Leadership, Motivation, and Performance: A UK Retail Sector Study

This report investigates the impact of leadership on employee motivation and performance within the UK retail sector, specifically focusing on Sainsbury. The research explores various motivational theories, including Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Vroom's Expectancy Theory, and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, to understand how leaders can effectively encourage employees. It examines factors that motivate retail employees, such as recognition, responsibility, and career development, alongside employee expectations for informed service and instant satisfaction. The study utilizes a mixed-methods approach, including secondary research from articles and journals and primary research with a questionnaire administered to 30 Sainsbury's employees. The findings indicate a positive correlation between leadership and employee performance, particularly when leaders adopt participative styles, recognize achievements, and provide opportunities for growth. The report also discusses the influence of different leadership styles, such as transactional leadership, on employee motivation and the importance of providing rewards and incentives to boost morale and productivity. The research concludes with recommendations for leaders to enhance employee motivation and improve overall performance within the retail environment.

To investigate the impact of leadership
on employee motivation and
performance within UK retail sector;
A study on Sainsbury
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ABSTRACT
In the research it has been described about impact of leadership on employee motivation
and performance in Sainsbury. when employee are encouraged which directly impact on their
performance. This means that there is positive effect on their productivity. Through rewards
employees of retail industry are highly motivated. Motivation is a force that able to pushes a
person to work at high level. There are different theories of it such as Maslow, Herzberg two
factor etc. which is applied to motivate people. So, for that secondary research has been done
and data is gathered from articles and journals. Besides that, it is discussed about several
research methods which are applied within study along with philosophy, design, type,, etc.
furthermore, primary research is also been done for it with help of questionnaire. In that
sample size is 30 employees of Sainsbury. Thus by interpreting data it is stated that there is
positive impact on their performance when leader motivate. Moreover, leader encourage them to
attain goals and recognise efforts. However, their performance is hampered when leadership
style is changed. In Sainsbury participative style is mostly followed. The leader allow staff to
engage in decision making. so, it boost their confidence. The leader within organisation
recognise their achievement, provide benefits and assign them more roles. Besides that, in abc
leader follows particular motivational theory to encourage staff.
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Table of content
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................5
Various factors that able to motivate employees in retail industry.............................................7
Expectations by the employees within retail industry................................................................8
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................9
DATA ANALYSIS.......................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................25
RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................26
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................28
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INTRODUCTION
In every organization leaders play vital role in it. They are responsible for attaining of goals by
performing task with employee. Moreover they provide direction and guide employee to perform
task in effective way. In addition it is necessary to motivate employee so that their performance
is increased and they are able to achieve goals in effective way. The main purpose of
encouraging them is due to work load and pressure staff are not able to perform task. Besides
that, when they are motivated their efficiency also improves. Here, leader play crucial role. They
encourage them with help of various techniques. In that they apply different leadership style to
engage staff in decision making. In addition, leader set a vision to them that where they have to
go. Through that, staff work in proper way. Along with it, leader communicate with them in
frequently to listen and solve their issues and problems (Graves, and Sarkis, 2018).
It is stated that when employee are encouraged which directly impact on their performance. This
means that there is positive effect on their productivity. Moreover, leaders are having capability
and ability to motivate staff. Also, it is analyzed that motivation leads to boost staff confidence.
Furthermore, their morale increases which enable in doing task in effective way. In addition, it
create a positive culture within organization and allow them to think outside box and bring in
creativity within their work.
Besides that there are different ways of motivating employee. It depends on leader ability and
skills that how they do it. For example by providing them benefits, by appreciate their
achievements, or recognition staff. Thus, it results in motivating them and generating positive
outcome. However, there are various types of leadership style that is applied in it. But it depends
on leader traits and characteristics that which style is applied to encourage staff. transactional
leadership has been used as a corrective approach, and has two dimensions: contingent reward;
and management by exception. Contingent reward means that leader uses rewards and
promotions in order to get the desired results from their followers. In management by exception,
leaders take corrective actions, when things go wrong and out of control (Smith, and et.al.,
2020).
Leadership provide an overview to staff that what they have to do and how. When their
morale is low than leader encourage by boosting confidence. Apart from that, in order to enhance
performance of employees it is necessary to motivate them. Thus, there is change in plans and
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strategies to work. Leader support in working in creative way. Besides that, they continuous
manage things in time.
It has been evaluated that there are different ways of motivating employee. Leader follow all
those way to do it and obtain results. Here, by giving rewards to staff such as incentive, bonus
etc this is way in it. Another way is to provide them equal growth opportunities. Leader also train
and develop them so as their skills and knowledge increase that results in generating positive
outcome. Therefore employee also feel motivated as they learn new things and apply it. It
automatically enhance their performance and efficiency. In this achievement is also way to
encourage. So, when staff achievement is recognize this allows others to also achieve higher
outcomes and get recognized. Hence, in this way they are motivated through leadership.
Employee performance and motivation are related to each other. If staff is not motivated then
their performance is not improved. Thus, these both are improved with help of leadership (Feng,
and et.al., 2018).
Research aim and objectives
Aim - To investigate the impact of leadership on employee motivation and performance within
UK retail sector; A study on Sainsbury
Objectives
 To evaluate different theories of motivation
 To analyse various factors that able to motivate employees in retail industry
 To examine on the expectations of the employees within retail industry
Research questions
 What are different theories of motivation?
 What are the various factors that able to motivate employees in retail industry??
 What are expectations of the employees within retail industry?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Theme 1 Different theories of motivation
Motivation is considered as a state of mind that is filled with energy as well as
enthusiasm which aids person to drive within a specified way to accomplish goals and
objectives. It is known as the force that able to pushes a person to work at high level of focuses
as well as commitment if things are opposite to them. Motivation is capable of translates into a
specified kind of the human behaviour.
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Mention below some of the motivational theories
MASLOW’s HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
As per the Abraham Postulated that an individual will feels more motivated when his needs are
achieved. The needs begins from lowest level of basic requirements as well as keeps moving up
as a lower level is filled. Mention below are some physiological needs
Physiological – These are lowest basic needs for survival such as water, food and home (Razak,
and et.al., 2018).
Safety – After physiological there is a needs of safety such as protection from threats, dangers
and many more.
Social belongingness- It focuses on love, affiliation, friendship and many more.
Self esteem- It is known as the needs regarding respect as well as recognition.
Self actualisation- It is consider as the opportunity for learning, personal development and
creative work.
Vroom theory of expectancy- It stated that people will be more highly motivated and productive
if their two conditions are fulfilled such as Individuals believes that their efforts will likely to
lead to the successful outcomes and secondly those people also believes that they will also
appraises for their success.
Hertzberg’s two factor theory focuses on two brand categories such as motivating factors and
hygiene factor. As these motivating factors are required for assuring satisfaction of the
employees and also used for higher performance. Also hygiene factors are required to make sure
that an staff member is not dissatisfied. Here hygiene factors unable to guarantee motivation as
well as presence of motivation factors within absence of hygiene factors also does not work
(Bande, and et.al., 2016).
McGregor’s theory X and theory Y
As per the Douglas McGregor formulated two distinct views of individuals that are relied on
participation of the employees. First one is negative as labelled Theory X and second one which
is labelled as y is considered as negative. Both types of the people exists. Relied on nature they
needs to managed things accordingly.
Theory X- Here the traditional view of the work force holds that employees are self centred, lazy
as well as lacking ambition. Thus a relevant management style is strong.
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Theory Y- It focuses on employees are motivated as well as eager to accept accountability. A
relevant management style is also focuses on creating a environment which is more productive
alongside positive reinforcement and rewards. It is found that there are different ways of
motivating employee. Leader follow all those way to do it and obtain results. Here, by giving
rewards to staff such as incentive, bonus etc this is way in it. Another way is to provide them
equal growth opportunities. Leader also train and develop them so as their skills and knowledge
increase that results in generating positive outcome.
Various factors that able to motivate employees in retail industry
As stated Heystek, and Emekako, (2020) of each and every employees feel valued when
their contribution towards firms makes a difference to the retail industry. By giving more
responsibility one can easily demonstrate their professional growth and makes them loyal
towards the entity. Such as enables employees to take responsibility of the areas of retail shops
that can easily encourage them to take the opportunity to grow. To motivate the employees to
sell the firm’s product the retail space must be look at its best. Employers needs to create a space
that can reflects lifestyle as well as brand that employees can selling to the consumers. A positive
and pleasant atmosphere with right attitude of the employees turns to sell more products.
As per the view of Abdullah, and et.al., (2018) several people have several things for
motivation. There were some of the staff members who were interested within a particular
department of business. Through enabling them to work as well as find them interesting to do
that as well as motivates them. Several retail staff members unable to consider that their job
within the retail sector provides them more cash ,especially initial days of the career launching
point as it is vital that staff members understand this thing. Retailer’s job can be difficult as well
as laborious but it can also reduces their stress by career development. If staff members becomes
motivated to work hard as well as achieves goal. By giving a clear path to the staff members
motivated them to do hard work as providing them training as well as explaining them to
management hierarchy as well as offering them to senior positions to them.
According to Graves, and Sarkis, (2018) Through rewards employees of retail industry are
highly motivated. As when providing them reward such as bonus, salary appraisal and many
more as they have something to work for it. One of the easiest way to motivate the employees is
that implementing a platform that is known as reward platform where it can chooses their own
rewards. As rewards platform provides gift cards, securing discounts as well as special items
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from their national and local spots. Staff members sends points to each other on such platform
for doing job well. By utilization reward platform also gives the personalization anyone needs
for the motivation of the retail employees without efforts as well as time.
Expectations by the employees within retail industry
Within the digital world ,data can be just one click away as nowadays shoppers now expect
to deal with employees who are well informed. It is vital for the whole team that have sufficient
amount of entity knowledge, product and service that can build trust as well as sell to the
consumers. Nowadays consumer needs instant satisfaction . Rather than wasting time in
unnecessary services times they can move to the other place. It’s about speed of service, multi
tasking ,proactively connect with consumers or various number of skills that can be expected by
the employers . staff members needs to delivers the sufficient service within an environment
which is known as busy retail environment.
In view of Smith, and et.al., (2020) With the rapid growth of information that is available
online in this internet world, if the solution provided by the consumers are not at up to the mark
and does not suit consumers than it will not take any long for the consumers to find out new
option and consumer will be discontinue for long period of time. As according to the employer
there might be wondering that how an employee performance can be measured more accurately
especially within a context of the fast increasing world. Such as mobile technology is evolving
with day by day as employees needs to be updated so that they can provide the right amount of
information to the consumers.
As said by Feng, and et.al., (2018) It is vital to cultivate an attitude of consumer first such
as from their needs, also offering them personalized as well as tailored services ,putting
consumer satisfaction at first. Mixing the skills of the efficiency, product knowledge as well as
consumer focused as the needs regarding selling are as per the consumers. It is vital that
employees require the selling skills such as cross selling ,up selling, but the focus must the
benefits of the consumer first.
As elucidated by Andersen and et.al., (2018) it is vital to set the clear performance
expectations for each and every employee during the ongoing process. Be clear and specific
what are the expectations by the employees as well as how as an entity’s employer can measure
their performance. Be specific what are the expectations as well as how it can be measured. As
per various banks performance expectations must be measured by firm as well as communicated
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through leadership or management. The overall goal of the firm of having the performance
expectations is for moving the firm creates a workplace accountability from one staff member to
another. It is a kind of the method that can be applied through a firm to focuses on the position as
well as progression expectations that can be performed through the employees. Here each and
every member needs to understands the significance of their responsibilities as well as role
that can influence the entity.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research methodology is the considered to be the proper and systematizes which is there
for conduction an effective research in more level of philosophical framework. In this section
methods related to research will be discussed. In this the methods of research will be described
by analysing pros and cons of the each technique that has been used in order to collect the data. It
includes the following:
Research type: Research can make use of two type of research in order to analyse and evaluate
the data. They can make use of qualitative and quantitative research type. In the qualitative type,
it includes the data based on theoretical framework. It has been analysed that this type of data do
not includes numerical facts and figures. It is really easy to collect this type of data and also it is
reliable (Razak, and et.al., 2018). Qualitative data has really wide scope and also the data related
to this can be collected on generalised facts and figures. It has been analysed that this type of
research can assist the researcher in generating new ideas and also various solutions to the
problems is been find out. In this the data can be collected by using videos, transcripts and other
things. On the other hand quantitative data will include data that has been collected on numerical
facts. In this various statistical software such as SPSS can be used to gather and analyse the data.
This will assist researcher in getting to end results. For the present study qualitative data is been
selected as it will be used to analyse the impact of leadership on motivation level of employees
with the experiment of employees.
Data collection: Primary and secondary are the two type of sources that can be used by
scholar in order to make research successful and find solutions to the problems (Daniel, Kumar
and Omar, 2018). In primary data collection the data is been collected with unpublished sources,
it is raw in nature. It has been analysed that this type of information is been gathered for specific
purpose. It can be used when sample size is smaller. In this the data is been collected by
researcher without going to any existing sources. This type of data is reliable and authentic and
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can also assist in finding solution to problems that has been faced by researcher while conducting
the study. In this the data can be collected by making use of surveys, questionnaires,
observations, interviews. This can assist researcher in getting end results. On the other secondary
data is basically that information that has been collected from the existing sources. It has been
analysed that this type of data can be used when the research is for wider purpose. It has also
been evaluated that data in this can be gathered with the help of company blogs, annual reports,
and published websites. For the present research primary data has been selected. It will be
gathered with the help of questionnaire.
Research philosophy: It basically means to analyse whether the clear information related to
the subject matter has been collected or not. There are two type of philosophy that can be used
by scholar. One is interpretivisim and other one is positivism. Interpretivisim is basically used
for the qualitative research. This can be used as the method inquiry and can be used to analyse
and determine the social experiences of individuals. This is been used to understand the meaning
that humans are been attached to the actions that has been done by them. It has also been
analysed that positivism philosophy is been used for quantitative strategy.
Research design: for the present research descriptive design has been used. Descriptive
research is a type of research that describes a population, situation, or phenomenon that is being
studied. This is been used basically for the qualitative study and can assist the researcher in
getting new ideas and also finding out the solution to the problems (Gastaldo, Rivas-Quarneti,
and Magalhães, 2018).
Research strategy: It is the step by step method that can be used in order to achieve the set
target of research. It has been analysed that there are two types of approaches one is inductive
and other one is deductive. For the present research inductive approach will be used. This is been
used as the study is been done on qualitative basis.
Sampling: It means that the data is been collected by targeted population. For the present
research simple random sampling is been selected. This is been selected so that no biasness
exists and all the participants are been provided with equal opportunities. For the present
research sample will be collected from 30 employees who are working in Sainsbury (Phillips and
Ritala, 2019).
Data analysis: It means that the important information has been extracted from the data that
has been collected. For the present study thematic analysis is been selected. This is basically
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been selected when the researcher is making use of the qualitative study. It has been analysed
that this type of analysis can assist researcher in analysing the information and also solution to
the problem is been find out.
Limitation and Challenges: There were several limitations that challenges that has been
faced by researcher while collecting the data. It has been analysed that primary research took lot
of time so research was been delayed. It was a really time consuming process and also it has
been analysed that there was difficulty in evaluating the causalities related to subject matter. This
research can also not be statistically presented (Ragab and Arisha, 2018). There were also
difficulties faced for generalising the research, so these were the challenges faced while making
the research.
Ethical consideration: Researcher needs to be engaged in following the ethical code of
conduct. They must make sure that no harm is been caused to participants while collecting the
data. They also needs to ensure that proper consent is been taken by participants before
collecting the data from them. This will enhance them in building relationship of trust and more
reliable data can be collected.
DATA ANALYSIS
Questionnaire
Name
Age
E mail id
Q-1 do you think that leader support you in completion of complex tasks?
Yes
No
Not always
Q-2 does leader encourage you to attain goals and recognise efforts?
Yes
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No
Not sure
Q-3 is there positive impact on your performance when leader motivates?
Yes
No
Sometimes
Q-4 does your efficiency increases when leader motivate you?
Yes
No
Not sure
Q-5 is any change in leadership style affect on your performance?
Yes
No
Q-6 do you think that performance is impacted if there is no motivation?
Yes
No
Not sure
Q-7 what type of leadership style is often followed by leaders?
Participative
Situational
Contingency
Transactional
Q-8 how do leaders motivate you to attain goals and objectives?
Providing benefits
Recognising achievement
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