Operation Management Report: Leadership and Management at Unilever

This report delves into the concepts of leadership and management within the context of Unilever. It begins by defining and comparing the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers, highlighting their differences and importance in achieving organizational goals. The report then analyz...Read More

OPERATION
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
SCENARIO 1...................................................................................................................................1
P.1 Define and Compare the different roles and characteristics of leader and manager........1
M 1. Analyse and differentiate the role of leader and function of a manager in context with
various theories and concepts.................................................................................................3
P.2 The role of leader and functions of manager apply in different situational context........4
P.3 Different theories and models of leadership....................................................................5
SCENARIO 2...................................................................................................................................7
P.4 The key approaches of operations management and role played by leader and manager.7
P.5 Value and Importance of operations management in achieving objectives of business.. 8
M.3 Role of leader and manager in improving the efficiency of operation management to meet
the objectives..........................................................................................................................9
P.6 Factors of business environment that influenced upon the operational management and
decision making of leader and managers................................................................................9
M.4 Different factors affects the business environment and wider community..................11
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Operation management is a practice of the business for creating the highest level of eth
efficiency in the administration. It is concerned with creating the services and products starts
before manufacturing to the consumption and all the organisations produce some mixture of
services and products either the organisation is small or large, service or manufacturing, public
or private and for profit or not for profit organisation (Hill, 2017). In simple words, the activity
to manage the resources that creates and deliver the products and services is called as operations
management.
This present report is in context to Unilever organisation. It is one of the most popular
company in United Kingdom. The traded industry's consumer goods which is founded in 1929
by Willian Level. The total revenue of the company is €50.982 billion in 2018. The main
products of company include cleaning agents, personal care products, beauty products and food
and beverages that incur 40 percent of revenue for the organisation.
The purpose of this report is to gain understanding of leadership and management; the
difference between manager and leader, traits, characteristics and the function of manager and
role of leader in organisational context. Furthermore, report will also cover the concept and
approaches of operations manager and role of management in ensuring effective and efficient
operation's.
TASK 1
P.1 Define and Compare the different roles and characteristics of leader and manager.
The role played by leader and manager in the organisation is very crucial as it effectively
achieves the desire goals and objectives within business environment. Leader at Unilever inspire,
encourage, guide the employees within organisation so that they could give there best to the
organisation. On the other hand, managers are also very important person of the Unilever as they
aid in making effective decisions and are responsible of delegating duties to the employees as per
their skills and knowledge.
Leader is one who control and monitor the activity of groups of people as well as guide
them to achieve the goals and objectives of organisation and they give right direction or path of
the team members to put efforts in right direction (Hitomi, 2017). Leaders aim a rendering
effective direction to the employees of Unilever by creating a vision by inspiring and guiding
them to achieve.
1

Managers is one who is responsible for managing operations of the company as well as
it is also accountable for planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling that aids
organisation to effectively reach the desire goals. Managers at Unilever take strategic decision
and lay down the structure to achieve desired mission and vision of company.
Role of Leader:
 The main role of leader is to coach and unleash potential of staff members or individual
of Unilever company.
 It is very important that leader should clearly define the vision of the workers in order to
achieve goals and objectives of the company.
 The responsibility of creating vision and mission as well as inspiring and motivate
employees is done only by leaders at Unilever. For gaining long term sustainability, leaders are accountable for setting priorities for
organisation.
Role of Manager:
 In the expectation of achieving desire goals manager used to execute strategies for the
organisation so that employee work in the same direction.
 Information role, decisional role and interpersonal roles are main role performed by the
managers.
 All the policies, plan, rules are formulated by the manager so that organisation can
operations more effectively and in right way. The most important managers used to delegate the responsibilities according to the skill
and knowledge as well as measure the performance timely.
Characteristics of leader:
 It is important to have a good communication skills and decision making capabilities and
long term vision of the company. Leader should be motivating, honest, true, innovative, flexible, loyal, enthusiastic and
collaborative (May, Stahl and Taisch, 2016).An effective leader is always been loyal and
honest towards their work and also work effectively with their passion and sense of
humour.
Characteristics of Manager:
2

 Manager should be team and goal oriented, crystal clear or transparent, passionate,
reliable, adaptable and encouraging.
 Manager should be confident, result oriented, innovating wit having technical strength.
 Manager must posses complete knowledge and understanding of organisation mission
and vision.
BASIS MANAGERS LEADERS
DEFINITION A manager in the company is
answerable for planning,
organizing, directing,
coordinating and controlling
that results to higher
efficiency in the operations
and productivity and also helps
in attaining long term goals
and objectives of the
organization (May and et.al.,
2017).
A leader is a person who is
accountable for inspiring,
guiding, motivating,
influencing, and directing
employees of the firm to
achieve specific task
effectively and efficiently in
order to achieve desired goals
and objectives of Unilever
company.
M 1. Analyse and differentiate the role of leader and function of a manager in context with
various theories and concepts.
It is very important that leaders must have strategic potential in order to amend the
performance of the employees and lead them to reach the higher efficiency. It is true that
efficient leader is one who adjust their leadership style according to the situation. There are many
situations that arises at workplace and organisation where leader have to take decision. Situation
leadership theory can be applied in a specific situation that effectively achieve the best outcomes
and solve the particular problems. On the other hand, the role of manager also plays a critical
role as manager used to plan, organize, direct, coordinate and control the entire activities and
functions of Unilever (Nejati, Rabiei and Jabbour, 2017). Manager of Unilever should have to
apply the contingency and system theory in order to balance the situation in the company
effectively. Mangers apply system theory to determine and measure how workforce of company
3

influence the system of the Unilever company. A system consist of different sections that work
together to accomplish objectives of the organization. With this theory manager can match
activities and operations of the organization at all levels. Contingency theory states that manager
should take strategic decision based on the current circumstances which leads to higher
sustainable growth of Unilever company.
TASK 2
P.2 The role of leader and functions of manager apply in different situational context.
Leaders and Managers are the support of the company like blood in the body. Leader
emphasize on role and manager emphasize on functions. It is true that without managers it is not
possible to reach the desire goals and similarly, it is not possible without leader to make the work
complete. Unilever is a manufacturing organisation and there occurs various situation that they
have to take instant decisions. Here are some examples of situation that usually occurs in the
company are as follows-
Situation 1: Conflict at workplace: This situation is very common at workplace in all
types of organisation and at all levels due to different culture, belief and attitude of employees.
Conflict can arise between anyone at workplace like between employees, employees or
subordinates, subordinates or managers or between any groups of individuals. Thus, it creates
problematic situations at workplace because it results in lack of coordination, communication
gap and many other issues which delays in the work. It consumes so much time which is
precious for the company (Tao and et. al., 2015). Thus, at that time, leaders put efforts to solve
the battles by listening both parties and negotiate with them. Leaders at Unilever used situational
leadership as they adjust there leadership style as per the situation. On the other hand, managers
are accountable to pre planned and formulate the rules and regulation regarding the conflicts at
workplace so this situation can be avoided. Managers at Unilever apply Management by
Objectives (MBO) as they used to amend the performance of employees by clearly stating the
objectives of the company.
Situation 2: Introducing New technology at workplace: Just because of rapid
advancement of technologies, organisations are highly technological advance. Thus, organisation
have to introduce new machines, systems, techniques to change the process of the company. But
this situation also creates trouble within organisation sometimes. Like, employees resistance,
strikes, lock outs, shutdown etc. In this situation, leaders use to personally talk with the
4

employees and make them aware of new technologies and there benefits and use democratic
leadership style by considering the ideas and opinions of each employees (Troy and et.al., 2017).
On the other hand, managers at Unilever used to organize training and development
opportunities for employees that motivate employees and up-raise the skills of employees. So, by
organising training and development programmes, employees feel motivated and this situation is
also solved.
P.3 Different theories and models of leadership.
Situational leadership theory:- it is form of leadership style which has been studied and
developed for leading and managing the Unilever and also for adjusting the styles which fit for
the level of the development of the followers and trying to influence them. The main principle of
this two factor theory is to compose the combination of two main and important variable such as
relationship behaviour and task behaviour (Renko and et. al., 2015). It is an adaptive leadership
style which easily develop the work groups and people. It is not depended upon the specific
skills instead of modifying the styles of management which is suitable for the environment of the
Unilever. It shows the role of leader where the leader influence the followers and also serve the
framework for analysing the situation which is based on the performance of the Unilever. There
are primary stages which has been suggested by these theories such as;
 Telling:- in this leaders give instruction for what to do and how to do.
 Selling:- In this leadership style it involves more back and firth between the leaders and
employees(Holten and Brenner, 2015).
 Participating:- it is one of the best leadership style where it used participate with the
employees instead for giving the instruction.
Delegating:- leaders are less involved with the
employees which is called hands-off approach.


System leadership theory:- it is one of
the leadership model and style where it uses
the sound principles of the human behaviour
for creating the models of the strategy of the
5

Unilever, design of system and social process,
good leadership etc. it also provides the tools
of leaders which helps for predicting the
behaviour of the individuals in the Unilever.
The role of the leader in this is to address the
systematic approach and determine the factors
of the external environment and also
relationship among the elements(Iqbal, Anwar
and Haider, 2015).

Contingency theory:- The style of the leadership in the contingency theory state that the
effectiveness of the leaders is contingent upon the matches of the rights situation. Contingency
theory is set to sought the formulated braod generalisation towards the formal structures and also
it typically associated with the best fit and use of the different technologies. It claims that it is
one of the best way to organize the corporation for leading the Unilever, taking decision instead
the optimal course of the actions in the contingent. It opposes that it does not focus on the
situation but also gives importance to both the situation of the workplace and personality of the
leaders in Unilever. There some factors which defined the main problem and situations of the
contingency theory;
 Task culture:- Task culture has been formed when the teams of the Unilever address the
progress of the projects and also the specific problems(Nguyen and et.al., 2017.). It helps
in achieving the goals and by measuring the clarity of the projects and task and it also
tracks the clear guidelines for following.
 Leader- member relations:- it is one of the relationship based approach where it focuses
on the two way relationship between the followers and leaders.
 Positional power:- it is a type of the authority which is result of the manager's positions
within the Unilever subordinates knowledge for the legitimate power which comes from
being in the position of the leadership. It influences the productivity of the employees.
M2
Strength and weakness of the situational leadership theory
6

Strength Weakness
 It only needs for the flexibility of the
situation.
 It easily develops the friendly
environment and comfortable at
workplace.
 Sometimes it does no focuses on the
long term needs and wants, it is
basically relied on the current needs.
Strength and weakness of the system leadership style.
Strength Weakness
 It increases the adaptability of the
environment changes.
 It focuses on the achieving the goals of
the Unilever.
 Delays in the decision making process.
 The inter-dependence of the nature if
not be defined.
Strength and weakness of the contingency leadership style.
Strength weakness
 It supported by the numerous studies of
the empirical.
 There are no requirements for of
leadership style in the situations
(Alonderiene and Majauskaite, 2016).
 So many times it is not able to explain
the right style and also the situation
doesn't match.
TASK 3
P.4 The key approaches of operations management and role played by leader and manager.
The most important departments of the company is operations department as it is directly
connected with the customer satisfaction. No any organisation can successfully and efficiently
achieve there desire goals and objectives without having operations department in the company
(Taufek, Zulkifle and Kadir, 2016). Operation management is the business functions which is
responsible for managing the process of goods and services.
7

In order to make the operation's department efficient and effective, Unilever some key
approaches of operation's management which are as follows-
Total Quality Management (TQM): This is the most important technique by which the
workforce of company as well as management could involve in continuous improvement in
production of products and services to meet the demands of customers. It is one of the most
effective system or process for integrating the development maintenance and improvement of
quality so that the production of company could reach the highest economical level and
organisation can acquire optimum satisfaction. Managers of Unilever use this technique to meet
the expectations and demands of customers as well as it also covers all part of company. On the
other hand, leaders has the main aim to motivate employees for bring out efforts in improving
quality to raise the customer satisfaction level.
Six Sigma Approach: This is another approach that is also very important for
organisation in raising the quality of production by eliminating the defects. This approaches can
be applied in both internal and external environment. Such as company can bring improvement
in internal process to bring improvement in customer satisfaction. Managers of Unilever has
orders to leaders to apply this approach in the operations so that the defects are minimised and
efficient will be improved. In addition to this, managers used Histograms, check list, flow cats
etc. to check the performance and quality of work done.
Just-In-Time (JTI): This is another most essential approach of operations management
as well as it is very old approach. It is first developed by Toyota to fulfil the demands and
expectations of customers. According to this approach, it is very important to make proper
alignment in the purchasing of raw material from suppliers to the schedule of production of the
company. This approach minimizes the wastage in the production because goods and services are
order when they there is need in the market (Colin, Galindo and Hernández, 2015). Leaders at
Unilever monitor that the resources available must be fully utilised. On the other hand, managers
used to plan the policies and strategies to reduce the cost of inventory by applying this approach.
P.5 Value and Importance of operations management in achieving objectives of business.
Operations management is backbone of the company. It includes right from planning,
organising, directing, coordination to controlling the production process. It is very important to
have efficient operation's management within organisation in order to reach the desire goals and
objectives as it plays crucial role within organisation.
8

The importance of operations management are as follows-
Customer Satisfaction: Customers are the key to success and it is very essential to have
the best customer satisfaction to reach the heights of success. If customers are not satisfied that it
is not possible to gain profitability as well as not able to maintain the brand image. Thus, by
implementing quality management approaches and technique, customer satisfaction will
improve.
Quality of Products: Quality really matters for customer satisfaction because customers
are highly quality concerned. It is the responsibility of operation manager to ensure the quality
by focusing on the production process and material used (Calzavara and et.al.,2019). Thus,
Unilever has implemented quality management approaches in order to deliver the quality of
products to the customers.
Waste Reduction: Operations management is highly concerned about the wastage in the
production process, so with the effective operation's management organisation could minimise
the wastage by implementing just in time management approach. By eliminating the waste,
unnecessary cost is minimised that raise the profit of the company.
Increase in Revenue: The revenue of the company is also depends on the operation's
management as if the production and delivery of products are maintaining the level of quality
then it becomes quite easy and effective increase the profit margin of the company. Quality
management also build reputation of the company that also raise the revenue by attracting more
customers.
M.3 Role of leader and manager in improving the efficiency of operation management to meet
the objectives.
Leaders and managers plays an efficient role bringing efficiency in operation's
management as they have to put efforts in maximising the profitability of the company.
Inventory Control: This is also one of the most important part as managers at Unilever
are applying various approaches to remove the wastage in the stock. Leaders used to check the
available stock before making order for purchase (Ahmad and et.al., 2017).
Quality Control: Managers and leaders plays an efficient role in maintaining the quality
of operation and techniques. Leader and manager at Unilever apply Lean principles, Just in Time
(JTI) to maintain the quality of products and services within organisation.
9

P.6 Factors of business environment that influenced upon the operational management and
decision making of leader and managers.
The combination of external and internal factors that impact the operations and functions
of company is called as business environment. The impact of these factors are both positive and
negative manner to Unilever operations. There are mainly six factors that is included in business
environment are as follows-
Political Factors: This external factors includes governmental factors and the impact of
these factors directly influence the operation and functions of the company. Political stability
creates opportunities to the company to grow and expand the business and gain more revenue.
On the other hand, thee are some negative impact of this factor on the operations and functions
of the company like political issues in the European Union are political threat against the
operations in the consumer goods market of Unilever.
Economic Factors: GDP, rate of interest, unemployment, inflation and disposal income
of consumers are included in the economic factors. This factors also leads to both positive and
negative impact on the operations and function of the company. The economic stability of UK is
also stable as the purchasing power of customers are not so low as the disposal income is not
economical (Eaidgah and et.al., 2016). By these managers could look over to raise the prices of
products because consumers have capacity to buy the products. In addition to this, Unilever can
also think over for business expansion in emerging markets like China and India.
Social Factor: This factor included the recent trends, market needs and demands and
customer requirements as it represent the demographic values, characteristics, norms, traditions
and customers of the population in which company is operating. All the recent rends such as
distribution, age, lifestyle, cultural barriers, growth rate etc. Customers are very health conscious
in UK, so manager can take this as opportunity and produce the products and services
accordingly. Apart from this, social factors are very complex to understand and it requires highly
awareness of the market because regular changing of demands leads to negative impact on the
operations.
Technological Factors: The most critical factor in today's era because of highly
advancement in the technologies. This factors leads to both positive and negative impact on the
organisation. The rising automation and innovation is creating high opportunity's for the
businesses to attract the customers towards the products. Mangers have implemented many
10

technologies and leaders of Unilever have put efforts to make these technologies familiar at
workplace in order to bring improvement in the organisational process and system. On the other
hand, the ever changing technologies have raised the competition as well as it is creating threat
on the business.
Legal Factors: This is another external factors that influenced the operation of the
business such as like employment, discrimination, consumer protection, patent, health and safety
and many other laws. CSR is one of the massive law which act requires for setting up the board
committees and also allocate the profits in the last year which has been reviewed at the end of the
financial years. These laws are mandatory for company to follow. Manager at Unilever has
formulated there policies that fulfils the requirements of these laws. Unilever is taking these laws
as opportunities as they are building there corporate image by considering these factors in there
operations.
Environmental Factors: the factors is taking great height in the business environment
because of increasing threat of public issues. The impact of the CSR on the environment factor is
it affects the wide range of actions that business may make and donating the charity for the
ethical trading. The aim of the environmental CSR is to reducing the damaging effects on the
environment such as the use of energy, water use, waste of management and also it wants the
eco-friendly offices and travel policies. There are so many advantages of the CSR in
environmental factor is it provides the switching off the lights and equipments when it's not in
use, reducing the amount of paper which has been wasted Government is highly concern about
the pollution cause by the industries (El Souri and et.al., 2016). So. There is There are
opportunities for Unilever to undertake all these policies and laws in consideration. Managers
and leader are working closely for maintaining the environmental sustainability at workplace or
in environment.
M.4 Different factors affects the business environment and wider community.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): This is also one of the factor that leads to both
favourable and unfavourable impact on the business image. It is because they are the one who
have good corporate image, customers are highly attracts the customers. Operation management
of Unilever is focusing on providing organic products to reduce the carbon footprint,
Business Ethics: Ethics are the standards that clearly differentiate between what is right
and wrong. These are also known as corporate ethics (Hill, 2017). It is very important that
11

operation's management should practices at the greatest level to meet the demands and needs of
stakeholders.
CONCLUSION
Operation management is an area concerned for management for controlling and
designing the procedure of production and also redesigned the operations of the business. This
report will conclude that the different types of roles and characteristics of the manager and
leaders where leaders plays an effective role for influencing the performance of the individuals
and increases the productivity of the organization and also applying the roles and functions in so
many situations of the organization at that leader plays an effective role. Moreover, it also
concludes the theories and models of the leadership style has been applied and also the key
approaches of the operation managements. It will conclude the importance and values of
operation management in the organization and also asses the factors within the environment of
the business and impact upon the operational management and decision making process of the
leaders and managers in the organization.
12

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Ahmad, M.F and et. al., 2017. Data Envelopment Analysis and Tobit Analysis for Firm
Efficiency in Perspective of Working Capital Management in Manufacturing Sector of
Pakistan.
Alonderiene, R. and Majauskaite, M., 2016. Leadership style and job satisfaction in higher
education institutions. International Journal of Educational Management.30(1). pp.140-
164.
Calzavara, M and et. al., 2019. Ageing workforce management in manufacturing systems: state
of the art and future research agenda. International Journal of Production Research, pp.1-
19.
Colin, M., Galindo, R. and Hernández, O., 2015. Information and communication technology as
a key strategy for efficient supply chain management in manufacturing SMEs. Procedia
Computer Science, 55, pp.833-842.
Eaidgah, Y and et. al., 2016. Visual management, performance management and continuous
improvement: a lean manufacturing approach. International Journal of Lean Six
Sigma, 7(2), pp.187-210.
El Souri, M and et. al.,2016. An investigation into the management of design for manufacturing
knowledge in an aerospace company.
Hill, T., 2017. Manufacturing strategy: the strategic management of the manufacturing function.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Hitomi, K., 2017. Manufacturing systems engineering: A unified approach to manufacturing
technology, production management and industrial economics. Routledge.
Holten, A.L. and Brenner, S.O., 2015. Leadership style and the process of organizational
change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.36(1). pp.2-16.
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review.5(5). pp.1-6.
May, G and et. al., 2017. Energy management in manufacturing: From literature review to a
conceptual framework. Journal of cleaner production.167. pp.1464-1489.
May, G., Stahl, B. and Taisch, M., 2016. Energy management in manufacturing: Toward eco-
factories of the future–A focus group study. Applied Energy 164. pp.628-638.
Nejati, M., Rabiei, S. and Jabbour, C.J.C., 2017. Envisioning the invisible: Understanding the
synergy between green human resource management and green supply chain management
in manufacturing firms in Iran in light of the moderating effect of employees' resistance to
change. Journal of cleaner production. 168. pp.163-172.
Nguyen, T.T. and et. al., 2017. Effect of transformational-leadership style and management
control system on managerial performance. Journal of Business Research.70. pp.202-213.
Renko, M. and et. al., 2015. Understanding and measuring entrepreneurial leadership
style. Journal of Small Business Management.53(1). pp.54-74.
Tao, F and et. al., 2015. Manufacturing service management in cloud manufacturing: overview
and future research directions. Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering.137(4).
p.040912.
Taufek, F.H.B.M., Zulkifle, Z.B. and Kadir, S.Z.B.A., 2016. Safety and health practices and
injury management in manufacturing industry. Procedia economics and finance.35.
pp.705-712.
13

Troy, T.A., and et. al., 2017. Line management in manufacturing execution system. U.S. Patent
9,678,505.
Online
Corporate social responsibility. 2019. Available through. [Online].
<https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/corporate-social-responsibility-environmental-
impact>
Operation management. 2018. Available through. [Online].
<https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operations-management.asp>
Leadership Theories & Models. 2019. Available through. [Online].
<https://bizfluent.com/about-6329190-leadership-theories-models.html>
14