Organizational Behaviour and Leadership: Sainsbury Case Study

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership within Sainsbury, a major UK retail chain. It begins by defining organizational behaviour and leadership, setting the stage for an examination of Sainsbury's leadership style, which is identified as democratic. The essay delves into the principles underpinning this leadership style, emphasizing technical efficiency, timely decision-making, and fostering a sense of responsibility. It explores how personal beliefs, such as religious views and honesty, influence leadership approaches. The essay also presents personal experiences that illustrate the application of democratic leadership. Furthermore, the paper identifies key leadership issues faced within Sainsbury, particularly the challenge of managing diverse employee perspectives and the time-consuming nature of decision-making processes. The essay concludes by suggesting potential solutions, such as implementing a voting system to streamline decision-making and save time. Overall, the essay provides a practical perspective on leadership challenges and solutions within the context of a real-world business setting.

ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR AND
LEADERSHIP

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
PART- A- Leadership philosophy..........................................................................................3
PART- B- Application of leadership philosophy...................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Organizational behaviour refers to as the part of management which is concerned with
the study of the employees working in the company. This concept helps the company in
analysing the fact that why and how the person behaves in the company. Leadership on the other
hand, is defined as an act of guiding and directing the employees in the direction of
accomplishment of the goals of the business (Conger, 2015). The present essay is based in the
company Sainsbury. It is a retail chain of supermarkets in UK which was founded by John James
Sainsbury in the year 1869 and is headquartered in Holborn London. The essay will focus on the
leadership style used by the company and the principles underlying that leadership style. Further
it will discuss about the different leadership issues within the company and will also outline the
measures which can be taken in order to solve those issues.
MAIN BODY
PART- A- Leadership philosophy
Leadership style
For the successful working of the business it is very necessary for the company to have
proper and efficient leader who can handle all the matters and problems within the company. If
the leader will not be efficient and knowledgeable then it will not be good for the company.
Therefore, it is very necessary for the leader of Sainsbury to adapt to a good and efficient
leadership style. A leadership style is defined as the set of different ways in which the leader can
exercise its power on its subordinates and the followers. There are three different styles of
leadership that is autocratic, democratic and laissez- faire. In autocratic style all the decision
making power are in hands of the leader only whereas in democratic style of leadership the
decision making power is in hands of the leader but it takes decision by consulting the employees
and the subordinate. On the other hand the third style that is laissez- faire is a style under which
the leader gives all the decision making power in the hands of the employees only.
The leadership style which is followed in Sainsbury is the democratic leadership style.
This is majorly because of the reason that this type of leadership helps the leader in taking more
efficient decision (Northouse, 2018). It is due to the fact that this leadership takes into
consideration the ideas and viewpoints of the employees and brain storms every point and then
takes any decision. This increases the morale and the motivation level of the employees as they
feel good that their idea is being taken into consideration before ant decision is being finalised.

Leadership principles
For being an effective and efficient leader it is very necessary for them to follow some
principles and guidelines. This is because of the reason that these principles make the activities
of the leader more efficient and excellent (Slevin, 2017). If the leader behaves well then the
employees will also listen to the leader and if the leader is not efficient in working then the
employees will also not be the same. Therefore, some of the principles of democratic leadership
style which the leader of Sainsbury does not want to violate are as follows-
Be technically efficient- this is the main principle under the democratic leadership style
that is the leader needs to be efficient and proficient in its working. This is because of the reason
that the employees learn from the leader and if the leader is not well sufficient in his knowledge
then what the employees will learn from them.
Timely decisions- the main work of the leader is to take decisions. If the leader is not able
to take timely decision then the followers will not obey the leader of Sainsbury. Also, if the
leader will not take decision on time then the working of the company will also be get affected
and this will decrease the goodwill of the company.
Developing a sense of responsibility- this is another major principle of the democratic
leadership. It is so because of the reason that the main duty of the leader under democratic
leadership style is to develop the subordinates to become self sufficient so that they are capable
of taking decision by themselves.
Impact of personal beliefs on leadership style
The personal beliefs of a person impact the leadership style to a great extent. This is
because of the reason that the leadership comes from inside the person and it is guided by the
personal thoughts and beliefs of the leader. The different types of beliefs and thoughts which
guides the leader and its behaviour are discussed in the connected points below-
Religion- this is one of the most important belief which impacts the behaviour of the
leader of Sainsbury. This is because of the reason that the belief of the person in religion is very
important and if the leader has very strong feelings relating to religion then he will prefers only
those employees who are either of same religion or also have same feeling in relation with the
leaders (Boin, Stern and Sundelius, 2016).
Honesty- this is another belief which the leader follows. This is due to the reason that if
the leader will be honest in its working then only they promote and use honest working ways and

measures. In contrast if the leader is not honest then it is not possible that the employees will also
be honest. This is because of the reason that the employees or the subordinates imitate what the
leader is doing (Spears and Lawrence, eds., 2016).
Key experiences
There are many of the experiences which i faced while working in the company which
illustrates me with the fact that i use good and effective leadership style which is democratic
leadership style. This is majorly because of the reason that whenever in the company any new
project comes every employee says that i should be the leader fo the project. The underlying
reason behind this fact is that the employees are very happy with my leadership skills and tactics
which i use to handle them and the project. The first experience which informed me about my
leadership style is that whenever i need to take any decision i always first consult all the team
members. With this practice all the employees get involved in the decision making process and
this makes them happy and satisfied that they are being involved in the process of decision
making. This practice of me illustrate that i use the democratic leadership style.
It is so because in democratic leadership style only the employees or subordinates are
involved in the decision making process and not in the other leadership style like autocratic or
laissez faire.
Another experience is that one time two of the group members were fighting and i solved
their problem in just two minutes. With this incident i felt that i have good leadership style and
can become a very good leader. This is because of the reason that i know how to deal with the
other people and this is the most important thing at time of dealing with the team members who
are of different thinking, perception and temperament.
PART- B- Application of leadership philosophy
Identification of key leadership issues
For the success if the business it is very necessary for the company to have effective and
efficient leadership and also to have an intelligent and knowledgeable leader. The underlying
reason behind this is that if the leader will not be efficient then the work of the company will not
be managed in proper way and this will impact the profitability and the productivity of the
overall company (Cashman, 2017). The leader is also a human being and they also face some
issues while working in the company. The leader has to deal with number of different types of
person and every person is different from one another. Therefore, the leader has to work with a

lot of patience and perseverance. Some of the leadership issues which are faced by me as a leader
of Sainsbury are as follows-
The major issue is to handle the different set of employees and subordinates (Ghasabeh,
Soosay and Reaiche, 2015). This is because of the reason that all the employees are not same
some have different attitude, some have different perception, different values and behaviour and
many other different things. Therefore, this is a really important issue attached to the leadership.
Another issue arises at time of decision making. This is because of the reason that for
taking a decision i take help of the employees and subordinates and every person provides with
different opinion. This makes the decision making a lot more problematic and time consuming as
i have to listen to everyone.
Another issue which i faced was delay in decision making. This is because of the reason
that there are many people in the team and the i have to listen to all of them and then do analysis
of all the suggestions and then take the final decision. This takes up a lot of time and delays the
process of decision making.
Brief overview of issue
The issue which i faced while working in Sainsbury relating to leadership style is that i
had to decide that which type of marketing strategy will be beneficial for the company whether
online marketing or the print media advertising. While deciding for this i faced the issue. The
main issue which i faced was of too much suggestion. We were working in the team of 25 people
and now every employee provides me with some or the other different solutions which made me
very confused that which option to select that will benefit the company to great extent. Also, this
was a tedious situation because all the employees have different opinion relating to the issue.
Therefore, it was a time consuming task for me to decide the one option for the benefit of the
company as every employee has different mind and perception.
Steps that could have been taken to solve the issue
This was a very chaotic situation for me and many options could have been taken to solve
this issue. Some if the steps which i could have used are as follows-
The first and foremost step which could have been taken by me was that i would have
undertaken a voting program through which all the employee could have just voted for the option
which according to them was a better option (Bowen and Shapiro, eds., 2016). This would save
the time of the employees as well as of me. It is so because of the reason that the employees in

the voting g system just have to say either yes or no for one option. They do not have to
elaborate there reasons that why they are saying yes for the option.
Another benefit of this option is that this also saves the time of me in deciding which
option to select (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016). This is because of the reason that i just have to
count the number of votes that is how many say yes and how many are no and whichever option
has more votes will be chosen and bring into effect for benefit of the company.
CONCLUSION
From the analysis of the above essay it was concluded that in managing the employees of
the company it is very necessary for the leader to use effective and efficient leadership styles.
The leadership styles are the different ways in which the leaders can exhibit their powers and
provide direction to their employees and subordinates. There are mainly three different types of
leadership styles that is autocratic, autocratic and laissez faire. But the leadership style used by
the leader of Sainsbury was democratic leadership style. Next thing which the essay highlighted
was principles guiding the leadership style and that were being technically efficient, timely
decision and many others. Further it was outlined that personal beliefs like religion, honesty also
impacts the leadership style. Also in the end it was highlighted that there are several issues in
leadership like time consuming, too many suggestion and also the main leadership issue in the
business was discussed and some steps to overcome that was highlighted.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Boin, A., Stern, E. and Sundelius, B., 2016. The politics of crisis management: Public leadership
under pressure. Cambridge University Press.
Bowen, W.G. and Shapiro, H.T. eds., 2016. Universities and their leadership (Vol. 98).
Princeton University Press.
Cashman, K., 2017. Leadership from the inside out: Becoming a leader for life. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers.
Conger, J., 2015. Charismatic leadership. Wiley encyclopedia of management, pp.1-2.
Ghasabeh, M.S., Soosay, C. and Reaiche, C., 2015. The emerging role of transformational
leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas. 49(6). pp.459-467.
Northouse, P.G., 2018. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Covin, J.G. and
Slevin, D.P., 2017. The entrepreneurial imperatives of strategic leadership. Strategic
entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.307-327.
Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education:
Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.
Spears, L.C. and Lawrence, M. eds., 2016. Practicing servant-leadership: Succeeding through
trust, bravery, and forgiveness. John Wiley & Sons.