McDonald's: Leadership, Culture, and Strategic Recommendations Report

This report examines the leadership and organizational culture of McDonald's, an American fast-food company. It begins with an introduction outlining the company's history, organizational culture, and current leadership traits. The report identifies key issues, including a lack of menu innovation, increasing competition, and brand image concerns. It then analyzes the existing organizational culture, emphasizing human resource development and efficiency. The report suggests improvements such as adopting new technologies, focusing on customer service, and enhancing food quality. It recommends charismatic leadership to inspire employees and improve decision-making, along with strategic measures like sustainable sourcing and a code of conduct for suppliers. The conclusion highlights the need for McDonald's to adapt its leadership style and organizational structure to overcome challenges and maintain its market position. The report also includes a list of scholarly articles and books related to the topic.

Running head: MCDONALDS AND ITS ISSUES
McDonalds and its issues
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
Activity 1:
Introduction:
I was working in an organization named McDonalds in the previous year. It is an
American fast food company that was founded in the year 1940. The company was founded
by Richard and Maurice McDonald in California. The company is a large-scale company and
has become very popular because of their hamburgers (McDonald's - Official Global
Corporate Website, 2019). Later on, the company has introduced other items like French
fries, fish, burgers, smoothies, fruits and salads. The organizational culture supports the
industry’s positioning goals. McDonalds use its organizational culture for attracting more
customers and skilled employees. McDonalds encourages learning. The organization is
continuously evolving which in turn portrays the effectiveness of the company in order to
achieve the desired level of the human resource capabilities.
The current traits of leadership:
The management of the company solves the issues in a very creative way in order to
achieve the mission and objective of the company (Qureshi & Hassan, 2013). There are
various factors that affects the success of teams in a company (McDonald's - Official Global
Corporate Website, 2019). The members of the team should possess the required skills and
attitudes in order to create an environment for the employees to work. The Restaurant
manager or the team leaders of the company had the responsibility of setting targets,
maintaining and controlling stock, train and motivate the team, recruit, plan budget, drive the
various marketing campaigns and foster customer relationships. Leaders had the authority to
provide opportunity to the members of the teams to become managers on working well

2MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
(Antonakis & Robert, 2013). This way, every member of the team was motivated to perform
better. The team leaders were given the responsibility of creating outlets and create a healthy
environment for the employees to work. This is how team building took place. The leadership
model that was thoroughly followed In the company was the centered leadership. The leaders
in this kind of leadership inspires other employees by their own enthusiasm, communication
and commitment.
Problem statement:
There were various issues that was persisting in the company. The major issue was
that the customers were falling out of love with McDonalds due to lack of innovation in the
menu. Another major problem was that competition was increasing tremendously and
McDonalds was not able to cope up with the new competitions in the market. The managers
also recruited unskilled and PRs in order to pay the employees more. The brand image of the
company has also gone down due to its unhygienic food items (Howse et al., 2018).
Organizational culture and areas to improve:
The organization culture of the company emphasis human resource development and
efficiency. It helps in developing business and success in the global market. The following
characteristics are prevailing in the organizational culture of McDonalds:
 Individual learning
 Organizational learning
 People centricity
 Diversity and inclusion

3MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
The company should start using newer techniques to structure the organizational culture. The
company should start focusing on the service that is provided to the customers in order to
attract more of them and retain the loyal ones. The company should also focus on the quality
of the food that is being served to the customers. McDonalds should also use the new
technologies for making the work of the employees easier.
Key leadership skills required to improve the organizational structure of
the company:
The organizational structure and the leadership style of the company should be altered
in order to improve the global operations of the company. The company should follow the
charismatic style of leadership in order to take the correct decision and in turn inspire the
employees more. The leaders should be more innovative and creative and should be able to
take the accountability of the issues of the company.
Options for dealing with the problems and Recommendation:
McDonald through strict and clear policies and with the charismatic style of
leadership can build a reputable image in the minds of the customers. The company should
start focusing more on planning, organizing, leading and controlling in order to reach the
goals of the company. McDonald can start using the raw materials from a sustainable source
and can create a code of conduct for selecting the suppliers (Howse et al., 2018). They should
restrict buying beefs that are harvested on the deforested land in order to raise awareness and
avoid the bad reputation of the company.

4MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
Conclusion:
Thus, it can be concluded that McDonalds has been criticized for having bad
influence on the environment. They have although penetrated into the major markets of the
world, they need to change and improve their style of leadership and the organizational
structure for overcoming the challenges they face on a regular basis (Qureshi & Hassan,
2013).

5MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
References
Antonakis, J., & Robert, J. (2013). House (2013).'The Full-Range Leadership Theory: The
Way Forward', Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead 10th
Anniversary Edition (Monographs in Leadership and Management, Volume 5) (pp. 3-
33). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Link: (http://asioutreach.org/toolkit_content/Spirit_of_Prophecy_Abstracts.pdf)
Howse, E., Hankey, C., Allman-Farinelli, M., Bauman, A., & Freeman, B. (2018). ‘Buying
Salad Is a Lot More Expensive than Going to McDonalds’: Young Adults’ Views
about What Influences Their Food Choices. Nutrients, 10(8), 996.
Link:(https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Howse%2C+E.
%2C+Hankey%2C+C.%2C+Allman-Farinelli%2C+M.%2C+Bauman%2C+A.%2C+
%26+Freeman%2C+B.+%282018%29.+
%E2%80%98Buying+Salad+Is+a+Lot+More+Expensive+than+Going+to+McDonald
s%E2%80%99%3A+Young+Adults
%E2%80%99+Views+about+What+Influences+Their+Food+Choices.+Nutrients
%2C+10%288%29%2C+996.&btnG=)
McDonald's - Official Global Corporate Website. (2019). McDonald's - Official Global
Corporate Website. Retrieved 24 August 2019, from
https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd.html
Link: (https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd.html)
Qureshi, A., & Hassan, M. (2013). Impact of performance management on the organisational
performance: An analytical investigation of the business model of

6MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
McDonalds. International Journal of Academic Research in Economics and
Management Sciences, 2(5), 54.
Link:(https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mubashir_Qurashi/publication/
315218441_Impact_of_performance_management_on_the_organisational_performan
ce_An_analytical_investigation_of_the_business_model_of_McDonalds/links/
5995d1b8458515017ea5f5ad/Impact-of-performance-management-on-the-
organisational-performance-An-analytical-investigation-of-the-business-model-of-
McDonalds.pdf).
Activity 2:
List of scholarly articles:
Type of
Articles
Reference Link
Book Berger, A. A. (2017). Reading
matter: Multidisciplinary
perspectives on material culture.
Routledge.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/
9781315128054
Book Tichy, N., & Devanna, M.
(1986). Transformational leadership.
New York: Wiley.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/
academia.edu.documents/5881781/
leadership.pdf?response-content-
disposition=inline%3B%20filename
%3DTransformational_leadership.pdf&X-
Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-
Amz-

7MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
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1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-
Date=20190902T054524Z&X-Amz-
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Signature=a411afa6b3e13aaed00db7adbcf2a3
a48f640a290b8d3fdd4064bfac40727b95
Article Zehir, C., Müceldili, B., Altindağ,
E., Şehitoğlu, Y., & Zehir, S. (2014).
Charismatic leadership and
organizational citizenship behavior:
The mediating role of ethical
climate. Social Behavior and
Personality: an international
journal, 42(8), 1365-1375.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/
Erkut_Altindag/publication/
266399575_Charismatic_Leadership_and_Org
anizational_Citizenship_Behavior_the_Mediat
ing_Role_of_Ethical_Climate/links/
5a6701104585159da0d85044/Charismatic-
Leadership-and-Organizational-Citizenship-
Behavior-the-Mediating-Role-of-Ethical-
Climate.pdf
Book Tidd, J., & Bessant, J. R.
(2018). Managing innovation:
integrating technological, market
and organizational change. John
Wiley & Sons.
https://erl.ucc.edu.gh/dspace/bitstream/
123456789/3001/1/%5BJoe_Tidd
%2C_John_Bessant%2C_Keith_Pavitt
%5D_Managing_In%28BookZZ.org%29.pdf
Article Zhu, L., Anagondahalli, D., &
Zhang, A. (2017). Social media and
culture in crisis communication:
McDonald’s and KFC crises
management in China. Public
https://fardapaper.ir/mohavaha/uploads/
2017/11/Social-media-and-culture-in-crisis-
communication-McDonald%E2%80%99s-
and-KFC-crises-management-in-China.pdf

8MCDONALS AND ITS ISSUES
Relations Review, 43(3), 487-492.