Effective Leadership & Operations Management in Sainsbury's

This report provides an analysis of operations and management within Sainsbury's, a leading supermarket chain in the UK. It explores the differences between the roles of a leader and the functions of a manager, highlighting how these roles apply in various situations such as problem management, change management, and policy formulation. The report discusses different leadership theories and models including situational leadership, systems leadership, and contingency theory, evaluating their effectiveness in the context of Sainsbury's operational environment. Key approaches to operations management, such as Six Sigma, are examined for their ability to improve efficiencies and meet business objectives. The report also considers the impact of environmental factors on operational management and decision-making within the organization, concluding with insights into how effective leadership and operations management contribute to Sainsbury's success.

OPERATION AND
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Difference in the role of the leader and the function of the manager that are to be applied in
different situation.......................................................................................................................3
different theories and models of approaches, including situational leadership, systems
leadership and contingency.........................................................................................................5
Explain the key approaches to operations management, the role of leaders and managers........6
evaluate how they can improve efficiencies of operational management to successfully meet
business objectives in Sainsbury's...............................................................................................7
The environmental factors have impact on the operational management and decision making
of Sainsbury's..............................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
Books and Journals...................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Sainsbury's is the second largest supermarket chain in United Kingdom, they are having
more than 16% percent of the entire market share. They are also having more than 100,000
employees working for them. Being this huge organisation, they also have to be managed by
different personal, these can be the leaders or the managers. Every successful organisation all
around the globe is being managed effectively by an effectively leader. As leader are the one that
will be the binding thread between the organisation and the team members. Leader is the one that
is responsible for the smooth functioning of all the task in the organisation. Leader also performs
various task for operational management. With the help of operational management the leader
and the manager is able to minimize the wastage.
This report will discuss about the difference in the roles of the leader and the function of
the manager. This report will also throw some light on various theories,models, approaches of
leadership style. This report will also enlighten the viewer about the operation management.
MAIN BODY
Difference in the role of the leader and the function of the manager that are to be applied in
different situation.
The role of the leader is almost the same as the function that is been done by the
manager. A leader is a person who performs the task of guiding the team mates where are the
manager is a person who is responsible for the fulfilment of the task. Sainsbury's being the
second largest supermarket chain is standing in their current position only because of their
leaders and because of their efficient manager (Edwards, Maitland and Connor., 2017)
. Though their function might seem the same but there are various situation in which the
difference comes out. Few examples of these situation are as follows:
 Problem management – being a very large organisation Sainsbury's is having different
department and in they are having different type of people and that too with different
culture. So there might arise a situation in which there is conflict of interest may happen.
During this case the leader will be the one that will see through the root cause of the
problem and will be able to solve the problem from there. .during these type of situation
leader will be the one that will be able to solve the problem in an informal manner and
with the help of this he will be able to solve the problem at its initial stage. Where as the

manager will be solving the problem in a formal manner and in a systematic manner. The
manager by the time solves the conflict, by then another conflict might have arise. The
systematic or the formal way will take more and more time (Sang and et.al). During this
situation the manager will be solving the conflict in a lengthy manner.
 Change management – in an organisation there are various time when changes are needed
and during these changes the there is a lot of chaotic situation. These type of situation
will lead the company to have loses during the change management. During this process
the manger is the one that will initiate the change and he will also be the one that will
assign the role to different personal. The role of the manager will be to see whether the
task or the projects that are been assigned are being completed or not. It is also the
responsibility of the manager to have the correct record of the resources that are available
and to look that all of them are being used in an appropriate manner.
Where as the role of the leader in this process is very simple, a leader has to look that all whether
the change is being accepted by all or not and if not then they have to motivate the personal so
that unmotivated personal can be motivated and can do work easily (Zhu and et. al., 2018)
Leader is also the one that will be doing the task with the personal so he will be knowing the
changes that will be required. The leader will judge the personal that whether they are able to do
the job that they have been assigned or whether they will not be able to do it. The leader should
also have to make sure that whether the change is accepted by all or not.
 New policy formulation – during the stage of new policy formulation the role of the
leader will be to make sure that the new policy that is going to be implemented, will be
accepted by all or not. If not, then the leader have to make sure that will be happy when
the policy is being applied. During the policy formulation also the view of the leader is
going to be very wide and the policy formulated will be made keeping in mind the long
term growth of both the individual and the organisation. Where as the function on
manager is to formulate and implement new policy and they are are the one who are
responsible for successfully implementing the policy. While developing the policy the
vision of the manger is only narrow and he will be making the policy only to fulfil the
current objective.
A manger is the one that will be implementing the changes in the organisational and the leader is
the one that will make sure that everyone is happily accepting the changes (Laengle, and et .al.,

2018).. Leader will also be the one that will motivate the workforce work more and more
productive.
different theories and models of approaches, including situational leadership, systems leadership
and contingency
The manger an the leader play a very important role in the success of the organisation.
TESCO being the second largest supermarket retail chain in UK are having effective and
efficient leader. The theory and the approaches that they use are also different in different
situation and there is no universal style or t that can be applied in every situation. Some of the
styles are as follows:
1. situational leadership- in this type of leadership style there is no particular aspect that can
be applied in every situation. This theory states that the leader have to modify the style
according to what the situation is demanding. In the business world there are various
circumstances that may come unforeseen and the leader have to modify the theory and
the policy in that situation. The leader in Sainsbury's is having and promoting this type of
leadership as this will help them in coping up during the situation of panic. This theory is
very best during the time of unforeseen risk.
2. contingency leadership- during the working of the organisation there are various
instances where one leader is effective and one leader is ineffective (Graves, 2021) . The
effectiveness of the leader is judged by the decision that they will take during the
situation of contingency. This type of leadership will show the effectiveness of the
leaders, it will be decided on the basis of the decision that he will take during the
contingent situation. No one is perfect in this world and no leader will be able to make
decision in all the situation that will arise, but the ine that will be bale to make the
decision in maximum contingent situation will be the most productive one .
The leadership model that is being followed in Sainsbury's is the democratic type of leadership in
the top level and the autocratic leadership in the middle and the bottom level. It is all due to the
fact they are having more than 100,000 employees in all the outlets, so it will be impossible for
them to take the opinion of them all. The type of leadership are ass follows:
1. democratic leadership – in this type of leadership style the the leader will be taking the
opinion of all the other team members also, this will pave way for having more and more
creative ideas. When the leader will be taking the opinion of everyone it will pave way

for innovative ideas which can be applied. Although this type of method is time
consuming and costly, but they are highly effective in formulating different policy for the
organisation.
2. Autocratic leadership – this type of leadership style is very efficient in the lower level as
in this the leader will be only implementing the strategy and the policy that is required by
the top level management (Samson, 2020). Through the help of this method the leader
will be able to make the decision very swiftly and will be able to make to easily keep the
record for them. But when this type of leadership style is being used then the employees
will feel more and m,or demotivated towards the work. This type of leadership style is
well suited for the lower level of management. This will also make sure that there are no
chaotic situations as everything will be clear to every one.
Explain the key approaches to operations management, the role of leaders and managers.
Sainsbury's being so large in size is having various operation and various process and
they are also having various types of function. So maintaining them is a very hard job and having
these many types of functions and process will also pave way for useless task and it will make
way for wastage of resources. The wastage of resources will just lead the company to have losses
in future and to overcome that Sainsbury's have adopted the operational management for the
same. With the help of operational management Sainsbury's is able increase efficiency in their
process and they are able to make the most efficient use of their resources. Efficiency means
taking fuller utilisation of resources that are available and with the help of the same, various
organisation are reducing the wastage and cutting down the cost (Pekkanen, and et. al., 2020).
With the help of operation management the organisation all around the globe are able to sell their
products and services in a cheaper price and they will be able to gain competitive advantage over
their competitors. There are various approaches that Sainsbury's are using and these approaches
are as follows:
1. six sigma – this methodology is used by various organisation so that they can easily
discover the defects and after they have discovered the defects they can eliminate them.
This will help them in improving the current processes. In six sigma there are few
principles that help in identifying the defects in the process. In six sigma there are five
phases and these five phases are as follows:

 define – in this phase the manager or the leader have to define the goal that they want to
achieve. They also have to define the problem, these problem may be related to the
customer or the project requirements.
 Measure – the second phase is to measure the current process and with this they have to
gather all the data regarding the current processes ( Ferdows., 2018). This can be done
with the help of a data collection plan that will help the organisation to gather the defects
and problem in a systematic manner.
 Analyse – this process will be able to establish the root cause of the variation and will be
able to come up the issue that are in the way of achieving the organisational objectives.
Through this they will also be able to come up with the alternative ways so as to solve the
problems.
 Improve – In this phase the organisation will be able to eliminate the root cause of all the
problem and will be able to solve it with the help of innovative solutions.
 Control – in this phase the organisation after solving or rectifying the mistake, should
continuously analyse their new process and they have to make a note that so that they
don't repeat the same mistake in the new process also.
2. Lean production – there are various instances in which the company while cutting out the
waste also reduces the quality of the product. This type of thinking will hurt the company rather
than helping them. Sainsbury's with the help of the lean production approach was able to ensure
the quality of their products and services while cutting down the wastage. Through the help of
these methods they were able to make full utilisation of the resources that are available with
them (Dubey, Gunasekaran, and Papadopoulos ., 2019). What this method believes is that they
are involving employees more and more in the process of improving will also help in avoiding
waste.
evaluate how they can improve efficiencies of operational management to successfully meet
business objectives in Sainsbury's
There are various process that are being involved in the operation management and the
effects of operational management will happen to each and every department. Sainsbury's being
a supermarket Giant is having various department with the help of Lean production and six
sigma they are able to improve the efficiency of of the operational management in the

organisation. Some of the areas that will have a high impact of the lean production and six
sigma in them are as follows:
1. transformation of raw material into finished goods and services – with the help of the
lean production Sainsbury's will be able to make sure that they are eliminating all such
activities which are not generating them profit and with the help of learn production they
can also make sure that they are giving them the same quality after reducing the wastage
(Starr and Gupta, . eds., 2017). With the help of six sigma they will be able to make sure
the root cause of the problem that are there and many of the problems are relayed to the
inadequate training that the employees are having and through the help of the six sigma
Sainsbury's will be able to make sure that they are providing their employees training and
development that they need. Through proving the adequate training they will be able to
rectify the problem in their services.
2. Process design – in Sainsbury's there are lot of process and if not analysed many of those
process are only having losses. With the help of operational management they will be
able to make sure that they are modifying the existing process so that they can maximise
the use of their resources. With the help of lean management they will be able to make
sure that that there are no defects in their current process and if any defect arises they
have to make sure that they remove the defect with maintaining the same level of quality.
As this will help them in improving their efficiency . With the help of six sigma they are
able to define their goal and their wants and their wants, after that they will also be able
to analyse the process by keeping in mind the goal so that they can find the problem that
is acting like an obstacle for them (Berbegal, Gil,. and Alegre., 2017). With the help of
six sigma they will be able to remove the problems.
The environmental factors have impact on the operational management and decision making of
Sainsbury's
There are various factors that will affect the working of the company and these factors
are the one that are going to affect the decision making in that company. Environmental factors
are the one that is having a very high impact on the operational management and the decision
making of the Sainsbury's. While doing the what is to be kept in mind is that the business are
taking the resources from the environment and they have to return something back to the
environment. A lot of time organisation all over te world are taking excessive amount of

resources from the nature and after sometime the area in which they are operating will lack the
resource and in that point of time the top level management will have to modify the decision also
that they are using the resources with keeping in mind the sustainable development. As
Sainsbury's is having their outlets all over England so that means that there are various areas
where there is a lack of resources available and for that purpose they have to respect all the
resources that are available over there (Dutta,. Ghoshal and Kumar., 2017). There also few
instances where the organisation in order to reduce the wastage, over utilizes the resource that
are present in that particular area and this will ultimately harm the surroundings around them and
in the upcoming future they will not be able to use any resources over there. The top level
management will also have to keep in mind the that the decision that they are making should also
have some consideration in regards to the nature and its resources.
CONCLUSION
After analysing the report bit can be concluded that there are various type of role in an
organisation and the role of the leader in an organisation is very clear. A leader is the one that
9is going to provide direction and that is going to provide vision to their subordinates. Leader is
also the one that will be trying to solve the problem from its root cause where as the role of the
manager is to provide the overview o9f the task. A manager is the one that is going to form new
policy and that is going to assign the role to different personal. There are also various types of
theories that are being applied by the management of Sainsbury's and the type of leadership style
that they are using is the situational type of leadership and in this type of leadership the leader
will modify their tactics and their decision that are being demanded by the situation. With the
help of operational management Sainsbury's is able to make sure that the process that they are
having is efficient as well as effective and they also have to make sure that they reduce process
that are not necessary. Also the environmental factors effect the operational management and the
decision making in Sainsbury's

REFERENCES
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and future. Annals of Operations Research. 283(1). pp.1-8.
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operations management. In The Routledge Companion to Production and Operations
Management (pp. 291-308). Taylor and Francis/Routledge.
Edwards, B., Maitland, A. and Connor, S., 2017. Measurement error in survey operations
management. Total survey error in practice.
Ferdows, K., 2018. Keeping up with growing complexity of managing global
operations. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.
Graves, S. C., 2021. Reflections on the Evolution of Operations Management. Management
Science.
Kayikci, Y., 2019. E-Commerce in logistics and supply chain management. In Advanced
Methodologies and Technologies in Business Operations and Management (pp. 1015-
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Management Research. 13. pp.1-3.
Sang, A.J., and et.al., FutureWei Technologies Inc, 2019. System and method for user equipment
operations management. U.S. Patent 10,498,504.
Starr, M. K. and Gupta, S. K. eds., 2017. The Routledge Companion to Production and
Operations Management. Taylor & Francis.
Zhu, L., and et. al., 2018. Key performance indicators for manufacturing operations
management–gap analysis between process industrial needs and ISO 22400
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