Reflective Report: Leadership and Management Skills at Tesco

This report is a reflective analysis of leadership and management skills, focusing on the experiences of a leader within Tesco, a prominent UK-based retailer. The report delves into the essential skills required for effective leadership, such as decision-making, communication, and confidence, while also addressing areas for improvement. It explores various leadership theories, including situational and transformational leadership, and emphasizes the importance of adapting leadership styles to different situations and motivating employees. The report outlines practical activities, such as survival leadership, All Aboard, and Minefield exercises, designed to enhance skills like problem-solving, teamwork, communication, and critical thinking. By engaging in these activities, the leader aims to strengthen their existing capabilities and build stronger relationships with colleagues and employees. The report concludes by highlighting the significance of these activities in improving leadership and management skills within Tesco and emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and development.

MG629 Developing
Leadership and Management
Skills

Executive Summary
Leaders and managers are the backbone of any organisation and also considered as the
supporting pillars. Leadership and management plays the most significant and major role in the
companies as managers are responsible for developing the strategies and the leaders encourage
the employees to perform the tasks effectively to implement the same for achieving the
organisational goals. The report will be based on the reflection of the leader of Tesco which is
one of the best and the top most retailers in the world becoming the market leader in UK. The
report will highlight the skills of leadership and management and the activities in which the
leaders engage to enhance the same. It will also include the major theories of leadership.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
REFLECTIVE REPORT.................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The skills of leadership and management skills play an important role as the leader or
manager of any company or any group and also in various stages of life whether it is career or a
job. These skills include vision, communication, decision making, problem solving, confidence
and many more. The report will be a reflective writing report in which the experience of an
individual will be shared as the leader of a company which is the market leader of retailers in UK
which is named as Tesco (Tesco, 2021). This will focus on the activities in which the person will
be engaged to enhance the leadership and management skills.
REFLECTIVE REPORT
I realized that I have some of the management and leadership skills I have including the
decision-making, communication, confidence and many more but still lacks some skills which
are required as a leader or manager. I realised this because I did not face much problems in
making the decisions when any problem arises in the company. As I am working as one of the
leader in Tesco which is the most reputed and renowned retailer company in UK performing its
operations in many different countries. I showed much confidence in making decisions related to
the business and also the teams in the company. Also, I realized that I have good communication
skills as I have good interaction with the employees at all the times whether it is defining the
expectations or providing clarity or even building relationships and trust between the peers and
the employees. I think that I am much confident as I try to see everything as an opportunity and
also counter the fear and doubt with positive actions instead of getting demotivated and
discouraged (Chow, Salleh and Ismail, 2017). The leaders and the managers must engage
effectively in the planning, development, participation and execution of all the activities of
leadership which helps in enhancing and closing the gaps in the leadership capabilities. There are
various theories of leadership that I must keep in mind such as situational leadership theory,
transformational leadership theory and many more. As the situational leadership suggests that the
leaders and managers cannot stick to one leadership but must be adaptable to every leadership
style in order to manage different situations. Every situation in the company demands different
leadership style. So I realized that I must be aware of the ways in which I can use different
leadership styles like autocratic, democratic etc. Also as the transformational leadership theory
states that the leaders must be charismatic and inspirational and also they must be able to
4

encourage the followers to transform themselves to perform better in every task. I must also learn
from this theory and must always motivate the employees to increase their involvement in all the
tasks and must reach to their highest potential (Millar, Chen and Waller, 2017). This leadership
theory will help me in sharpening my skills also. Furthermore, in order to improve my skills, I
must engage myself in various activities like survival leadership activities in which I will divide
all the participants in groups or can say two teams and will give them a situation like someone
lost in desert, plane crash or something else. Then I will present some lists of the items which
will be used by them in those situations. Then among all the items the groups will select only
five items which they consider as the most important in that situation. Then, they have to give
the reason behind their selection of the items and must justify the way in which they use the
items for overcoming the situation. This activity will help me in stimulating the creative, critical
and strategic thinking along with enhancing the problem solving skills which will help to become
better leader of the company.
I will also engage myself in another activity which is referred as All Aboard in which I will
divide my team in two groups and then give them the new challenge every time. At first I will
challenge them to make a boat by making use of the scrap materials (Van Wart and et.al., 2017).
After they finish the construction, I will tell all the members of the team to stay on one part and
will tell others to remove the other parts. This activity will help in enhancing various skills of
leadership such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking and also problem solving.
Another activity can be the Minefield in which I will make various teams consisting of two
employees in each team. I will instruct the team members to make one of the members of team to
become blindfolded and the other must act as a guide. There will be various obstacles in between
which can be furniture of the company also. The one person who is not blindfolded will be
guiding the other by using the words like right, left, backward and forward. I can also organise
this activity in the playground of the office also. This will help in increasing the listening,
communication skills along with building trust among the members of the team. This is how; I
can engage myself in these activities and can be a part of the activity as a player also which will
help to experience these things more clearly (Covelli and Mason, 2017). I organised these
activities to monitor the effectiveness of my existing skills and will participate in such activities
as the member of the team to enhance my various skills and building effective relationship with
the colleagues and the employees. When I plan and execute the activity, then I will be following
5

the transactional theory of leadership as I will be aware of the role of organisation, supervision
and the teamwork. When I become the member of the team, I will be using the behavioural
theory when my behaviours and actions will be laid emphasis upon rather than the qualities and
the traits (Harrison, 2017). This is how I will enhance my leadership and management skills by
engaging in such activities in Tesco.
CONCLUSION
The above report shed light on the skills of leadership and management by presenting a
reflective report regarding the experience of a leader in Tesco which is a UK based retailer
company and the third largest in the world. It laid emphasis on the activities which helps in
enhancing the leadership and management skills. The various theories of leadership were also
highlighted.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chow, T.W., Salleh, L.M. and Ismail, I.A., 2017. Lessons from the major leadership theories in
comparison to the competency theory for leadership practice. Journal of Business and
Social Review in Emerging Economies. 3(2). pp.147-156.
Covelli, B.J. and Mason, I., 2017. Linking theory to practice: Authentic leadership. Academy of
Strategic Management Journal. 16(3). pp.1-10.
Harrison, C., 2017. Leadership theory and research: A critical approach to new and existing
paradigms. Springer.
Millar, C.C., Chen, S. and Waller, L., 2017. Leadership, knowledge and people in knowledge-
intensive organisations: implications for HRM theory and practice.
Van Wart, M. and et.al., 2017. Integrating ICT adoption issues into (e-) leadership
theory. Telematics and Informatics. 34(5). pp.527-537.
Online
Tesco, 2021. [ONLINE]. Available through :< https://www.tesco.com/>
7