Management and Operations: Leadership, Models, and Approaches Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of management and operations within the context of Sainsbury's, a major UK supermarket chain. It begins by differentiating between the roles and characteristics of leaders and managers, highlighting their distinct responsibilities and approaches. The report then examines how these roles play out in various situational contexts, such as conflict resolution, product launches, and employee turnover. Furthermore, it delves into different leadership models, including situational, system, and contingency models, to illustrate how leaders adapt their strategies to different circumstances. The report also explores key approaches to operations management, such as Six Sigma, Lean Production, and Total Quality Management, and explains their importance in achieving business objectives. Finally, the report discusses factors that influence operational efficiency, such as sustainability and corporate social responsibility, providing a holistic view of management and operations within the organization.

Management and
Operations
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
P1 Comparison of roles and characteristics of leader and manager............................................3
P2 Roles of leaders and manager in different situations..............................................................5
P3 Situational, system and contingency model of leadership......................................................7
P4 Key approaches of operation management.............................................................................8
P5 importance of operation management..................................................................................11
P6 factors that affect operational efficiency of company..........................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
Operation management can be defined as a function which needs to be played by
operation manager and dealing with managing all operations of the company (Jarvis and et.al.,
2019). This present study is based on Sainsbury’s which is the 2nd largest chain of supermarkets
in the UK. This present study is going to show importance of leadership and management in an
organization because it helps company in accomplishing their goals by performing several
functions and responsibilities. Leader and manager both play different roles but the main
common aim of both is to help company in accomplishing their goals by satisfying employees
and customers as well. Further, it will also show roles and functions of manager and leader in
different situational context as how they deal with all type of situations. Leadership strategies
also play a vital role such as contingency, situational and system because it allows leaders in
leading employees in an effective manner. Further, it will discuss importance of all operational
management approaches like total quality management, six sigma and others. Al these
approaches also support operation manager in reducing errors and wastes in the process of
production and improving quality of their products. Lastly, it will discuss all external
environmental factors like sustainability, corporate social responsibilities and others in order to
know their effects on the performance of the company.
P1 Comparison of roles and characteristics of leader and manager
Leadership: leadership can be defined as an action of guiding or leading a group of people in an
organization and it also refers a position of being a leader. An individual who perform all
functions an action of guiding people or leadership is known as leader (Western, 2019). It can be
said that leader and his process of leading or motivating people plays an important role.
Management: A process of controlling, planning and managing people and processes of an
organization is considered management. A person who control and manage processes and people
of an organization is known as manager.
Roles of leaders Roles of managers
 In the context of roles of leaders, it
can be said that one of the
 As compare to leaders, managers do not
take risks as they try to control all risks
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preliminary roles of leader is to take
risks as an opportunity and deal
with them.
 Other important role of leader of
Sainsbury’s is to motivate
employees and improving
relationship between business and
them.
 Leader of Sainsbury’s motivate,
support, lead and tell employees as
what they have to do.
 In the context of position, it can be
said that it is an assigned role where
main responsibility of leader is to
get effective outcomes and have
people who follow instructions of
leader.
and mitigate them.
 As compare to leader, manager mainly
focuses on system rather employees so,
their role is developing processes and
system of the company.
 Rather, leading, manager control people
of the company and make sure that all
employees are on the right track and
accordingly take actions (Qusef, A. and
Kiswani, 2017).
 As compare to leader, manager do not
have followers as they have people who
work for them as manager also work as
an employees for performing main
functions of the company.
Characteristics of leaders Characteristics of mangers
 .leader of an organization is called as
innovator because they have skills to
innovate new things.
 As compare to manager, leaders have
skills to value their followers in all
manners.
 Leaders have an ability to learn new
things from their past, experience and
even from risks (Sullivan, 2017).
 The first and foremost characteristic of
the manager of Sainsbury’s is they give
attention to detail of their people for
taking action.
 In the context of behavior it can be said
that managers are reactive than
proactive.
 Manager has abilities to manage people
in different ways as per the current
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 Leaders have self awareness skills and
they keep focusing on all situations as
what is going on and by continuous
communication with followers.
 A leader focuses on doing rights
things.
 Leader of Sainsbury’s possessing the
quality of foresightedness.
 Leaders mainly focus on relationship
oriented strategies.
situation of the company.
 .Manager does not have self awareness
skills as they are being made aware by
people and leaders about current
situations of the company.
 Managers have abilities to do things
right.
 Manager has intelligence.
 Manager focuses on task oriented
strategies.
For more understanding roles and characteristics of leaders and manager it can be
understood by functions played by them for Sainsbury’s. Some functions of leader of Sainsbury
are which helped them out in accomplishing their goals include: policy making, controlling and
improving relationship of employees, motivating employees, taking effective decisions etc.
On the other hand, managers’ functions include: planning, organizing, coordinating and
controlling.
P2 Roles of leaders and manager in different situations
An individual who posses several skills of motivating and leading followers is known as
leader. A leader of Sainsbury’s play several roles and he has abilities to deal with different
situations.
On the other hand, a person or an employees whose main aims is to manage people and
processes of company in order to help company in accomplishing goals in known as manager.
Sainsbury’s is one of the well-known supermarket or retailer and there are several problems
occur because it operates to a large level. But in all situations, leader and manager play their
roles and with the help of their skills they mitigate all problems such as:
Conflict among employees: It is one of the main situations which occur in an organization due
to several reasons which need to be resolved. So, in this situation, the main role of leader is to
negotiate and influence followers to settle differences or compromise by avoiding argument.
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Whereas, manager focuses on policies which they have made and by using all rules and
agreements they try to solve conflicts. It can also be said that leader tries to identify the main
root cause of the problem and accordingly they handle situation by motivating them and resource
allocating (Covey, 2017).
New product launching: For being in a competition it is important for company to launch new
products in an effective manner for making they differ than others. For successful launching of
products and services leader motivate employees by identifying their needs. Leader believe that
motivated and valued employees are more likely to focus on their functions and cooperate
company. They also focus on team working and aligning their members for increasing their
knowledge and bringing innovation in the company. Whereas, manager focuses on planning
function in which they define the main scope of products launching and deciding who will
perform functions. After planning, manager organizes all processes and people by allocating
tasks to them as per their experiences and skills. They also perform controlling function in order
to know their actual position and also knowing whether all functions are performing by
employees as per the planning or not.
Employees turnover: It is other main situation which can create several others problems. In this
situation, leader performs their functions of motivating, leading and providing training to them.
One of the main aims of leader is to encourage employees and making them feel valued at
workplace by which they stay with the company for the long run. On the other hand, manager in
this situation make planning by addressing reasons and provide rewards to them (Chiu, Balkundi
and Weinberg, 2017). They also organize them in an effective manner and also develop several
other strategies like open door policy in order to allow employees to share their queries and get
effective answers in a timely manner. By providing rewards including financial and non financial
they motivate employees towards accomplishing goals and stay with the company as well.
Some functions of manager in a detailed manner include:
Planning: It is one of the main functions in which manager make a detailed action plan. In that
action plan they add all informations as who will perform activities, what activities need to be
performed etc.
Organizing: After making effective and detailed planning, manager organize all functions by
allocating or assigning tasks to people.
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Coordinating: In this function, manager cooperates with employees and focus on team working
because manager believes that team working is better than working individually. By allocating
work in team and cooperating employees they make them complete all functions.
Controlling: In this function they monitor all processes and people of the company in order to
make sure that all activities are going on in the right direction as per the planning or not. If he
finds any differences then take corrective and appropriate actions.
P3 Situational, system and contingency model of leadership
Leadership theory plays an important role as it allows leaders in leading followers in an
effective manner as per the current situations of the company. It helps in telling different ways of
guiding their followers. There are mainly 3 leadership styles which include:
Situational: A situational leader is one who adopts different strategies or leadership styles as per
the current situation. It is one of the best and effective leadership styles because in this style,
leader focuses on satisfying needs of employees and setting a beneficial balance for the whole
company. As per the different situations, there are some styles of situational leadership which
may be used by leader of Sainsbury’ s and make employees able to perform activities in an
effective manner such as:
Telling: In this style of leadership, leader tells all their followers as what to do and how to do.
By telling them about ways, they motivate employees and encourage them to perform all
functions.
Selling: This style of leadership involves more back and forth between followers and leaders.
Leaders sell their ideas as well as messages in order to get all group members to buy processes
and ideas. By selling ideas, leaders want to make their employees creating and self dependent
(Thompson and Glasø, 2018).
Participating: In this approach leaders do not give more direction and allows them to come up
with ideas at their own. They give opportunities to members of all levels to take an active role
and come up with new ideas.
Delegating: In this approach or leadership style, all group members take their decisions as well
as responsibilities whatever happens.
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System theory: It is other main effective style of leadership in which leaders of an organization
create a situation or system where people of all levels can come up and perform their functions in
an effective and productive manner. In this style, leader play their role as an influential
individual whose main aims is to make valuable contributions at local, regional as well as
national level. A system leader has several skills and capacities that any company can use to
support the process of system level change.
Blanchard and Hersey model: The Hersey Blanchard model states that there is no single
leadership style which can help leaders to lead employees in all types of situation. Or it can be
said that there is no particular single style of leadership which can support leader to perform their
roles and guide in all type of situation so, leaders must have abilities to adjust their styles to their
abilities and as per the current situation. Instead of focusing on workplace factors, leader needs
to adapt their styles as per the situation. A successful leader is one who is both task and
relationship oriented. It is found that leader of Sainsbury’s use their styles as per the current
situations and become either task oriented style or relationship. In task oriented, leader only
focuses on completing and make all worked completed by followers. On the other hand, in
relationship oriented, leader focuses on relations or improving them with followers rather
focusing on completing tasks only.
Contingency: This theory is dependent upon the model of Hersey and Blanchard model. It is
somehow different than this model. This theory states that effectiveness of a leader is contingent
as it depends upon effectiveness and ability to leader as how they match situations of the
company. It is one of the best and effective contingent leader in which leader finds out what kind
of leadership styles as well as situations they thrive in. Fiedler’s contingency model states that
there is no single and the best style which can suitable and fit in all types of situations and
leader’s effectiveness is based on the situation (Cunha and et.al., 2019).
So, from the above discussed theories and styles of leadership, it can be said that leadership style
plays an important role and they help leaders in leading followers in an effective manner. By
making an effective use of leadership styles as per the situation, leader of Sainsbury’s can
support their company in accomplishing their goals.
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P4 Key approaches of operation management
Operation management is most important function of IKEA, it is related with planning,
close supervision and organizing activities of entire operations so that organizational goal can be
accomplished. To perform manufacturing, production etc function properly it is very important
for the business unit to manage its operational activities in significant manner (Marchi and et.al.,
2018). There are various approaches of operation management, these are explained as below:
Six sigma
(Source: THE DEFINE, MEASURE, ANALYZE, IMPROVE, CONTROL (DMAIC) PROCESS,
2020)
This is the technique that is used for process improvements in organisation. DMAIC can
be defined as problem solving approach that has five major aspects: define, measure, analyses
issue, improve it and control over it. IKEA needs to first choose issue in existing operational
process and have to find out improvement areas (Karavidić and Projović, 2018). For that leaders
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are responsible to prepare project charter and prepare direction so that improvement can be
implemented. In order to identify the issue in existing process manager of the firm need to gather
voice of consumers by taking feedback from them. This will help in taking right action to
improve process (IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT (OM),
2020). By this way operational efficiency can be improved. Measure is next phase in which all
activities that are being performed must be recorded.
Leader has to analyses capability of each employee in IKEA and managers have to
measure frequency of problem and its main cause (Stanišić, 2018). Analyses is third phase of six
sigma approach. Here manager of IKEA needs to do root cause analyses to find out major cause
of this issue. Once it is done then individual has to do effect analyses so that product, process
failure issues can be identified. Improvement is the next phase in which manager of organization
need to design the experiments through which this problem can be solved soon. Leaders have to
build strong bonding with employees of IKEA so that changes can be accepted in business unit
easily (Zhang and et.al., 2016). Control is the last stage of six sigma method in which manager of
IKEA need to make quality control plan and leaders have to monitor this progress. This would
help in improving operational efficiency top great extent.
Lean Production
This is another great approach of operation management. This has major concentration
over waste cutting and raising quality of production. IKEA can use this method in its designing,
distribution and production operational areas. Leaders take the decision of cutting cost to make
business more efficient (Gligor, Holcomb and Feizabadi, 2016). They first identify needs of
market and accordingly make changes in designing and production process so that IEKA can
meet needs of consumers and can make them satisfied as well. Here manager and leader of the
IKEA take decision of eliminating such activities that are not contributing in production and are
unable to generate value to business. By using this approach IKEA can reduce its waiting time
and can improve transportation process as well. Resource utilisation can be improved that would
help in delivering high quality furniture goods to wide range of consumers globally (Marchi and
et.al., 2018).
Total Quality Management (TQM)
This is considered as management approach that is used by companies to gain long term
success and enhance satisfaction level of customers. IKEA can implement this method to
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improve its process and services as well. The main focus of TQM is on customer needs and high
level involvement of employees (Karavidić and Projović, 2018). It always emphases on process
centred system and integrated system so that production capabilities can be improved. Leaders
and managers o IKEA need to ensure to produce high quality material for consumers and needs
to take decision of improvement in supply chain system. This would give better result to
organization and it will be able to meet needs of buyers significantly. TQM method analyze
entire process and get to know about improvement areas, by this way manager can make plan for
further improvements so that operational process can be improved.
Just in time (JIT)
This is considered as effective method that is used to reduce production time. By this way
firm can give quick response to suppliers’ and customers. Stock reduction and quality
improvements are main area of work of this approach. It is all related to time as by making use
ojf this approjach, company can provide products to customers in a timely manner by reducing
erriors whjch can make customers feel valued.
P5 importance of operation management
Operation management is systematic process that works to organise things properly and
to have close control over all activities so that production and manufacturing can be improved in
business unit (Stanišić, 2018). Managers and leaders of IKEA make effective planning and
develop coordination between departments so that firm can deliver satisfactory goods to its
buyers.
Improve distribution process
Operation management is helpful for IKEA in improving its distribution system.
Use of TQM and lean production process is beneficial in improving transformation
process from raw material to finished goods. IKEA can use this approach to improve its
process designing. By this way it can utilise resources well and can eliminate such
elements that are not creating any kind of value to business unit (Zhang and et.al., 2016).
By this way distribution will be easy and entity will be able to control over cost as well.
This may support IKEA in generating benefit to organisation and sustain in market for
longer duration.
Raise productivity and quality
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Enhancing productivity n service quality is another benefit of operation
management. IKEA aims to deliver high quality products to its consumers. It always take
care of needs of buyers and accordingly manufacture its furniture’s. Use of Lean
production approach is helpful in knowing more about quality parameters and enhancing
quality of existing material (Gligor, Holcomb and Feizabadi, 2016). Leaders and
managers of IKEA makes quality plan and closely supervise each activity so that quality
standards can be raised. It eliminates errors so that high quality goods can be
manufactured and delivered to end users. Hence operational management activities are
helpful in raising quality of products and services (IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT (OM), 2020).
Waste reduction
Lean production operation management approach is used by IKEA that helps in
minimising wastage. Waste reduction is most amazing value that is created by operation
management in company. By this way activities that are non productive can be eliminated
hence operational cost of business can be reduced that may give benefit in generating
high profit in organisation (Stanišić, 2018).
Raise customer satisfaction level
Operation management helps organization in raising satisfaction level of
consumers. This approaches aid in using correct process so that desired products can be
produced. By this way consumers can get high quality furniture at affordable rates.
P6 factors that affect operational efficiency of company
In order to improve operation management practices enterprise need to look upon various
factors that can have impact over management of operations. These factors can influence
decision of leaders and managers in IKEA as well (Marchi and et.al., 2018).
Corporate social responsibility
This is considered as most essential element in business unit, it is duty of each firm that
to fulfil its corporate responsibilities to sustain in market for longer duration. IKEA always take
care of thing that its operations can generate high quality products and its process can reduce the
cost as well. IKEA uses lean production system to reduce cost. In this manner it becomes able to
raise quality of goods and it is available at affordable prices for end users as well. Managers of
the IKEA need to take decision of be ethically responsible (Karavidić and Projović, 2018). They
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need to ensure to utilise resources well and activities that are high cost generating and having no
value must be eliminated from operational process. Manager’s decisions have been influenced
because now manager and leaders of IKEA need to use recycling process to minimise wastage so
that it can fulfil its corporate responsibility towards environment and society. This facto has great
influence over operation management as it improves efficiency level of operations and enhance
brand image of company as well. Csr is essential to be considered by business, csr practices help
in raisinf confidence of consumers and making them loyal towards the brand.
Culture
This is another most important aspect that can influence operation management to great
extent. If culture is good then people will work better. This will develops good communication
and will results in raising operational efficiency (Stanišić, 2018). But if culture is not good then
employees of IKEA may feel dishearten. In this situation they will not be able to work with
efficiency in business unit. Hence operational performance of IKEA will get down. Hence
culture is the element that can influence the operational performance. If culture is not good then
leaders have to make changes in their decisions and have to improve culture so that employees
can feel better and can work properly in company. Leaders have to build relationship with
workers so that great team can be build up and entity can do better in market (Gligor, Holcomb
and Feizabadi, 2016). Great culture raise employee confidence and they work better to maintain
quality hence it improve operational process and minimizes mistakes.
Values and ethics
Ethical treatment of employees and having great values develops company’s working
environment. If there is poor ethical practices then employees may feel unhappy. In this
condition they will not work good that would result in declining operational performance.
Whereas if IKEA is working under ethical guidelines then it would give best result to business
unit and will help in improving operational performance of firm greatly (Zhang and et.al., 2016).
Leaders and managers have to make decision of ensuring that there is no discriminate on with
any employee. Or if there is any kind of unethical practice then managers must take decision to
stop that activity in order to run operations in market successfully for longer duration.
Stakeholder
Each stakeholder has different needs. Employees expect to get promotions and great
salaries. Customers want high quality material at affordable prices. Investors aim to get high
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return over their spending and investments (Gligor, Holcomb and Feizabadi, 2016). Hence IKEA
needs to take care of these stakeholder’s requirements and accordingly it has arrange its
operational activities. This may support firm in improving operational performance so that these
expectations can be met by firm. Leaders and managers always take decision of implementing
new technologies so that production process can be improved and IKEA can meet needs of all its
important stakeholders.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that operation management is the process of
managing entire operations of business unit to meet needs of stakeholders. Companies like to
sustain in market for longer duration but for that it needs to make changes in its operational
process and have to eliminate defects. Lean production, six sigma are essential approaches that
may help in utilizing resources and eliminating mistakes as well. By this way company can
minimize its operational cost and can improve its profitability as well. Leaders and managers are
essential element of business unit, they always make efforts through which firm can do well and
can retain its talented staff members for longer duration. They always ensure to build strong team
and raise efficiency level of staff members so that they can perform better in organization.
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Online
IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT (OM), 2020.
[ONLINE]. AVAILABLE THROUGH <
HTTPS://WWW.PLANETTOGETHER.COM/BLOG/IMPORTANCE-OF-
EFFECTIVE-OPERATIONS-MANAGEMENT >
THE DEFINE, MEASURE, ANALYZE, IMPROVE, CONTROL (DMAIC) PROCESS. 2020.
[Online]. Available through < https://asq.org/quality-resources/dmaic >
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