Leadership, Management, and Operations at Starbucks

This report provides an in-depth analysis of leadership, management, and operational strategies within Starbucks. It begins by defining the roles of leaders and managers, including their functions in various scenarios such as company losses and internal conflicts. The report then explores different leadership theories and models, including situational, system, and contingency leadership, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. Key approaches to operations management, such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, queuing approach, Total Quality Management, Just-in-Time inventory, and continuous improvement (Kaizen), are examined in detail. The importance of operational management in ensuring product quality, revenue generation, competitive advantage, employee motivation, regulatory compliance, and customer satisfaction is emphasized. Finally, the report discusses factors influencing decision-making and operational management, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject.

MANAGEMENT&
OPERATIONS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
P2 Role of a Leader and Functions of Manager..........................................................................3
P3 Theories and Models of Leadership.......................................................................................4
P4 Key Approaches to Operations Management.........................................................................6
P5 Importance of operational management.................................................................................7
P6. Factors that influences decision-making and operational management................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
INTRODUCTION

Management is the administration of an organization which includes setting activities for
making up strategies in the organization by coordinating with the efforts of its volunteers to let
accomplish business goals through the application of available resources. It refers to the people
who manage the organization. Operations management refers to the area of management
concerned with controlling & designing the process of production and redesigning business
operation in the productions of goods and services. Starbucks is an American multinational chain
of coffe-houses and roastery reserve which is the world largest coffee-house chain which
includes products such as hot and cold coffee drinks, whole- bean coffee, expresso, caffee latte,
fresh juices and many others. Present report will address to role of a leader and functions of
managers and various theories of leadership in different situational context. It will brief on
understanding of the relationship between leadership and management in business environment
and will also brief on roles of leaders and managers in the operation function of organization.
MAIN BODY
P2 Role of a Leader and Functions of Manager
Leader is a person who motivate and inspire its team, get inputs from its employees, keep
them informed, get timely/specific feedback and ensures that training need are met and hold
employees accountable (Legood,Thomas,Sacramento, 2016). Managers are person who are
responsible for the process of getting activities completed efficiently with employees of company
and achieving goals by implementing four functions that are planning, organizing, staffing and
controlling.
Situation1 (When the company is facing loss)
This is the situation where company is facing loss which states that role of leader in
Starbucks is to structure the business again properly where it should find the best possible
structure for the company which can regain companies overall growth. Leader should analyse
with its ability of what is going around in the company as well as industry and make corrective
measures to find out where its business operations are lacking & facing losses and make
decisions on the steps to be taken to improve upon the same (Sharma, Bhatnagar, 2017).
Function of a manager when the company is facing loss is to create a robust internal
awareness program for loss prevention in the company where marketing and communication
initiatives between various department should be taken by manager to avoid future loss, Function
of the manager in this situation when the company is facing loss is to recruit and hire talented

employees who can prove there worth in job and which can help Starbucks in achieving its goals
letting from the prevention of loss. Managers should ensure that each employee is suitable for the
job role provided to them as it will help employees to perform their job more productively which
in turn will help the company in achieving its target.
Situation2 (When there is conflict in the company)
When there is conflict in the company, which is possibly everywhere the role of a leader
in the company is to communicate with different parties to conflict where leader should analyse
the situation of want went wrong which lead to rise in the conflict among the parties. Leader
should diagnose the conflict where leader can take attempt to minimize and neutralize the
conflict issues. Leader must assist and support others in maintaining boundaries where leader
must possesses self- awareness to keep themselves crossing there lines in order to avoid future
conflicts in the company.
Functions of manager when there is conflict in the company is to proactively address to
the conflict as avoiding it may result in creating more misunderstanding between the parties.
Managers should act as an investigator, where it is required to listen and understand what is
going between the parties. Manager then needs to act as a mediator where it is required to
provide collaboratively identifying solutions with the employees to resolve and avoid future
conflicts.
P3 Theories and Models of Leadership
Leadership theories are brought forward to explain how and why individuals become
leader in the company. The theories highlight the traits and abilities of individual to guide team
or organization in order to achieve goals of the company efficiently (Grootenboer, 2018).
Situational Leadership
It refers to leadership where leaders adapt to different leadership style according to the
situation. It is an effective way of leadership as it adapts to the team needs which sets beneficial
balance for the company (Othman, Hamzah, Ridzuan,2018). Theory says that there is no best
style of leadership and it all depends on the situation. It helps leaders of Starbucks to evaluate
team by simply asking current situations of the company.
Advantages of this approach is it creates comfortable environment for its employee's that
provides readiness level of its employee's and their needs. It helps in increasing the awareness of
the leaders as they need to always be in their toes to get successful. By adopting to change,

leaders can adapt an approach that will help its employees to stay productive. Disadvantage of
this approach is it focus more on immediate needs rather than long term needs as it is focused on
meeting exact needs, at the prevailing moment than on focusing long term needs of team. It can
be ineffective in task oriented environment where tasks must be in specific ways to be completed
which turn out to be disadvantage for leaders in this approach (Thompson,Glasø,2018).
System leadership
This approach refers to the set of skills and capacities that an individual can use to
enable, catalyse and support the process of system level change (Boylan,2018). It refers how
leader lead when it not in charge and need to influence employees of the company rather than
pulling management (The Major Leadership Theories,2020).
Advantage of this is it increase the company's adaptability to environmental changes as it
enables leader to adapt according to the needs of environment and make decisions accordingly.
This is adaptive and dynamic approach which focus on multi dimensions where it helps meeting
the goals of individual and company as a whole. Disadvantage of this approach is it assumes that
all variables have same level of equality in relation to control and impact over the business
environment as some variables trend to have greater impact and degree of control as compared to
other variables.
Contingency Leadership
This approach emphasis on the importance of both the personality of leader in Starbucks
and the situation in which leader operates. It claims that there is no best way to organize a
company, to lead, or to make decision (Vidal,2017). Instead, the optimal course of action is
dependent upon external and internal situation of company.
Advantage of this approach is it is dynamic in nature, it changes according to the
situation which allows leaders to enhance their leadership and decision-making skills in given
situations. Disadvantage of this approach is it has complex approach suggestion to which is
simple but when it comes to practical it becomes more complex. It is reactive in nature for which
sometimes it becomes hard in nature to take decision by leaders leading to company
inefficiencies.
P4 Key Approaches to Operations Management
Six sigma-

It refers to improving the quality of operation in company by eliminating defects and
errors, reducing cost ad saving time. It provides organizational tool to improve upon the
capabilities of business process, which increase the performance and decrease the process
variation which lead to high quality products with minimum errors resulting in profit
maximization for company(WHAT IS SIX SIGMA?,2020).
Role of manager in this approach is to create and foster an environment that fosters an
environment that set the stage for companies success (Marzagão,Carvalho,2016).. Managers
need to pick the right projects, right people, follow the method, clearly define the roles of
employees, communicate and support training which will improve the operations of business and
let achieve the business objectives in terms of growth & development.
Lean Manufacturing-
It is the production method that states to reduce waste in manufacturing system without
sacrificing productivity. It aims to cut cost by making business more efficient and responsive to
market needs. The customers define what is the value in terms of what they have paid.
Role of manager in this approach is to optimize service or production process. Study the
current state map based on available data and to create a long term ideal state map which include
products value that would appear in long term which will help company in meeting its desired
goals more efficiently (Marodin, 2018).
Queuing approach-
It refers to waiting in line operations of the company. It refers to creating an efficient and
cost effective workflow allowing the company to improve on traffic flow in operations. These
addresses to staffing, customer service shortfalls and scheduling.
Role of manager is to reduce the response time when managers need to be effectively
communicating as customer of company hate to wait. Managers need to have all information on
fingertips to prioritize customer request as for company customer are its business which needs to
be taken care off in order to achieve high sales volume.
Total Quality Management
It consists of company's wide effort to implement and make permanent environment
where its employee's continuously improve on their ability to provide on demand products/
services that customer finds the value for (Pambreni,2019).

Role of Managers in TQM is to act as facilitator at the workplace where there duty is to
assist employee's in implementing TQM. It is the responsibility to select right individuals who
can work as line managers and take entire charge of projects which will help in strengthening
competitive position of company.
Just in-Time Inventory
It is a strategy to increase efficiency of company and decrease waste by receiving goods
only that are required in production process, which in turn reduces the cost of maintaining
inventory.
Role of managers in maintaining effective JIT is to control and oversee purchasing from
suppliers in order to maintain effective inventory level which does not result in wastage and loss
of quality which in turn help the company in achieving efficiency in the operations of company
as it helps in cutting down the cost of maintaining inventory.
Continuous improvement/Kaizen approach-
It is a strategy where employees of all levels continuously work together actively to
achieve regular, incremental improvement in manufacturing process (Ramos,2018).
Role of manager in Kaizen approach is to measure and test procedures in the company
with an eye to improve production efficiency in order to drive improvement in systems of the
company which in turn help the company in maintaining certain standards to follow resulting in
operational efficiencies of company.
P5 Importance of operational management
Operation management is important in Starbucks as it helps in effectively managing,
controlling and supervising products, services and employees of company.
 It ensures that product and services are of the best quality which helps in deriving the
satisfaction for the customers resulting in meeting the goals of the company.
 It ensures increase in the revenues as company will have good reputation in market
because of high quality of products/services which will generate huge customer base.
 Operations ensures in getting a competitive advantage where effective operation
management will help in getting ahead of its competition to win in marketplace.
 It will result in motivated employee's as it ensures that employees know their roles in the
company to which they will be accountable which will help them in maximising their
productivity more efficiently.

 Operation management adhere to compliance as there are certain rules to be followed
which will make sure company to avoid fines and run in a lawful manner.
 It ensures in deriving customer satisfaction as customer can make or break business. It
ensures that customer needs are at the forefront of products/services delivered.
P6. Factors that influences decision-making and operational management
Currently there are lots of factors exists within Starbucks’ business environment that
affects decision-making and operational management of leaders and managers in both manners,
positively and negatively. Some major factors have been discussed below;
Product quality
This is one of main factors within Starbucks’ business environment which has influenced to
operational management aspects of leaders and managers within workplace. Basically, top-level
management at this company always takes decisions towards making quality of its products and
services very excellent (Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis and Schönberger, 2019). In this situation, it adopts
and implements various approaches of operations management, like; Just in time, Lean
production, Total quality management. In this same scenario, leader takes decisions towards
informing their employees and team members about approaches of operations management.
After these all activities, top-level management of this company has succeeded in increasing
quality of its various products and services.
Performance of employees
This another major factor within Starbucks’ business environment that impacts various aspects of
leaders and managers. Basically, a business should always have an effective workforce for
achieving its various targets on time. In this situation, this factor influences decision-making and
operational management of leader to decision towards informing its upper manager about
improving performance of existing employees. This factor affects leader for motivating
employees to develop their skills to perform very well in workplace. On the other side, the factor
affects to manager for taking decisions towards conducting different training and development
sessions in workplace. Basically, these sessions highly contribute in the development of skills
and abilities of employees.
Day to day increasing market competition
Currently many entrants are coming in international coffee café industry, so that the market
competition is also increasing accordingly. This factor highly affects to operational management

and decision-making aspects of leaders and managers. On the basis of the impact of market
competition, the manager of Starbucks has to adopt some new business strategies (Simons,
2017). For example; the management use competitive-based pricing strategy to make prices of its
products something favourable than its competitors. It should take the decision for adopting
diversification strategy as well, because this business strategy enable to company for entering in
the new market segment with newly developed product or service. These decisions will defiantly
help to upper management for gaining huge competitive advantage ibn market place. On the
other side, market competition factor affects leaders to take decisions for maintaining excellent
levels of customer service, because currently most customers like to visit only on such coffee
café houses which provides some exclusiveness to customers.
These all key factors of Starbucks’ business environment highly affect to operational
management and decision-making of leaders and managers. By properly considering impacts of
these factors, managers and leaders will enable to take appropriate decisions for the growth of
Starbucks.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is being understood that without proper management no
company can think of its survival in the marketplace. It is understood that company needs to be
efficient in its operations in order to achieve business growth. It is understood that in a company
leaders should possess certain personality traits to make its employee follow and should adapt to
different leadership style which will help the companies to succeed in marketplace. From the
above report is also understood that operational management plays a vital role for any
organization in deriving success which can be terms of customer satisfaction by providing high
quality resulting in increased revenues of the company. It is also understood that company needs
to be updated with various approaches of operational management as it helps in achieving the
goals of business more effectively and efficiently.

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