Management & Operations: Leadership at Asda (Coursework)

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management practices within Asda, a major UK supermarket chain. It begins by differentiating between the roles of leaders and managers, highlighting their respective functions in achieving organizational goals. The report then delves into the practical application of these roles in various situations within Asda, emphasizing the importance of communication, ethics, guidance, and motivation. Furthermore, it explores different leadership theories and models, such as situational and systems leadership, assessing their strengths and weaknesses in the context of Asda's operations. The report also examines key approaches to operations management and the roles of leaders and managers in this domain, emphasizing the significance of operations management in achieving business objectives. Finally, it discusses the factors within the business environment that impact operational management and decision-making at Asda, offering a holistic understanding of leadership, management, and operational strategies within the retail giant.

Management & Operations

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1. ................................................................................................................................................3
P.1 Difference in Role of leader and Function of manager in Asda............................................3
P.2. Application of role of leader and functions of managers in different situations in Asda.....4
P.3. Theories and Models of Leadership.....................................................................................6
LO3..................................................................................................................................................8
P4 : The key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers
play...............................................................................................................................................8
P5 : The importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives of
the ASDA...................................................................................................................................10
LO4................................................................................................................................................11
P6 : The factors within the business environment that impact upon operational management
and decision-making of the ASDA............................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Asda stores Ltd is a supermarket retailer chain. It, s headquarter is at Leeds, Yorkshire,
United Kingdom. Asda stands for Associated Diaries. It is UK's second largest supermarket
chain. It is considered as one of the largest retail stores of the UK has to function many of the
management functions such as planning, organizing, implementing and evaluation for its
efficiently results. But along with these another role also plays a major role in the organizational
success that is leadership. Leader is the only person which is responsible to lead the particular
team or group at the work place. Leader provides task to the employees which are comes under
their command (Winston, 2018). So both the leadership and management are simultaneously
important for the organization success as well as for attainment of organizational goals
efficiently. Besides from this it is also important to select the appropriate leadership approach for
leadership. Here manager plans and organize the overall functions of the organization in the
same way leader is responsible for its right implementation. In Asda all managerial decisions
point to attain increased sales target over the time. And leader are those persons who usually
implement these decisions by the way of proper coordination of resources and people in the
organization. Hence, these both are equally responsible for organizational working and goal
achievement. These both have to be considered very keenly while doing the organizational
operations.
LO1.
P.1 Difference in Role of leader and Function of manager in Asda.
Leadership is action of leading the group of people for the attainment of common goal of
the organization. They inspire manages and motivates the others to attain organizational goals.
The role of leader includes Motivating the staff of the organization, monitoring the working of
workforce, guiding the staff and hence building the morale of the staff. The same is in case of
Asda supermarket (Idris, and Shams, 2018.). The team leader has the responsibility to guide and
motivates the employees and hence building the morale of the sales staff to get the increased
sales.
The various roles of the leader at Asda is as discussed Setting a clear vision and influencing the
staff towards attainment of company's objectives and have the clear understanding of company
objectives so as they work according next role of leader is to Motivating the staff by

understanding and fulfilling the needs and wants of the . Guiding the staff by providing the m
tools and procedures for working also comes under the role of leader. The last important role
leader ha to play in the organization is boosting the morale of the staff. It's the one of the reason
behind the organizational success. These above stated is the major key and responsibilities of
leader at Asda (Santos, Caetano and Tavares, 2015) . Along with it some characteristics leaders
possess are they are people oriented as they work with team of people and for the people. The
leader must have good interpersonal relations with the team members and followers to achieve
organizational objectives.
Manager at Asda supervises the overall functioning of the Asda. The Key function of the
manager at different level at Asda includes planning, organizing (Huang and et.al., 2016).
Organizing, leading and controlling of the functions of the organization. At planning stage the
manager of Asda maps the overall strategy of how to achieve the goals and objectives. The Asda
manager plans parameter to achieve maximum sales. The next function Asda manager has to
perform is organizing he assigns and grants authority to the staff for efficient achievement of
goals (Lam and et.al., 2015). The next is leading it includes the managing and motivating the
staff of the store and last is controlling it includes the monitoring the actual working and
comparing it with the set standards to rectify the deviation if any. Hence, manager is the person
behind the overall attainment of goals and objectives in effective and efficient manner.
The basic characteristics that a good manager has to posses are that he must be courageous,
optimism, confident, creative, ability to inspire positive attitude. A person possessing these of the
qualities would be considered as good manager.
The leader has to be Good communicator, influencer, motivator, responsibility, coordination and
team spirit. These are some qualities a good leader must possess.
P.2. Application of role of leader and functions of managers in different situations in Asda.
The organizational leadership is the actions which are done for the benefit of the group
and for the whole. The leader plays an important role in the success of the organization. The
leader has to follow various roles and responsibilities at various situation in the organization. The
situation may depends on the way leader is managing the particular. The following role has to be
played by leader during various situations:-

1. Communicator :- leader has to be communicator of various changes and orders that he receive
to be implemented by the way of his team (Michalakeas and et.al., 2015). So, in Asda the team
leader usually gets the message from the top-level to be communicated to his team. The manager
here communicates the message to its team members and then conveys any queries and concern
if they had to the top authorities again.
2. Ethics:- The another responsibility of team leader is to maintain ethical standards in the
organization. The Asda staff has to show the true and fair representation to its customers (Betta,
2016). The staff has responsibility to never mislead the customers with wrong and unfair
statements. Its overall responsibility of Team leader to maintain the ethical standards in the
organization.
3. Guidance and motivation :-The team leader at Asda has to guide its team member regarding
the new guidelines, offers and procedures of the store (Stillman, 2016). They also had the
responsibility to motivates and enhance the morale of the employees for achieving organizational
goals and objectives efficiently.
4. Enhancing the morale of staff :- The leader has to enhance the morale of its team-mates and
followers to work efficiently to increase sales and achievement of goals. The boosting of morale
will also be helpful in personal enhancement of individual along with the organizational
development.
Functions of manager is to perform basic managerial functions in an organization which
are necessary to achieve the organizational goals and objectives efficiently (Park, D., Jung, M.
and Cho, J., 2017). The manager has to perform various key responsibilities to manage the
overall responsibilities which are essential for strengthening the organizational effectiveness.
Manager acts as a key person of the organization. Likewise, management at Asda has to perform
various functions such as planning, organizing, staffing, implementing and evaluation of the
managerial plans to achieve plans in an organized and systematic manner. Some managerial
functions performed at Asda are as follows:-
1. Planning:- Managerial staff at Asda plans the strategies to achieve the organizational goals.
At this stage manager decides how to act to attain organizational objectives (Parke and et.al.,
2016). The manager at Asda plans the strategies to how to achieve maximum sales target for the
store.

2. Organizing:- Managers at Asda has to allocate the roles and responsibilities to the members
of the organization (Alvesson,Blom,and Sveningsson, 2017). Along with allocation he has to
delegate the authority to them also for efficient results. Another role of the manger is to manage
all business activities in systematic manner. This is too necessary for the ASDA to maintain their
reputation in the market, because these are the reason behind success of the business. Every
successful businesses in the world are following these business strategies too seriously in their
respective work environment, because they truly understand role of the organizing.
2. Staffing :- Manager at Asda has also to recruit various people at various departments to
implement the planning effectively (Greer, Carr,and Hipp, 2016). The recruitment is to be done
keeping in mind the requirement of various profiles according to its need and wants. Manager
has to function overall staffing function that includes recruitment, selection, training and
development for the organization.
3.Implementation:- Implementation is also a major task Asda has to perform under its
managerial function. Asda sets the parameter to the task to be performs and instruct the
departmental leader to implement the task (Alvesson,Blom,and Sveningsson, 2017). For example
:- Attending the customers on the floor and pitching them the stuffs which are according to their
needs and wants. Understanding the customers needs and work accordingly is important at the
time of implementation. Thus working according to the planning is implementation.
4. Controlling :- The manager here at Asda monitors and compares the actual working of the
organization and finds out if there is any difference and to the changes as per need.
The practical application of roles and functions of leaders and managers respectively is as
in case in Asda store there is need to increase sales by 25% in a next quarter, but management
has noticed that there lacks a sales staff which should be increased to attain increased sales by
next quarter. The management here decided to staff new members to attain objectives
(Michalakeas and et.al., 2015). Here managerial staff performs its function by analyzing and
recruitment of additional staff for the store. The staff here lacks the knowledge of retail sector
the management team inducts him with the basic knowledge about it. After that the team leader
is responsible for overall guidance and motivation to the staff for efficient working and goal
achievement. Here the leader will guide them and motivate them to be loyal towards the
organization, and management will responsible to function for its requirements and needs.

P.3. Theories and Models of Leadership.
There are various leadership approaches and theories that have been implemented by various
scholars. All leadership theories depends on various situations. These are school of thoughts
explains how and why leaders are made and how they work. As leaders are important for the
success of every organization so, it is important to select the best suitable leadership approach to
gain maximum profitability for the organizational; success, selecting the best suitable approach
is important for the organization (Anderson and et.al., 2017). Asda has selected its leadership
approach keeping in mind the various parameters its strength and weakness. The various types of
leadership approach with its strength and weakness are as :-
1. Situational leadership style :- Situational leadership is the most effective leadership style and
considered appropriate for any situation. This leadership approach is suitable for the organization
which is dynamic and changes with the conditions. This has various strengths along with the
weaknesses (Thompson,and Glasø, 2015). Asda can use this leadership style when leader adjust
his style to the group of people he is trying to influence. In this leadership style the leader always
try to adjust in the working environment as required by the group. The company can apply this
leadership style in its functions considering the strength and weakness of the leadership approach
(Liao, 2017). There strengths for application of the situational leadership style.
1. It is flexible in nature.
2. Comfortable environment for Staff.
3. Considers various developmental phases of the organization.
Whereas weakness of situational leadership style are as :-
1. No consideration of long term needs.
2. Ineffective in task oriented organization.
3. Creates corporate dependency.
2. System leadership style :- It depends on the inter-dependency of various functional areas of
the organization. The company can use this approach in case it wants to inter-relate or inter-
connect the operations of various functional areas of a store. It is systematic leadership style to
achieve organizational goals. The Asda has to implement it keeping in minds the various strength

and weakness of this approach. The overview of strength and weakness of this approach is
discussed under (Bolden, 2016.). The strength of the system leadership approach is as:-
1. Adaptability to environmental changes.
2. Helps in individual goal too.
3. Focused on various dimensions.
Its weakness are as :-
1. Delays in decision-making.
2. Does not consider contingencies.
3. Inter-dependency is not defined properly.
3. Contingency Leadership Style :-This leadership style says that leadership is effective when
the leaders style match with the conditions. The leadership is effective when it matches with the
contingent conditions of the organization. The Asda can adopt this leadership style if it dynamic
and works in changing environment (Winston, 2018). The company has to consider it's some
strengths and weakness. Its strengths are :-
1. It is Dynamic in nature- Adjust accordingly to the nature and conditions.
2. Enhances the decision-making skills of the leader.
3. Design organizational structure accordingly the needs.
Its weakness are as :-
1. It has complex approach because of dynamic in nature.
2. It is always reactive to the conditions.
3. Inadequacy of literature.
LO3
P4 : The key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers
play.
The key approaches to operations management are important to companies
manufacturing and production efficiency. These are useful in increase the productivity of the any
company or business by its effective procedure. Operations management is many responsibilities
in the company, like; manage the raw material, market analysis, human resource, skills,
creativity, technical aspects etc. These are the key role of operations management in the
company to achieve the success goal of the company.

There are various key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and
management play;
1. Just in Time (JIT) : This is a management strategy which very useful in the aligns raw
material orders directly from suppliers with production schedules. Implementation of this
strategy are necessary to increase efficiency of the production and decrease waste by
receiving only that goods which are actually needed for the production process
(Importance of operations management, 2018). This is very important method for Asda
to forecast demand accurately. In which, the major role-played by the leader and the
manager for the company. Leader responsibility is to take the order form management for
arrange raw material from the suppliers by analyse all terms of the production. Leader
needs to lead this responsibility in a good manner (e.g. lead all employees and take skilful
work from them) by putting their all efforts in the arrangement of the raw material. In
which manager also play their respective role in the arrangement of raw material.
Manager manages all aspects of the productions, means when company needs to produce
products then manager start giving responsibilities to the respective peoples, e.g. The
team leader, transportation management, finance management, stoke management etc.
Manager providing useful guidelines to all responsible people to cover this task in an
accurate time period.
2. Lean Manufacturing : Lean manufacturing is a methodology which useful in reduce
waste factor in the manufacturing process. Lean manufacturing is generally based on a
number of specific principles, like; Kaizen, Continuous improvement (Ren and Huang,
2018). These principles have profoundly influenced manufacturing concepts in the world.
There are different roles of the manager and the leader. The manager needs to implement
their decisions by giving orders to the low level management of the company. Manager
also needs to follow all production aspects and work properly according to production
task. Manager of Asda firstly responsible for the making specific production decisions to
run this task, and then after the next procedure is to give responsibilities to the respective
people for complete this task. Another one is the leader, in which the leader needs to take
orders from the manager and then implement that orders in their workforce. Leader needs
to take work from the employees by their leadership skills and also provide them
respective guidelines to complete that task in proper way within the targeted time period.

Leader also needs to listen their employees prospective to cover this all task. The major
role of the manager and the leader are to control and decrease the waste in the
manufacturing process.
3. Product Quality Management (PQM) : Product quality management is a useful method
which enables Asda to manage and control the product quality in the production, For
example; manufacturing defects, field losses, complaints of the customer and
improvements of product etc. There are also the manager and the leader of Asda played
their respective role to achieve business goals (Willimson, 2018). Manager needs to
provide some additional training sessions to the employees for the improvement of their
skills in the production process. These are the major responsibility of the manager to
remove that all aspects from the production process which are harmful for the company.
The other side leader of Asda also have some necessary responsibilities in the production.
The leader responsible to aware their employees to avoid such attempts which makes
manufacturing defects in the production and try to make complete focus on the process to
get better results.
P5 : The importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives
of the ASDA.
There are lots of importance and value of operations management in the achieving
business objectives. In short there are operations management is the major key for the success of
the business (Wisner, 2016). Every business needs to follow the terms of operations management
in their respective businesses to achieve targeted goals of the business.
1. Achieve the objectives : Operations management helps to the Asda to achieve their
objectives in a decided time period. The implementation of operations management in the
business environment are the great step towards achieving business specific target
(Babich and Hilary, 2019). Operations management provides some useful methods which
are helpful in the make business activities smooth or productive. There are various
strategies in operations management which make able to business for gain their
respective pre-fixed achievements or objectives.
2. Improve product quality : Operations management also helps in the improvement of the
product quality in the production. The management analysis all aspects of the products

and then try to improve the quality of the products (Gölzer and Fritzsche, 2017). It is
necessary for any business, because there many competitors in any filed of businesses.
So, it helps to the Asda to make that productivity in the work environment which actually
are effective for the business. Operations management provides some special guidelines
to the manager or the leader of the company to implement them in the business to
improve the quality of product.
3. Customer satisfaction : It is also important to make satisfy Asda's customer in any
condition. Operations management provides some useful strategies to the management of
the company to improve customers satisfactory ratio in the market. In the business words;
the customer is the king of market, so any business needs to make satisfy their customers
first by providing company's best services.
4. Reduce Waste : Reduction of waste is the most important components of operations
management. This provides some important methods to the management of the business
which really play big role in the reduction of waste, like; (1) Just in time method, (2)
Lean manufacturing, (3) Product quality management etc (Stadtler, 2015). These methods
are really helps to the business to improve their 'Reduction of Waste' term, and finally
these all are saving the large cost of the waste.
5. Improve productivity of employees : Operations management also helpful in improve
productivity of the employees. According to the operations management useful strategies,
the manager of Asda able to make their employees more skilful and more creative at
workplace. This is also necessary for the any business, because the human resource are
like backbone of the company. Management needs to take work from them in a very
productive way, and there are also a responsibility of the company to make them happy at
workplace by good behaviour.
6. Increase revenue of the business : Operations management also play important role in
the increase revenue of the business. With the help of operations management strategies
Asda able to generate more revenue for the company. These are providing some methods
which business needs to apply in their workplace and in the result, it will provide good
revenue return to the Asda. These are totally covered in the procedure form, manager and
leader of the Asda needs to follow all Aspects of the operations management and try to

implement that all management terms in the business which helps to the increase Asda's
revenue.
LO4
P6 : The factors within the business environment that impact upon operational
management and decision-making of the ASDA.
There are many internal and external factors within the Asda's business environment that
really impact upon operational management and decision-making of the Asda.
 Internal Factors
1. Strength of the ASDA : The strength of the Asda is, the company is one of the leading
organizations in its particular industry (Ardestani-Jaafari and Delage, 2016). Asda has
dealer community which is really very strong, because the company built a good cultural
environment between the distributor & the dealer.
2. Weakness of the ASDA : Weakness is another factor which impact Asda's operational
management ans decision-making. The company is poor at handle their competitors in
the market. Company also needs to focus on the research and development aspect, this
also a weak point of the Asda because company knows the competition of the market. In
that case company needs to be more creative at the research and development, which
gives opportunity to Asda to easily tackle their competitors in the market.
3. Opportunities of the Asda : Another factor is; New fashion and trends in the consumer
behaviour can easily open new market place for the Asda. It provides a great opportunity
to Asda to generate more revenue in the market by follow new trends and new demands
of the customers.
 External Factors
1. Political Factor : National and multinational trade guidelines and regulations are impact
the Asda's operational management and decision-making, because in any case any
government can change the guidelines of trade in their particular country. It will directly
impact the Asda's business environment, like; change in taxes, custom duties, entry
charges etc.
2. Social Factor : Social factor also impacting Asda's operational management and
decision-making, because the trust of the brand in market also play great role in the