Essay on Leadership Theory and Application at Sainsbury's

This essay provides an analysis of leadership, focusing on its application within Sainsbury's, a major UK retailer. It examines different leadership styles, including autocratic, participative, and transformational approaches, and how these styles are applied to manage teams and drive organizational goals. The essay specifically highlights the leadership of Mike Coupe, Sainsbury's chief executive, and his role in addressing challenges related to product offerings, internal processes, and maintaining company values. It discusses Coupe's down-to-earth and communicative leadership style, emphasizing his ability to build trust, foster employee engagement, and implement change. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of effective communication and a calm approach in influencing others and achieving organizational success. The essay references several academic sources to support its arguments.

English Academic
Skills

Effective leaders are a prime need for all successful business and organizations.
Formulation and communication of new strategic directions is the invaluable quality that leaders
demonstrate (Bryman, 2013). Along with this, they are also the focal point of motivation and
dedication aspects associated with the employees. Sainsbury is one of the largest retailers of UK
and is headed under the leadership of Mike Coupe (Management and board, 2017). The present
essay analyses the leadership theory and its application to Sainsbury’s.
Leadership is considered as the quality that helps in influencing people and driving them
towards a common goal. It is a process of social influence with the help of which the efforts of
others are maximized (Bolden, 2011). Leaders manage teams with the help of different styles.
An autocratic style is suitable in situation in which close supervision is required. In contrast to
this, when a change is to be brought within the organization, participative styles is the most
suitable. This is because this leadership style involves the employees and hence changes are
accepted by them easily (Hogg, Van Knippenberg and Rast, 2012). As compared to this, high
level of communication is the main focus of transformational leadership style. It is characterized
by motivation provided by the leaders that helps in enhancing productivity and efficiency
(Sendjaya, 2015).
The leadership of Mike Coupe, Sainsbury’s chief executive, is considered to be the main
reason behind the success of the retail chain. The company was facing three major challenges in
terms of offering better products to customers, improving the processes within the organization
and retaining the values and cultural essence of Sainsbury. This indicated the need of effective
leadership that could take the company in the right direction. Effective leadership was
demonstrated by Mike Coupe who worked silently and overcame the challenges.
Mike adopts a leadership style which is more down to earth and straightforward. He
possesses a very bright attitude when among the employees. At the same time, he is also calm
and strategically smart. This helps in effective communication of the vision of the organization
to the employees. A delegative leadership style is adopted by Mike who gets the things done
without having the need to humiliate people. However, if required, he also incorporates the
aspects of autocratic and directive styles (Blackhurst, 2016). He focuses at capturing the
imagination and thoughts of employees. The main aspect of his leadership style is that he trusts
his staff and care about the customers as well. He is a good communicator and the key skills
required for gathering people around him. He initiates and assimilates the change within the

organization with least resistance. This is the reason that he always implements new marketing
ideas (Wood and Butler, 2014).
From the essay it can be concluded that leadership of Mike Coupe sets forward an
example for others to lead in a calm manner thereby involving others in the vision of the
organization. Being a good communicator goes a long way in in influencing others and making
the organization successful.

REFERENCES
Journals and Books
Bolden, R., 2011. Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and
research. International Journal of Management Reviews. 13(3). pp.251-269.
Bryman, A. ed., 2013. Leadership and organizations. Routledge.
Hogg, M. A., Van Knippenberg, D. and Rast, D. E., 2012. Intergroup leadership in
organizations: Leading across group and organizational boundaries. Academy of
Management Review. 37(2). pp.232-255.
Sendjaya, S., 2015. Conceptualizing and measuring spiritual leadership in
organizations. International Journal of Business and Information. 2(1).
Online
Blackhurst, C., 2016. Sainsbury's Mike Coupe: 'I'm not especially anxious when things don't go
well'. [Online]. Available Through: <http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/sainsburys-
mike-coupe-im-not-especially-anxious-when-things-dont-go-well/article/1353545>.
[Accessed on 31 March 2017].
Management and board. 2017. [Online]. Available Through:
<http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/about-us/management-and-board/>. [Accessed on 31
March 2017].
Wood, Z. and Butler, S., 2014. Mike Coupe: Sainsbury's Mr Straight. [Online]. Available
Through: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/02/mike-coupe-sainsburys-
mr-straightforward >. [Accessed on 31 March 2017].