An Analysis of Management and Leadership in M&S Operations

This report delves into the critical roles of managers and leaders within the Marks & Spencer (M&S) organization, exploring their impact on business operations and employee performance. It examines the distinct characteristics and responsibilities of managers, who focus on strategy, policies, and structure, and leaders, who motivate and inspire employees to achieve objectives. The report analyzes various leadership styles, including situational, systems, behavioral, and contingency theories, and applies them to scenarios within M&S, particularly addressing employee turnover. Furthermore, it outlines key operational management approaches such as Six Sigma, lean production, and queuing theory, demonstrating how they contribute to improving product quality and efficiency. The report provides a comprehensive understanding of management and leadership in a business context, using M&S as a case study.

MANAGEMENT AND OPERATION
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Table of Contents
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INTRODUCTION
In every business organisation, manager and leader plays a very crucial role in order to
manage business activities as well as employees performance. In the absence of manger, business
unit can not survive its business functions and activities. A manager have responsibility to manage
activities and develop such effective strategies and practices through which determined objective
can attain (Park and el.at., 2014). The following project report provides a depth knowledge and
understanding about the management and leadership and its implication in the business unit. The
major objective of this report is to understand the importance of management and role of manger
and leader in order to attain the objective. Various kinds of leadership style has been systematically
addressed with respect of M&S.
Company Background
M&S is a public limited company which have 83069 employees and 852 stores in the UK. With
context of this organisation, importance of operation management has been systematically
addressed. Furthermore, different management theories and approaches has been also studied in this
report. Moreover, difference between the leadership and management has been also discussed in
this report.
TASK 1
P1 Comparison between different roles and characteristics of leader and manager
Operation management is the business function that is responsible for managing and
coordinating resources and activities in such manner so as required objective can easily attain
within a time period. It specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food
products. It has main aim to deliver high quality of consumer good and acquire the large numbers of
customer and marker share. Its entire process of business is largely depends upon the effective
working of manger and leader (Iqbal and Sharma, 2012). In a simple word, a manger is a person
who develop the strategies, working practices, policies and system of the business and leader is a
person who have responsibility to manage the activities and performance of subordinates and
motivate them for higher productivity. They both plays a very crucial role in order to achieve
desired success. They both have different characteristics and roles which are as follows-
 A manager is a person which have responsibility to develop business policies, working
practices, strategies and structure of the organisation. On the other hand a leader is a person
who have responsibility to implement these strategies and policies which have made by
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manager for business organisation.
 A manager have major four functions of management such as planning, organising, directing
and controlling. On the other hand a leader have major role to coordinate, motivate, inspire
and encourage team members for higher productivity and performance.
 A manager uses power over the employees , on the other hand leaders develop power within
the people. Manager communicate with employees about to desired objective whereas leader
influence and inspire employees for attain that objective (Ghosh, 2015).
 A manager is self disciplined in nature who always consider on the criteria and strategies
through which business can gain high profitability and success. On the other hand a leader is
very helpful and self motivated who gives their best contribution to manage subordinates in
an effective manner.
 A manger focuses on the system and structure by which better hierarchy between various
functional department can develop. On the other hand, leader consider on the coordination
of employees so as healthy working environment can develop.
 Leadership is a process of influencing, motivating, encouraging people for doing something
and achieve something. It is an action of leading a group of people so as they can attain
desired objective within a time. In a simple word it can be said that leadership is the ability
of an individual to influence and guide to someone so as they can attain the target.
P2 Description of various example to understand the role of leader and manager in different
situation
As per the above discussion it has been ascertained that there are various roles and
responsibility of manger and leader toward the M&S organisation. Cited firm is largely depends
upon the effective working and performance of employees because its entire profitability and
success are based on human resource performance. So it is very important for manger and leader to
manage employees in such manner so as hey can effectively fulfil their responsibility at workplace.
For example, cited venture is facing the issue related to high employees turn over due to improper
business practices and policies (Harwiki, 2013). By this issue, company's profitability and growth
has been negatively influenced and number of customer has also decreased due to poor customer
service. In this situation both leader and manager have their different roles and responsibility
through which this kind of situation can mange. In this high employees turn over, manger have
responsibility to understand the situation and find the alternative solution to resolve this issue.
Employees leaves organisation due to poor working practices and policies so manger have
responsibility to develop such working practices and policies which is suitable for employees.
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Manager can motivate and encourage employees by provide monetary and non monetary reward
like incentives, fringe benefits, compensation promotion, bonus, increment, higher responsibility,
growth opportunity (Agarwal and et.al., 2012) This is the best strategy to retain employees for long
time in the business enterprise and this strategy can develop by only manager. Furthermore,
manager can also conduct the personal interaction and meeting with employees so as he/she can
understand their actual issue. One another measure to resolve this kind of issue in the M&S is that
manger should adopt flexible working practices and policies so as employees can manage their
personal and professional life (Arnulf and et.al., 2014). Thus, it can be said that in the M&S
corporation, manager have responsibility to develop policies, practices and strategy so that
employees can motivate and encourage for high productivity and performance and retain in the
business for long time.
In the same situation in the M&S corporation, leader have also responsibility to overcome
the situation of employees turn over. A leader have major function to motivate, inspire, encourage,
influence and coordinate subordinates so as they can effectively perform their job. In this situation,
a leader can use their skill of effective communication, motivation, coordination to retain
employees in the business for long time. In this situation, leader can conduct personal interaction
with employees to understand their issue and motivate them for retain in the company. A leader is a
person who is very close with every employees so by understand their issue leader can find out the
solutions. By this strategy, a leader can inspire and influence employees for retain in the firm for
long time. So as per the discussion it can be said that a manager and leader both have different
responsibility and function to manage the employees turn over situation in the M&S.
P3 Application of various theories and model of leadership approaches
Leadership is a process of influencing, motivating, encouraging people for doing something
and achieve something. It is an action of leading a group of people so as they can attain desired
objective within a time. In a simple word it can be said that leadership is the ability of an individual
to influence and guide to someone so as they can attain the target. In order to use effective
leadership, a leader must have quality of effective communication, motivation, positive attitude,
coordination etc (aur and Haase, 2015). A leader have major responsibility to lead and guide people
in order to achieve some target. In the context of M&S corporation, a leader have main role to
support and coordinate employees activities and performance because the entire profitability is
depended upon human resource performance. In order to manage employees in an effective
manner, a leader of cited firm can consider following leadership approaches-
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 Situational leadership- This theory was first introduced as life cycle theory of leadership. In
this leadership style, a leader have four kinds of leadership behaviour such as telling, selling,
participating and delegating. In the telling behaviour, leader have high directive and low
supportive behaviour. In the selling context, a leader have high directive and high supportive
behaviour. In the context of participating, a leader low directive and high supportive
behaviour. In the delegating behaviour, a leader have low directive and low supportive
behaviour. With help of this situation leadership style, a leader can effectively perform their
roles and responsibility in the M&S company. It is a flexible style which can easily
implement in the working environment.
 System approach of leadership- System leadership start with a clear objective and criteria in
the organisation. Under this style of leadership, a leader develop a systematic approach of
interacting system.
 Behavioural theory- This theory have main objective is to motivate and encourage
employees. Under this theory, leader believes that employees are valuable assets for the
corporation so they try to fulfil the needs and requirement of them (Blanchard, 2010). The
manager and leader consider on the needs and wants of employees and make efforts to fulfil
them. With help of this leadership theory, leader encourage and motivate employees for
higher productivity and performance.
 Contingency theory of leadership- Under this leadership style, organisation is a open system
which requires careful management to satisfy and balance internal need and to adopt to
environmental circumstances (Bonanni and Cafazzo, 2014) In other word it can be said that
contingency theory emphasises the importance of both leader's personality and the situation
in which that leader operates.
P4 Explanation of the key approaches to operation management and the role of leader and manager
plays
In the business enterprise, the entire process of business and functioning is largely depends
upon the effective operation management. It is a process of design, execution and control of
business activities and resources so as the desired outcomes can easily achieve within a time period.
In a simple word it can be said that operation management is a process of designing, controlling and
managing the business activities and resources so as firm can attain the objective within a time
period (Khan, Asghar and Zaheer, 2014) The M&S company is dealing with customer good and
services like clothes, food product, home ware etc. In order to gain high profitability and customer
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attraction, firm requires to develop high quality of product and services. The quality of commodity
can improve by various operational management approaches so that manager should consider
following approach of operation management in order to improve the quality of product and
services-
 Six Sigma-Six sigma is one of the technique for improving the quality of production and
manufacturing process. With assistance of this method, firm can improve the capability and
efficiency of business system and process. In this method, major five phases included such
as define the system, measures key aspects of current process and collect relevant data,
analyse the data to investigate and verify cause and effect relationship, improve or optimise
the current process based upon the data analysis and control the future state process to
ensure that any deviation from the target are corrected before they result in defects. In this
method, manager can improve the quality of outputs by identifying and removing the causes
of defects. After identifying the defect, system can decrease the variability in manufacturing
and production process (Mahembe and Engelbrecht, 2014). With assistance of this method,
Cited firm can easily measure and monitor the quality of business performance and improve
the efficiency of working. It assist in increasing customer satisfaction by delivering quality
product and services to them.
Illustration 1: Six sigma
Source: Randeree and Chaudhry, 2012.
 Lean production- Lean production is another very important approach of operation and
management through which firm can improve the quality of product and services and
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eliminate the extra wastage from the process of production. With assistance of this approach,
M&S can improve the quality of product and services and reduce the wastage from the
business operation.
 Queuing theory- It is a kind of mathematical study of waiting line, or queues. This
approach of operation management can constructed so that queue lengths and waiting line
can be predicted (Ghosh, 2015). In the context of M&S, with help of this approach firm can
able to provide faster customer services, improving traffic flow, imp[rove the effectiveness
of shipping order etc.
As per the above discussion it has been ascertained that there are various kinds of operation
management approaches through which quality of product and services can improve and wastage
can decrease. In addition, this, there are some another management approach which assist in
monitor and evaluate the performance of business activities and functions. These are as follows-
 Total quality management- This is another important approach of improve the quality of
business performance and process. In this method, all member of the M&S company
participate in the process of improving the quality, culture and product and services
(Harwiki, 2013). It is a systematic process under which management as well as employees
equally gives their best contribution and efforts to improve customer loyalty, their
satisfaction level, work culture, services and business system. This tool is general divided
into four parts that is plan, Do, check and act.
P5 Explanation about the importance and value of operation management
The major role of operation management is to transform organisational inputs into the
corporation's product and services outputs. In the context of M&S it is the world largest retail outlet
in the UK and dealing with more that 852 storesOperation management is the business function that
is responsible for managing and coordinating resources and activities in such manner so as required
objective can easily attain within a time period. The major role of operation management is to
transform organisational inputs into the corporation's product and services outputs. In the simple
word it can be said that operation management is a systematic process of managing, controlling and
coordinating the resources and activities of business so as desired outcomes can attain within a time
period. In the context of M&S, operation management plays a very crucial role through which
productivity and performance of business can easily improve (Hatch and Cunliffe 2013). The major
objective of the cited venture is to earn the maximum profitability by delivering high quality of
product and services. In order to improve the quality of product and services, operation
management is very significant. Following are some importance of operation management in the
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cited firm for attain business objective- Increase productivity and process- Operation management assist in increasing productivity
in the business enterprise. It assistance of its various approaches such as total quality
management, lean production, six sigma, firm can improve the quality and reduce the
wastage. By this thing, the entire productivity and process can improve which assist in
attaining the objective of cited venture. Overcome the wastage and additional cost- Under the effective operation management,
activities, allocation of resource, and process of production can effectively monitor by
management. This will assist in increasing efficiency of operation and decrease additional
cost of operation.
 Logistic and inventory management system- Operation management assists in utilising
available resources in an effective manner. It aids in properly manage the inventory and
machinery in the organisation
P6 Assessment of the factor within business environment which influence operation management
M&S is the largest retail outlet which deals with customer product and services. It is largely
influenced by its stakeholder because its profitability and progress is also depends upon them.
Stakeholders are those individuals in the corporation who have interest from the business and they
are directly and indirectly influence by business activities and action. While firm taking any
decision about the business operation then it has to consider these stakeholders interest. M&S
company is already largely affected by these stakeholders and its manager have to take
consideration while take any kind of decision about business. These components are as follows- Customers- Customer are very important stakeholder for the cited venture who are
interested in purchasing effective quality of product and services in the reasonable and fair
prices. In order to meet customer expectation, company have to consider their choice, taste,
preferences, culture, life style which it takes any kind of decision about product and
services. In addition to this, they also desire regular update about product prices, features,
discount, availability etc (Mahembe and Engelbrecht, 2014). Thus, in order to maintain
healthy relationship with this stakeholder corporation should take their consideration in
business decision making process and provide them relevant information about product and
services.
 Employees- Employees are another major component of business environment because the
entire profitability and progress of business is largely depends upon the performance of
them. They are largely affected by the business activities and function so it is very important
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for M&S to take their consideration or participation in the business decision making. They
are interested to gain attractive salary, bonus, working condition, practices, compensation,
incentive and other monetary and non monetary rewards. They are also interested to know
the financial condition of the corporation.
Illustration 2: Business environment
Source: Hogan and Coote, 2014
 Suppliers- M&S is an organisation which supplies customer good and services like clothes,
food, homeward product etc. Thus, suppliers are very important stakeholder for cited
venture who suppliers raw material and semi finished goods to them. They are interested in
taking effective order of raw material and get regular payment (Hsu, 2014). If management
takes any decision about business activities and function then it has to take consideration of
supplier because they are also largely affected by any fluctuation in business.
 Government- This is major component of business environment who interested in getting
fair taxation and implementation of regulatory framework in the business operation. While
firm take any decision about the business activities, system , process and function then
governmental rules, regulation, policies practices, legislation and code of conduct largely
affect the organisation.
 Corporate social responsibility- Society is another major component for Marks and Spencer
under which company have to do some ethical and reliable activities for society for theoir
benefits. The activity which is done for social welfare is known as corporate social
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responsibility.
CONCLUSION
Management and leadership assist managing business activities as well as employees
performance so as determined objective can easily attain. From this project report it has been
concluded that manager and leader plays a very crucial role in the business organisation. Manager
develops business system, strategies, policies and practices and leader implement these practices so
as desired objective can attain. It has also concluded from this report that various approaches of
operation management like six sigma, lean production can assist firm in improving quality of
business process and overcome the cost and wastage.
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REFERENCES
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