Leadership in Business: Strategic Management and CSR at Rolex Canada

This report delves into the multifaceted concepts of leadership in business, specifically analyzing its impact on strategic marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR) within Rolex Canada. The report examines the current state of marketing, emphasizing the importance of leadership in differentiating Rolex from competitors and addressing the challenges of a changing market. It highlights the role of leadership in formulating and implementing effective strategies, improving business processes, and bridging the gap between current and desired future states. The report explores transformational servant leadership, its influence on financial performance, and the importance of aligning leadership styles with strategic management. Furthermore, it discusses the significance of values-based leadership, leadership competencies, and the integration of CSR to meet stakeholder needs and minimize environmental impact. The analysis underscores the importance of leadership in fostering employee motivation, effective teamwork, and communication, ultimately driving growth and profitability for Rolex Canada.

Running head: LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
Leadership in business
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Executive summary
The report discussed about the different concepts of leadership in business and how it
could improve the business operations’ efficiency at Rolex, Canada. The company was
considered as a reputed organization specialized in the production of watches for the luxury
customer segments and many f the regular consumer segments found the products quite
expensive to purchase. It was a major gap between the current state of the organization and the
preferred future state, where Rolex wanted to satisfy every customer segment properly. The
strategic management was considered as useful that could be influenced through
transformational servant leadership and this would allow the company to keep the workforce
mot8vated and at the same time, promote effective teamwork and communication at Rolex. The
transformational leadership could allow for obtaining the responses and ideas of the employees
and then make decisions to formulate and implement the right kinds of marketing strategies for
ensuring success in terms of growth and profitability. The company should also aim for social
responsibilities to maintain a balance between the fulfillment of stakeholders’ needs and at the
same time, creating lesser harmful impact on the environment.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Current state of marketing in the organization................................................................................4
Leadership impact on the strategic management.............................................................................7
Transformational Servant leadership...............................................................................................8
Values Based Leadership...............................................................................................................10
Leadership Competencies..............................................................................................................10
Corporate Social Responsibility....................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
The report is prepared to analyze the different concepts of leadership in business and how
it is related to the strategic marketing and corporate social responsibilities. The topic is prepared
with focus on the Zander and Zander principles on the art of possibility. It is based on how to
transform the personal and professional lives of people and create a better place for them to live
in. The business organization that will be considered here, as the case study is Rolex in Canada.
The leadership in business can influence the strategic management process by determining the
vision and mission of the organization and at the same time implement effective strategies for the
success of business (Goleman, 2017). The main purpose of preparing this report will be to check
the role of leadership in the formulation and implementation of strategies, furthermore evaluate
the efficiency of the business processes and identifying the drawbacks too. Leaders play major
roles in strategic management and can break the hierarchy of the organization to formulate the
vision and clarify the strategies that shall be implemented. Leadership will also affect the culture
of the organization, ensure better management of values and ethics and increase the morale of
employees, furthermore enhance the learning procedures at Rolex. This can not only facilitate
innovation and creativity within the organization, but will also make leaders encourage the
organizational members to perform effectively and become socially responsible too (rolex.com,
2018).
Current state of marketing in the organization
Strategic Marketing is an effective concept of marketing where leadership plays a vital
role in differentiating itself from the competitors in business through capitalization of the

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company strengths. It would include both present and potential strengths that the company do
possesses to provide better value to its customers than the competitors in the market. Rolex,
Canada is one of the major luxury watchmakers that manufactures, distributes and sells service
wristwatches under the brands of Tudor and Rolex. The company is known for its watches
delivered that have exceptional qualities in terms of performance and reliability to fulfill the
needs and requirements of the customers. Rolex delivers the best quality luxury watches, but it is
also important to note that the prices of the products are quite high that only the luxury segment
customers are capable of purchasing (Yıldız, Baştürk & Boz, 2014). The present GenY
customers are more accustomed with the use of cell phones, where they can check the time and
so they prefer checking time on their mobile phones rather than the luxury watches.
The company’s marketing activities include use of social media and managing an online
website to promote and spread messages and information about the products for the customers. It
is an effective way to attract the new customers and retain the existing ones, so that they could be
informed about the value of watches and make purchases later in their lives. To analyze the
marketing scenario, the situational analysis was done to determine the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. The strengths of Rolex include string band image and identity, global
brand awareness, extremely good quality products and luxury, which could be the aspiration of
many customers (Aziz, Mahmood & Abdullah, 2013). The weaknesses could be the high costs,
due to which customers could switch on to some other brands, preference of time checking on
mobile phones rather than the watches for the young generation customers and lack of
individuality in certain cases. Still, there are multiple opportunities achieved through the
development of social media campaigns and online website along with designing and production
of limited edition watches that are both reliable in terms of quality and longevity. The threats that

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might be faced were recession in the market, high competition, cell phones usage and low-end
watches were not much effective as the high priced products, which could reduce the sales
revenue for Rolex (Heath et al., 2013).
Leadership in business is an important aspect that can evaluate the systems and strategies
at various levels of work and change the culture accordingly to improve the strategic
management process. This will also provide a proper vision, think and plan strategically,
furthermore administer the operational activities with ease and effectiveness. The leadership
concept will also direct the subordinates to carry out their tasks properly and at the same time,
keep them motivated and encouraged to work as an unit, in coordination, considering the mission
and vision of Rolex, Canada. The leadership skills could allow for setting goals and objectives,
design the strategies, execute those and finally measure the performances to ensure steady
progress and successful outcomes in business. Based on the various aspects of marketing, the
leaders could also determine the feasibility of strategies before implementing and position the
products and services properly in the market too (Yıldırım & Birinci, 2013). This would also
make the company remain competitive globally as well as achieve heights of success quite
effectively. With the formulation of marketing strategies, the leaders should also be involved in
considering the perfect time when these strategies could be implemented and make sure to
improve the business performance.
Rolex manages the changing lifestyle and purchasing behaviors of the customers along
with increased disposable income and purchasing power through the right marketing strategies.
The company aims to provide more value for money products to keep the customers happy and
make them purchase the products and services consistently. The luxury goods industry have been

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growing quite fast and in a developing nation like Canada, it would be beneficial for conducting
the market analysis and ensure implementing the right marketing strategies to sustain in the
future (Lindgren & Abdullah, 2013). There is a huge gap between the strategic marketing
objectives that are presently implemented and that will be required in the preferred future. It is
important for the leaders to manage proper level of motivation and encouragement of the
employees to ensure that the strategies are properly implemented to obtain positive business
outcomes with ease. The major gap between the current and future state could be the pricing
problems, due to which the company still might face difficulties in attracting customers from
every market segments of Canada. The prices of products are quite high, because of which, those
are targeted to the luxury segments of customers and the normal market segment customers face
difficulty in purchasing those sometimes (Crossan et al., 2013). Thus, leaders should encompass
using various pricing strategies to keep the products under budget and ensure that the customers
could easily purchase those. By setting the right prices, it would be easy to overcome this gap
between the current and preferred state in the future and ensure successful accessibility by the
customers. Previously, Rolex was more focused on satisfying the customers from the luxury
market segments and now even the strategies are implemented to target the luxury customers and
did not follow much appreciable sustainable or socially responsible methods to benefit the
society. The company preferred to contribute largely to the society in the future not only to
create a positive mindset among the customers but also to enhance the efficiency of sustainability
measures implemented to bring changes and improvements (Parris & Peachey 2013).

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Leadership impact on the strategic management
The proper leadership skills present within the leader could help him to provide direction
to the employees about their performance as well as make them set certain plans to accomplish
the business goals and objectives with ease. The leaders associated with the organization could
provide an accurate vision as well as set plans and measure the functions undertaken that should
suit the organizational needs. This would further assist in distributing the strategies at various
levels accurately to boost the performances of the employees and lift their morale to perform to
their potential. The leader would not only motivate and encourage the staffs but also could also
change the ways the staffs think about the tasks, furthermore identify the strategy gaps just it had
been seen then (Klettner, Clarke & Boersma, 2014). A positive culture would be created that
could integrate both the strategic and operational activities and at the same time, which could
make the formulation and implementation of strategies successful and noteworthy. The leaders
would introduce an environment where changes should be evitable and then the vision and
organizational strategy might be developed to focus on setting the right prices so that every
customer segments could access the products and services and even get value for money items,
thereby resulting in loyal customers. Thus, the leadership in business could identify gaps
between the current and preferred state of business in the future. Then the products should be
marketed through the proper implementation of strategies for deriving the best outcomes that had
been expected (Chang, Chen & Chiou, 2015).
Transformational Servant leadership
The financial business performance is often related to the strategic management at Rolex
and due to the changes in demographics, social, political and economic factors, the business

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performance deteriorates. Leadership is important to keep the workforce motivated and
encouraged to bring long-term benefits. The leadership skills present among the leader could
help him to enable strategic alignment through transformation servant leadership. The
transformational servant leadership could also influence the financial performance as well as
management business functions properly to achieve the desired results and overcome the gaps
experienced with convenience (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013). The transformational servant
leadership should be responsible for produce change and movement, furthermore communicate
the goals and objectives to the employees properly and influence them for accomplishing the
purpose. The service and transformational leadership styles are considered as people oriented
styles of leadership that can focus o the well being of the workers and increase the level of
interest among the followers to work harder and committed (Wang & Hsieh, 2013). At Rolex,
the transformational servant leadership should provide a certain level of freedom to the
employees and make them engaged to support the organizational behavior. The servant leaders
would obtain the ideas and opinions of every employee and then make a proper decision without
any bias (rolex.com, 2018).
There are certain differences though between the transformation and servant leaders. The
transformational leader manages idealized influence and motivates the employees to keep them
inspired and focused on their individual tasks. On the other hand, the servant leaders could go
beyond one’s self interest and enhance the level of autonomy and power, which could ensure
sharing of messages and information along with facilitating the strong interpersonal
relationships. The transformational servant leadership and strategic management are not
interrelated with each other, but it has definitely created an impact on the formulation and
management of strategies (Demirtas & Akdogan, 2015). The alignment of employees towards

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the organizational goals and objectives produces synergy and provides employees with a proper
direction, which can also facilitate the strategic management. This would not only help in
engaging with the task and organizational behaviors properly, but would also reduce the chances
of conflicts and misunderstandings with much ease and effectiveness. The transformation servant
leaders at Rolex could align the interests of the employees and reduce the conflicts furthermore
to ensure proper management and utilization of resources too. The leaders who would not be
concerned with the safety and well being of workers and disregarded the interests of the
employees, then they would likely get less motivated and this might result in lack of
communication too (Bolman & Deal, 2017).
Values Based Leadership
The value-based leadership has influenced the formation of a good culture within the
organization where people can work in coordination and as a unit to accomplish the business
objectives efficiently. The success of the organization is dependent on the value-based
leadership, which can allow for using the values and beliefs as a motivating factor to enhance the
business processes’ efficiency. The value-based leaders could promote self-awareness among the
employees and define the core values, based on which, a strong culture should be created
(Peregrym & Wollf, 2013). The value-based leaders could also be responsible for making the
organization transparent about the value system and establish a sense of trust, loyalty and
confidence among the workers to achieve higher level of client satisfaction and increased
financial value as well. It should also be a good approach undertaken by the value-based leaders
to unite the employees and achieve a common purpose to maintain proper philosophy of business
functioning (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014).

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Leadership Competencies
The leadership competencies mean the leadership skills and abilities possessed by the
leaders to contribute to the enhanced business operations’ efficiency. By focusing on the
leadership competencies, it would be easy to develop and enhance skills, furthermore promote
better decision-making abilities and problem solving capabilities too. At Rolex, the individuals
holding the leadership positions must hold skills to supervise the employees with proper
management experience and should provide conflict resolution strategies to improve the business
performance (Wheelen et al., 2017). The leaders must be able to motivate and guide the
employees in the right direction and even delegate tasks properly to the concerned employees
based on their skills and strengths to ensure better performance management and lesser numbers
of risks experienced. He must be knowledgeable enough to build teams and possess enough
expertise in interviewing the line managers, team leaders responsibility and check for
improvements that could be associated with the strategic management at Rolex, Canada. As it
could be seem from the above section that there were certain gaps such as inability to attract
every market segments due to the inappropriate pricing decisions and strategies implemented
along with lack of sustainable measures undertaken, which prevented the company to become
socially responsible as well. This would not only make the leader guide own self but would also
allow to lead others by establish good communication between the employees and valuing the
diversity and team working too (Morschett, Schramm-Klein & Zentes, 2015).
Corporate Social Responsibility
Leadership has influenced the organization to become socially responsible to make the
company contribute to the community as well as to the people living there. The corporate social

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responsibility could be developed through the transformational servant leadership at Rolex.
There is significant increase in public awareness about the internal operations to manage
corporate social responsibility and addressing the issues that may hamper the brand image.
Rolex, being a reputed and established organization should maintain proper values and ethics and
it should be possible with the management of proper leadership through servant leadership aspect
(Hahn, 2013). There are various ways to achieve the standards that the organization expects,
though sometimes the financial goals and objectives have been aligned with the corporate social
responsibility whereas others have undertaken sustainable measures to create a sustainable
environment. Rolex should overcome the barriers faced in business so as to create some
fundamental changes considering the leadership philosophies and long term benefits in business.
The economies in the marketplace are developing at a faster rate, which has placed increased
importance on the potential harms that may be caused on the individuals, environment as well as
on the communities and nations (Alkhafaji & Nelson, 2013). It is important to become socially
responsible for reducing the potential harms and increase the growth in economy of the country
too. The transformational servant leader could inform the employees about what should be done
to manage the goals and values, furthermore ensure maintaining a balance between the
fulfillment of stakeholders’ needs and maximization of profit.
To become socially responsible, it would be important for the leaders of Rolex to
maintain proper business ethics as well as ensure legal compliance by making investments on the
community and keeping the environment secure through the maintenance of environment
friendly approaches. Sustainability means fulfilling the needs and requirements of the present
generation without compromising on the needs and requirements of the future generations. Until
now, Rolex has helped changing the world in a variety of ways such as preserving the cultural