decided sequence, which make a feeling of loyalty and motivation in the mind of employees.
Herzberg's theory is also known as two factor theory or the motivator hygiene theory. A
behavioural scientist named as Frederick Herzberg introduced this theory in 1959. This theory
gives the answer to the managers and organisation that how can they motivate the employees, so
that they can improve their work performance. Below mentioned are the two factors which
include in Herzberg's Theory of motivation:
Hygiene Factors: These factors are the necessitous factor for every employee to motivate them.
These factors does not provide long term satisfaction to the employees but absence of these
factors will demotivate the employees. It include salary of employees, health care policy,
Provident funds, working environment etc. In simple words it can be said that higher higher
hygiene factor means higher job satisfaction and lower hygiene factors means lower job
satisfaction.
Motivating Factors: These factors of Herzberg's theory include those factors which are not
essential for motivating employees but presence of these factors will highly influence the
employees towards their work. These factors include recognition & respect of employee,
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promotion, achievements, growth etc. It can be said that increase in motivating factors will
increase job satisfaction (Fontana 2017).
Walmart is providing various advantages to their employees such as good salary, Provident
fund, health care policy, good and hygiene working environment. Also it is a huge brand,
working in this company is such a respectful for their employees. Also they are continuously
promoting their employees according to their work performance. This will highly influence the
employees towards their organisation.
These type of factors helps the Walmart in motivating employees, if the employees will
not get their salary on time, this will influence them a lot on not to do the work. Along with this,
every employee wants a good reputation at their workplace as it is motivating factor for them and
Walmart provide the same factors to motivate them.
In 1964, a professor of management of Yale school of management named Victor Vroom
introduced Vroom's Expectancy Theory. This theory states that the performance of any
employee is totally depend on the skills, ability, personality and knowledge. Employees can
improve their skills and ability if the management properly motivate them by providing positive
work environment, giving rewards. Victor Vroom said that the motivation of employees are
based on following factors:
Valence: It refers to the process of motivation in which managers motivate employees by
rewards, promotions, time-off etc. For motivating employees, manager should get to know what
can motivate the employees or what they want (Schedlitzki 2017).
Expectancy: According to expectancy factor of Vroom's Expectancy Theory, manager should
communicate the organisation's expectations from employees to them and should provide proper
resources, trainings, so that employees feel motivate and meets the expectations of the
organisation.
Instrumentality: Instrumentality is a factor comes under Vroom's expectancy Theory, according
to which Managers should properly communicate the targets and promises of rewards to the
employees, so that employees feel motivated and gives there best and achieve their decided
targets. Also it is the responsibility of manager to complete the promise of rewards when the
assigned target is achieved by the employees (Fallucco 2018).
Benchmark
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It refers to a process under which any company measure their success in opposite to their
competitor companies for the purpose of finding or calculating the gap in performance which can
be reduce by the improvement in work performance. Walmart has put their benchmark to
Amazon online retail market. In US market both companies are on top and both are competitors.
Walmart has put their target to remove the difference between their performance. By putting
these types of targets top management influence the employees of organisation to do work hard
and beat the competition (Singh 2019).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that developing leadership and management skill is an important concept to
learn and study about the nature and characteristics of leaders and managers in an organization
because their roles and responsibilities are different to carry out the tasks and achieving the
objectives of the company. Leadership and management plays an important role in the success of
the company because they manage and handles the firm in the way such that it assists and
supports the company in enhancing their productivity, stock management, sales and profit
generations. Thus, its highly essential and significant to gain the skills, abilities and qualities of
the leader and manager so that it can be easy to adopt any as per the needs and requirements of
the organization. Various authors have given different styles and theories of leadership and
management so that proper guidance can be rendered through it at the time of practicing the
same. Therefore, in order to apply such conception in the real world organizations, it is important
to analyse the company’s profile and perform a detail study about it, it is essential to examine the
comparison between leadership and management along with their various theories and styles
adopted by the company such as transactional leadership, transformational leadership,
charismatic leadership, scientific theory of management and behavioural management theory, it
is necessary to determine the key performance metrics of the company to better know about the
cost, employee turnover, profit, market share and many more of the company and McKinsey
model of key performance indicators and it is significant to gain the knowledge about the
organizational leadership and management performance by learning several motivational
theories such as Maslow theory, Herzberg theory and expectancy theory followed by the
leadership and management theories. Hence, this report covers all such areas to better understand
the conceptualization of development of leadership and management skills in an organization.
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REFERENCES
Books and journal
Fallucco, S.J., 2018. Aircraft Command Techniques: Gaining Leadership Skills to Fly the Left
Seat: Gaining Leadership Skills to Fly the Left Seat. Routledge.
Fontana, A. and Musa, S., 2017. The impact of entrepreneurial leadership on innovation
management and its measurement validation. International Journal of Innovation
Science.
Giddens, J., 2018. Transformational leadership: What every nursing dean should know. Journal
of Professional Nursing, 34(2), pp.117-121.
Hamlin, R.G. and Patel, T., 2017. Perceived managerial and leadership effectiveness within
higher education in France. Studies in Higher Education, 42(2), pp.292-314.
Leroy and et. al., 2018. Managing people in organizations: Integrating the study of HRM and
leadership.
Lunden and et. al., 2017. A systematic review of factors influencing knowledge management and
the nurse leaders’ role. Journal of nursing management, 25(6), pp.407-420.
Parker, J., 2019. A Correlational Study of Leadership Styles, Preparedness, and Adaptability of
Mid-Level Academic Leaders in Career Colleges. Trevecca Nazarene University.
Sarabi and et. al.,2020. Entrepreneurial leadership and MNE subsidiary performance: The
moderating role of subsidiary context. International Business Review, 29(3), p.101672.
Saunders, C., 2020. Leadership. Oxford University Press, USA.
Schedlitzki, D. and Edwards, G., 2017. Studying leadership: Traditional and critical
approaches. Sage.
Singh, S.K. and El-Kassar, A.N., 2019. Role of big data analytics in developing sustainable
capabilities. Journal of Cleaner Production, 213, pp.1264-1273.
Ugaddan, R.G. and Park, S.M., 2017. Quality of leadership and public service motivation: A
social exchange perspective on employee engagement. International Journal of Public
Sector Management.
Online
Walmart, 2021 [Online] Available Through <https://www.walmart.com/>
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