Sainsbury's Leadership and Management: A Comprehensive Analysis

Desklib provides solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

Management and Operations
Sainsbury

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................2
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
P1 DEFINE AND COMPARE THE DIFFERENT ROLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERS AND
MANAGERS..............................................................................................................................................3
M1 ANALYSIS AND DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE ROLES OF A LEADER AND FUNCTIONS OF A
MANAGER BY EFFECTIVE APPLICATION OF A RANGE OF THEORIES AND CONCEPTS..............................5
P2 HOW ROLES OF LEADERS AND FUNCTIONS OF A MANAGER APPLY IN THE DIFFERENT SITUATIONAL
CONTEXT..................................................................................................................................................7
P3 DIFFERENT THEORIES AND MODELS OF APPROACH.........................................................................10
M2 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO SITUATIONS WITHIN THE WORK
ENVIRONMENT......................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................12
TASK 2........................................................................................................................................................13
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................13
P4 THE KEY APPROACHES TO OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND THE ROLE OF LEADERS AND
MANAGERS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION.............................................................................................13
P5 IMPORTANCE AND VALUE OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT IN ACHIEVING BUSINESS OBJECTIVES 15
M3 HOW LEADERS AND MANAGERS CAN IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT
TO SUCCESSFULLY MEET THE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES............................................................................17
P6 THE FACTORS WITHIN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT THAT HAS AN IMPACT UPON THE
OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT AND DECISION-MAKING BY LEADERS AND MANAGERS.......................18
M4 HOW THESE DIFFERENT FACTORS AFFECT THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND WIDER
COMMUNITY.........................................................................................................................................20
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................21
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................23
1

INTRODUCTION
Every organization has certain goals and the organizations design their management structure
and operational activities accordingly and hence the Business management and operations play
a vital role in every organization. The Sainsbury is third largest chains of supermarkets in the UK
which has shown great development in the business activities due to having the effectual and
well organized structure of managerial & operational activities (Hillier, 2012). This assignment
will help learners to understand the difference in leaders’ role and managers’ function of
managers with the help of various theories and the characteristics of leaders and managers will
also be discussed. In addition, Role leader’s appreciation & managers perform the operational
functions ineffective way within the organization will also be analyzed through an explanation
of key approaches of operation management. The factors will also be evaluated in this
assignment that affects the business environment and how leaders and managers deals with
these factors will be discussed. Further, the efficiencies of operation management would help
to attain the organizational goals with the help of managers & leaders will also be analyzed.
Eventually, the relationship between managers and leadership will be understood and
management in a contemporary business environment will also be demonstrated.
2

TASK 1
INTRODUCTION
Sainsbury is a well-known supermarket chain in the United Kingdom which mainly offers home
ware, food, clothes & financial services. The organizational structure of this company is
hierarchical and the control of each level in the hierarchical structure is from upper to lower.
Sainsbury is much focused on the culture of power and managers and leaders guide the
employees by following the power culture in terms of achieving the managerial goals fixed by
managers (Carmichael et al., 2015). In the first task, the roles & functions of leaders and
managers will be disclosed and how various theories of leadership & management support the
managers and leaders to create organizational activities more effective will be discussed.
P1 DEFINE AND COMPARE THE DIFFERENT ROLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
LEADERS AND MANAGERS
Leader: A leader is a person that takes care of a group of members in an organization in order
to guide and lead them in an effective manner for achieving the organizational objectives. A
leader carries a higher position among team members and the leader carries the right to
control the team members as well. Leaders are authorized to influence the team members or
subordinates working under his team to get work done on time.
Managers: a Manager is a person that manages and controls business activities & takes
responsibility of overall operational activities and administration for the attainment of
organizational goals. They also take the responsibility of planning, organizing, staffing, direct
and control the organizational activities for improvement in working performance of employees
and business activities. They also take care of the needs and requirements of the organization
along with levels of operations (DuBois et al., 2015).
Comparison between Roles and characteristics of managers and leaders
Manager Leader
 A manager controls business activities  A leader always encourages &
3

& establishes coordination among
people working in an organization.
 Managers mainly manage the group
members and the tasks assigned to
them.
 Managers are against risk.
 The focus of managers is to use the
traditional method to deal with the
troubles arising in business.
motivates the individuals to get their
contribution to achieving business
goals.
 Leaders mainly lead and influence the
group members.
 Leaders take risks.
 Leaders handle problems with the help
of a more creative and innovative
approach.
4

M1 ANALYSIS AND DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE ROLES OF A LEADER AND FUNCTIONS OF A
MANAGER BY EFFECTIVE APPLICATION OF A RANGE OF THEORIES AND CONCEPTS
The role of a leader and functions of managers can be understood with the help of different
theories and concepts of leadership and management discussed below-
Concepts & theories of leadership and management by leaders
Behavioural Theory: It doesn’t believe in born leadership. The leaders learn the leadership by
assuming things, more interactions and take action for getting the result from individuals (Li et
al., 2017). According to behavioural theory, leadership is all about practices where a person
works hard and learns things and ultimately gains the leadership qualities to handle a group of
individuals and give the results to the company.
Contingency Theory: This theory argues that only fixed leadership style cannot give the
effective result to the company always. A leader is required to obtain different styles to lead the
team as per situations. The situation of the organization could be different many times and
leaders are really not capable to take decisions effectively if they are following the fixed
leadership styles for every team member. Sainsbury’s leaders are quite flexible to take action
because they are allowed to make decisions as per the prevailing situation (Fiedler, 2015).
Trait Theory: This Theory highlights the characteristics of all leaders who are successful and
unsuccessful. This theory shows helps to analyses the qualities, skills and knowledge of
successful leaders as compare to unsuccessful leaders and hence to become successful leader,
every person is required to have effective personality towards work, self-confident and should
be task-oriented. It also involves social characteristics, cognitive & intellective ability and
personality of the individual within the organization (Prentice et al., 2019).
There are some more theories and concepts for managers for better understanding of the
leadership & management of an organization and these are described below-
Concepts & theories of leadership and management by leaders
5

Classical management Theory: This theory has a hierarchical structure of management and it
mainly focuses on the specialization of employees and provides the incentives in order to
motivate them. This theory assumes that the workers are having only economic and physical
needs and the organization provide the facilities according to these basic needs only. This
structure is somehow very effective because the specialization of employees help the
organization to make particular activity in a particular department more effective where the
extra benefits like incentives motivate the employees to work more (Ferdous, 2016).
Transactional leadership model: This leadership theory helps employees to get proper
direction and encouragement from the leaders. Leaders mainly motivate and direct the team
members to work with their self-interest. Leaders use the “Telling Style” in order to convey the
information and employees are required to obey sincerely whatever said by a leader.
Sainsbury's managers are very focused on providing a reward as well as punish the team
members also in terms of achieving organizational objectives within organization (Afsar et al.,
2017).
Chaos theory: Chaos theory is based on certain charts and graphs which help to analyses the
market conditions and market fluctuations. For example, the Stock market's share prices
constantly fluctuate. Leaders and managers use this theory in order to analyze the ups and
downs of an organization's profit and the activities which are getting affected from the internal
and external activities with the help of charts and graphs (Arnaboldi et al., 2015).
6

P2 HOW ROLES OF LEADERS AND FUNCTIONS OF A MANAGER APPLY IN THE DIFFERENT
SITUATIONAL CONTEXT
Role of leaders
1. The foremost objective of a leader is to keep team members motivated and self-
interested towards their work and duties and hence the employees motivation is a very
important that should be take care by leaders in most effective and efficient ways.
2. Employees perform better whenever they get the proper direction from the senior
authorities and hence the leaders are also responsible for providing a systematic
direction & to guide the team members for attainment of goals set by the managers of
the company.
3. Many times team members feel the stress during working hours in terms of completing
the activity effectively on time without any fail. Any kind of rejection and failure in their
work increase their stress level and their moral down and hence leaders are also
responsible to make them feel a most important part of the organization and that could
be done by appreciating them for their work or leaders can also throw a simple party in
order to reduce their stress level.
4. Leaders are also responsible to make different and efficient strategies for the
organization in order to make the working environment more effective for employees
and the strategies could give the maximum output with maximum profit (Kosfeld, 2019).
Functions of managers
1. Planning: Managers are responsible to plan the business strategies and every activity in
effective way which is required to perform by the employees for achieving business
objectives.
2. Organizing: The manager is also responsible to organize organizational resources like
man, materials and machines in the most efficient manner as per the plan.
3. Staffing: This function of the manager is little crucial where a manager is required to
allocate the duties and task to the employees as per their skills, knowledge and
expertise by ensuring that the result will be more effective.
7

4. Directing: The managers should be very attentive towards business activities which are
performing by the team members as well as they are required to communicate with
employees as well in order to know that they do not have any problem in the working
environment from anything and if they are facing any issue and challenge while working,
manager are responsibly required to assist them.
5. Controlling: Controlling is all about the checking business activities and employees
performance in order to ensure that the activities are going on as per the set objective
of the organization.
The managers and leaders always take care that the flow of operational activities are going
smooth and they are required to make activities more efficient and effective in an
organization (Tahan et al., 2015). There are some situations discussed below and this will
help the manager & leader to evaluate the theory & concepts of management and
leadership in Sainsbury.
Situation1
Increasing the efficiencies & productivity of organization by implementing the technology
Solution: The managers of an organization can perform all the functions like planning,
organizing, staffing, directing and controlling to implement technology of business
operations in this situation.
Situation2
The Incorporation of existing offers in the range of other products and services of an
organization
Solution: The employees are required to have proper guidance from the managers. So
managers can plan & organize their resources and activities for getting effective results.
Apart from this, leaders can accomplish strategies and can release the strengths group of
individuals.
8

9

P3 DIFFERENT THEORIES AND MODELS OF APPROACH
Situational leadership: This leadership argues that style of leadership must be obtained as per
the situation. And the style should always be directive and supportive towards the employees.
In this leadership style, the supportive style is defining the behaviour of a leader where the
leader is required to guide and assist his team members and Directive leadership style is
defining the control and command of business activities and discipline among team members
within an organization. Situational leadership style included 4 primary elements such as;
1. Telling: This element mainly focuses on commanding the team members relevant to
what is required to do and how it should be done. Leaders are more directive and less
supportive in telling style.
2. Selling: In this leadership, style leaders carry both supportive and directive behaviour.
Leaders share their ideas and also involve the team members to share their views and
opinions.
3. Participating: leaders actively involve the team members in group activities so that
effective decisions could be taken. Leaders are more focused on maintaining supportive
behaviour towards employees instead of directive behaviour.
4. Delegating: leaders are responsible here to delegate the duties and task to the
employees and employees are required to perform all the activities with less support
and guidance of team leader (Lynch et al., 2018).
System leadership: System leadership is based on the activities which are performing by the
employees in cross boundaries. The multiple employees work from different places and they
are assigned with different tasks and duties although these different tasks of different
employees should be performed for the same organization with the same goal. Leaders lead
the members with proper coordination and synchronization for achieving the business
objectives. Sainsbury could apply this style in terms of connecting the cross countries and can
achieve the overall objectives in organization (Senge et al., 2015).
Contingency Approach:
10

Contingency Approach is a contrast of situational leadership style because it also believes that
all situations can’t be same within an organization and leaders can’t resolve the problems with
single leadership style and hence this approach argues that the leaders are authorized to adopt
their personal style to lead the team in a most effective and efficient way. This approach is also
assuming that the leader's behaviour can't be changed or influenced. This theory is based on
three factors such as positional power, task structure and relationship between leader and
team members (Prajogo et al., 2017).
11