Leadership Analysis: Woolworths and CEO Bradford Banducci's Strategies

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Bradford Banducci's leadership at Woolworths, an Australian supermarket chain. It begins with an overview of Woolworths, its activities, and market position. The core of the report focuses on Banducci's transformational leadership style, examining the changes he implemented, such as improving customer focus and strengthening supplier relationships. It explores the issues and challenges he faced, including operational challenges and increased competition. The report also highlights lessons learned from his leadership, such as the importance of a responsible workforce and understanding follower needs. Finally, it offers recommendations for future leadership strategies, including the application of the 'Four I's' of transformational leadership and addressing potential pitfalls. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of building a strong team and redefining the business culture to achieve new heights of performance.

Running Head: WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP
0
WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP
System04121
6/5/2019

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 1
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the company..........................................................................................................2
Woolworth’s activities are as follows....................................................................................3
Overview of the leadership........................................................................................................4
Changes that Bradford Banducci Has Demonstrated Transformational Leadership Approach
were:...........................................................................................................................................5
Issues and challenges faced by the leader..................................................................................6
Lessons learnt from the leadership of Bradford Banducci.........................................................7
Recommendations for the leadership.........................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 2
Introduction
Woolworths is an Australian supermarket which is chain retained by the group of
Woolworths which was founded in 1924 (Grant, 2012). It also has a subsidy named Coles. It
mostly sells groceries, but they also retail magazines and DVD’s health and other beauty
foods. Woolworths operates currently under just 1000 stores across Australia: 976
Supermarkets and an additional 19 "Metro" (Keith, 2012). This report discusses about the
leadership of Woolworths CEO Bradford Banducci, he is the current CEO of Woolworths
after this the report discusses the changes that Bradford Banducci made in the company after
his entrance, issues and challenges by the CEO of Woolworths, lessons learnt from the
leadership of Bradford Banducci and lastly the recommendations theory for the leadership
(García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo, & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, 2012).
Overview of the company
Woolworths is an Australian supermarket. It is maintained by the group of
Woolworths and it was founded in the year 1924. Woolworths also has a subsidy called Coles
and it shares around 80% of the market share for the Australia (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg,
Schippers, & Stam, 2010).Woolworths is mostly famous for selling groceries like vegetables,
fruits, meat, packaged food and etc. but they also sell other things such as the magazines,
DVD’s health and other beauty products. Woolworths currents works or operates in 1000
stores in Australia out of which 976 are the supermarkets and 19 other are Metro stores
which have the same logos. Woolworths also have an online collection called “Home Shop”
where people can collect and click a delivery service related to home shopping (Grint, Jones,
& Holt, 2016). Woolworths was initially founded in 1924 under the name of “Walworth’s
Bazaar” after it was found that the name was not registered in Australia the company changed

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 3
its name to Woolworths. By December 1924 Woolworth in progress selling a variety of
goods and claimed to be the inexpensive priced store and after 20 years of its establishment
the it had its store in every state of Australia. In 1982 the company acquired 2 of the grocery
brands named “Roelf Vos” and “Purity”. In the year 1987 Woolworths launched their “The
fresh food people “campaign which existed till 2012 after which they modified the campaign
and named it “Australian’s fresh food people” in order to endorse the fact that 96% of the
fresh food available in the supermarket is full-grown in Australia.
Woolworth’s activities are as follows
Essentials: This is the budget label under which the everyday household groceries and
products are available. Under this range the products usually have a red or a white symbol on
the top corner at the left or on the front side of the packaging (Wright, Moynihan, & Pandey,
2012).
Food Range: this is one of the most popular ranges of Woolworths. Under this comes the
food range across the store. Under this range the logo of the products are in the colour green
and white. Woolworth also provides a service in which the customers can develop a part of a
group called Bunch in which they can test food and give feedbacks for improvements (Wang,
Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011).
Gold: this brand range structures the premium products which are only obtainable during the
time of Christmas and it includes the product like mini cakes and fruit pies etc.
Macro wholefoods Market: this product range has foods from the artificial sweets and colours
and flavours. A lot of products in this variety are promoted as the organic foods
Delicious nutrients: this variety is association among the Woolworths and the Australians
individual trainer Michele bridges. This variety has frozen meals and chilled meals. Under

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 4
this all the things include 2-3 serves vegetables, grains and proteins and they serve 450
calories per person.
The odd Bunch: under this comes the fresh produce range which includes fruits and
vegetables like carrots, lemons and apples as they are then defective. These merchandises are
sold at a cheaper rate or price.
Overview of the leadership
Bradford Banducci is the existing director and the CEO of Woolworths. He was
chosen the current CEO in 2016. Before Woolworths he was part of the liquor department in
the year 2012- 2015. Bradford Baldacci followed the transformational leadership trait. This is
a form of leadership which focuses on the connection and connection amongst the leaders and
the followers and after this is done the target market of the company is set. Bradford
Banducci used transformational leadership approach in the Woolworths. Transformational
leadership is a concept that focuses on the relationship among the leaders and the followers
this type of leadership helps a company to decide whether to reward or to punish an
employee. Transformational leadership focuses on enhancing the positive change which is
very important for the development of the organization and it also benefits both the external
and internal environment of the organization (Van Dierendonck, 2011). The significance of
transformational leadership is that it helps in enhancing the creation of positive occasions and
gives people new ideas in order to take responsibilities for the implementation. In various
cases the charismatic of the leaders are something that persuade others on altering the
principles and standards to adopt the new one which are significant for the growth. Loyalty is
one of the main key for transformational leaders as they vision to achieve the set goals and
purposes. Transformational leaders focus on improving the life of the followers. The main

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 5
focus of transformational leadership is to identify the changes and provide the employees
with changes they require.
Bradford Banducci as the Chief Executive Officer of Woolworth Group used
transformational leadership style in Woolworths. He is an experienced person in leadership
and he is very well suited to the changes and the wellbeing of a group. He is a role model for
the company and he takes proper control of all the activities of the company. All the activities
of Woolworths such as the suppliers of various products, the receivers of the services and the
customers of the Woolworths all are experiencing a positive change under the experience of
Bradford Banducci. The first report that he made on Woolworths after joining the company
was regarding the badly behaved distressing the company which was poor coordination and
management. The company did not indication a very big alteration and the shareholders had a
fear that they all might make losses on selling their shares. Bradford Banducci is taking a lot
of measures and controls in order to recover the wellbeing of the company and he is also
making a lot of developmental strategies for the group of Woolworths (Paarlberg, & Lavigna,
2010).
Changes that Bradford Banducci Has Demonstrated Transformational
Leadership Approach were:
Improvement of the positive customer’s culture. After reaching the Woolworths the
first thing that was the major focus of Bradford Banducci was that customers are the most
important part of any business and thus he made sure that the company should focus on
making profits as well as customer’s attention. Bradford Banducci focused on enhancing the
customer’s satisfaction and loyalty of the customers (McCleskey, 2014).

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 6
Bradford Banducci also focused on the positive connection with the company and the
existing suppliers. He thought it to be important as it maintains the gap among the suppliers’
and the organization. He maintained this by having various communication stages and also by
having various engagement programs. He made various struggles to move around to various
stores of Woolworths with the main suppliers in order to endure that they understand the
value and quality of the goods that are needed; Bradford did this in order to bring a positive
change in the supply chain management of Woolworths and to bring out the expected quality
for the customers.
Bradford Banducci focused on the customer focus approach which also looked for increase
in the workforce in order to deliver the required services to the customer’s at the expected
time.
Issues and challenges faced by the leader
Bradford Banducci faced various challenges related to operations of the company. He
had a challenge of making sure that the company gets back to the ground again as the
operations and the overall production was exaggerated due to various reasons which also led
to poor marketing of Woolworths, In order to solve this he made sure that there are various
strategies that can restore the market confidence. Another strategy that he focused on was
making the strategies to improving the customer’s culture by guaranteeing that customers of
the company are assisted with dignity and respect and he also ensured that the quality of the
products are improved to meet the quality of the customers. Bradford Banducci made sure
that all the activities of the company were developed with the strategies and set objectives
were met (Cunliffe, & Eriksen, 2011).
Another main issue and challenge that Bradford Banducci faced was the increased rivalry
among Woolworth and Wesfarmers and Kmart, with stores like these obtainable in the

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 7
market customers always had a substitute to switch to the other markets. In order to solve this
issue the CEO made sure and ensured that the suppliers are conscious about the products
wanted by the company and he also focused on the culture of the company and prices of the
products to make sure that the organization met the needs and wants of the customers. For
this the CEO must have improved the marketing mix measures as this would have helped
them to reach the customers in all the areas (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010).
Lessons learnt from the leadership of Bradford Banducci
 Effective leadership can be influenced by various factors such as a good and
responsible workforce (Sadeghi, & Pihie, 2012).
 Effective leadership can be only resolved with thoughtful characteristics of the
followers and their wants.
 Leadership is a procedure that involves relevant and intelligible skills in a specific
field.
Recommendations for the leadership
Transformational leadership combines accepted and well known management skills under
the leadership of a leaders or a manger to reverent the manger. Transformational leadership
focuses on the vision of the business and the passion to run it. A transformational leader
should inspire and trust the employees in order to develop the skills of the employees and to
the turn the vision of the company into reality (Breevaart, Bakker, Hetland, Demerouti,
Olsen, & Espevik, 2014).
 Four I’s.

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 8
The main qualities of transformational leadership are in the form of four I’s. With the
impact and idealize a leader should act as a role model who should ask the assistants
to do the task and a leaders should also inspire the and motivate the follower and
obligate them to the vision of the organization. By individualized consideration each
and every team member can be given personal attention and can be motivated
personally. This thing also teaches the followers new ways of doing business
(Jameson, 2010).
 Potential Pitfalls
Transformational leadership has various drawbacks. Leadership approach is
something that can be learned. It is very important for the leader to have a visionary
personality in order to make things work in an organization. A transformational leader
should see a bigger picture and keep in mind all the details. A leader should build
enthusiasm within the team members (Odumeru, & Ogbonna, 2013).
 Reaching new heights of performance
Transformational leadership is something which is built on the beliefs of others and
each member should be able to contribute to it. It is important for the leader to build
strategies in order empower the team members. It is important for the leaders to
redefine the business culture and the work of the employees for example, post photos
for employee of the month and appreciating the best employees (Braun, Peus,
Weisweiler, & Frey, 2013).
 Empowering the teams
Transformational leaders should work towards success of the projects and
empowering the teams. There are six ways to empower the teams.

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 9
a) Get immediate feedback: No Feedback is ignored by the organization but the process
of feedback usually takes time in an organization. It is important for the organizations
to ensure the immediate feedback and cut the paperwork and the organization should
solve all the issue of the organization as well (Gutiérrez, Hilborn, & Defeo, 2011).
b) execute feedback: This mainly means giving the team a chance to get the details of
the company by keeping regular meetings where the leader can share the information
regarding the company and the employees can share their views as well (Hooper,
Potter, & Henderson-Stainton, 2010).
c) offer new challenges: A leader should complacent the or stationary the teams
basically a leaders should have open communication with the team and should offer
them better ways to accomplish h task in a better and a more effective manner.
d) Respect boundaries: a leader should give the team member challenges and certain
boundaries that are appropriate for the followers and those they can cross. This should
be done to give the followers growth opportunities but to also make sure that they can
grow with the given task (Uhl-Bien, 2011).
e) Provide flexibility: this applies both to the team and the leader. Leaders should build
trust among the teams and the work given to them. A transformational leader should
give flexibility to the leaders (Ayman, & Korabik, 2010).
Conclusion
Through this essay it is concluded that Bradford Banducci focuses on the
transformational leadership which is a leadership that focuses on the relationship between the
leaders and the followers. When he entered the company he could make out that the main
issue that was affecting the company was the poor coordination. The report also discusses the
changes he made during his leadership which were change in customer’s culture and positive

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 10
relationship with the suppliers of the customers. Next the report discusses about the issue and
challenges faced by Bradford Banducci during his leadership in Woolworths, The issues that
he faced were bad quality of products, lack of coordination and issues in supply chain
management of the firm. Lastly the report discusses recommendations for the leadership
which are four I’s, Potential Pitfalls, Reaching new levels of performance, Empowering the
teams, get immediate feedback, execute feedback, offer new challenges, respect boundaries
and provide flexibility.

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 11
References
Ayman, R., & Korabik, K. (2010). Leadership: Why gender and culture matter. American
psychologist, 65(3), 157.
Braun, S., Peus, C., Weisweiler, S., & Frey, D. (2013). Transformational leadership, job
satisfaction, and team performance: A multilevel mediation model of trust. The
Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 270-283.
Breevaart, K., Bakker, A., Hetland, J., Demerouti, E., Olsen, O. K., & Espevik, R. (2014).
Daily transactional and transformational leadership and daily employee
engagement. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 87(1), 138-157.
Cunliffe, A. L., & Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational leadership. Human relations, 64(11), 1425-
1449.
García-Morales, V. J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M. M., & Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L. (2012).
Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through
organizational learning and innovation. Journal of business research, 65(7), 1040-
1050.
Grant, A. M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the
performance effects of transformational leadership. Academy of Management
Journal, 55(2), 458-476.
Grint, K., Jones, O. S., & Holt, C. (2016). What is Leadership. The Routledge Companion to
Leadership, 3.
Gutiérrez, N. L., Hilborn, R., & Defeo, O. (2011). Leadership, social capital and incentives
promote successful fisheries. Nature, 470(7334), 386.

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 12
Hooper, A., Potter, J., & Henderson-Stainton, L. (2010). Leadership and change.
Jameson, J. (2010). Trust and leadership in post-compulsory education: Some snapshots of
displaced dissent. Power and Education, 2(1), 48-62.
Keith, S. (2012). Coles, Woolworths and the local. Locale: The Australasian-Pacific Journal
of Regional Food Studies, 2, 47-81.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
Morgeson, F. P., DeRue, D. S., & Karam, E. P. (2010). Leadership in teams: A functional
approach to understanding leadership structures and processes. Journal of
management, 36(1), 5-39.
Odumeru, J. A., & Ogbonna, I. G. (2013). Transformational vs. transactional leadership
theories: Evidence in literature. International Review of Management and Business
Research, 2(2), 355.
Paarlberg, L. E., & Lavigna, B. (2010). Transformational leadership and public service
motivation: Driving individual and organizational performance. Public administration
review, 70(5), 710-718.
Pieterse, A. N., Van Knippenberg, D., Schippers, M., & Stam, D. (2010). Transformational
and transactional leadership and innovative behavior: The moderating role of
psychological empowerment. Journal of organizational behavior, 31(4), 609-623.

WOOLWORTHS LEADERSHIP 13
Sadeghi, A., & Pihie, Z. A. L. (2012). Transformational leadership and its predictive effects
on leadership effectiveness. International Journal of Business and Social
Science, 3(7).
Uhl-Bien, M. (2011). Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of
leadership and organizing. In Leadership, gender, and organization(pp. 75-108).
Springer, Dordrecht.
Van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of
management, 37(4), 1228-1261.
Wang, G., Oh, I. S., Courtright, S. H., & Colbert, A. E. (2011). Transformational leadership
and performance across criteria and levels: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of
research. Group & organization management, 36(2), 223-270.
Wright, B. E., Moynihan, D. P., & Pandey, S. K. (2012). Pulling the levers: Transformational
leadership, public service motivation, and mission valence. Public Administration
Review, 72(2), 206-215.