BM308 Strategic Leadership and Management: Sainsbury's Performance

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management theories, examining their historical development and comparing leadership and management in the 21st century. It evaluates these concepts with the help of established theories like Management by Objectives and Chaos Theory, alongside leadership theories such as Trait Theory and Behavioral Theory. The report also explores key performance metrics within organizational sectors, focusing on Sainsbury's and its performance. It discusses how leadership and management practices influence organizational outcomes, highlighting Sainsbury's strategies for adapting to changes and enhancing performance through effective leadership and management skills. The report emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and improvement for managers and leaders to achieve organizational goals and competitive advantage. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools for students.

Leadership and
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Historical development of leadership.....................................................................................1
Examine and comparison of leadership and management on the basis of 21st century..........2
Evaluate the leadership and management with the help of theories.......................................3
Key performance metrics of organizational sector/market/industry......................................4
Organizational leadership and management performance.....................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
From the past times, it has been analysed that the leadership and management skills are
important for the company as if they want to accomplish their goals on the effective basis.
Management is not only about managing the work or implementing the operations as it
undertakes all the suitable things like directing, controlling or planning about workers and their
task in terms of smoothing functioning. In the uncertain times, it is important that the manager
need to possess the advanced leadership skills by which they can handle the condition in broader
manner (Torrance, 2018). They also want effective leadership skill or quality by which they can
influence the employee to work and also achieve competitive advantage. The term leadership and
management is different but both work for the improvement of particular ability or skills from
which leadership is the important part of management.
Further, if an individual has leadership skills but does not own the management skills then they
are functioning well. For this, managers can also achieve high results if they do not have such
leadership skills too. Along with this, the company does not get succeed due to the shortage of
leadership and management as their managers does not able to response about the uncertain
factors. For this report, company is opted in terms of seeing that the managers have to build their
management leadership and management skills and so these ability and skills help them in terms
of motivating or supporting their workforce and enhance the overall performance (Doyle and
Brady, 2018). For this report, Sainsbury’s is considered which is the biggest retailer of groceries
in 1922 but in 1995 Tesco takeover Sainsbury’s to become the market leader. The company deals
in wide variety of products and services so it is very essential for them to possess the leadership
and management skills.
MAIN BODY
Historical development of leadership
A leader may be known as a leader because of the formal relation who leads to provide the
possession of the managerial ranking within the organisation. For this, a leader can be casual or
informal as the person who take steps an also provide the effective guidance from the group of
people who has been granted the power of decision making (Netland, Powell and Hines, 2019).
There are various varieties of King Arthur’s story as it is one of the most suitable folklore stories
from the England. For this, this most of the edition tell that how Arthur became king, when the
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Lady of Lake gave him a sword named Excalibur. He was chosen as the same who he possessed
as the certain by the divine right as he became the king of Britain.
Furthermore, back in 1950’s the armed forces of US become more concerned regarding the
leadership qualities among the non-commissioned officers. The research was carried out in non-
commissioned officers’ schools at the Fort Hood in California. Along with this, the programme
came to the attending of Boy Scouts of America by the associate of national Scouting committee.
Through this, the various conferences, it was notice that there were fields for the effective
investigation service to proceed the close look at the white Stag program in terms of determining
the value of this approach to adult and boy leader growth.
Examine and comparison of leadership and management on the basis of 21st century
Basis Leadership Management
Definition Leadership is considered as the
quality which a person tends to
carry by which they can
encourage other individual to
perform their tasks in an
impressive manner.
Management is the procedure
of planning, organising,
controlling and guiding the
unit of people by which the
objectives can be achieved.
Orientation Leaders are group oriented. Managers are task oriented.
Focus group They lead people by effective
conduct or method.
There main motive is that
how they can manage their
work or activity in an
effective way.
Outcomes With the help of leadership,
they make efforts to achieve
suitable goals and objectives.
Here, management is all
about acquiring the best
outcome.
Organisation Here, the leaders make effort
for other individuals to follow
them.
Managers have their own
subordinates to whom they
manage or provide guidance.
Powers They lead to develop quality
and power among them.
Manager tends to practice
their powers over the lower
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level of employees.
Reaction Through leadership skills, they
can make suitable alteration
and changes within the system.
Through management skills
managers tends to react on the
modification or changes.
Role or objective The important objective is that
they can support or motivate
the individuals of company.
The main objective is that
they provide direction or right
path to their subordinates.
Communication skills The leaders have the suitable
communication skills instead
of managers.
Managers leads to possess
less communication skills
instead of leaders.
Methods They lead to use the emotional
connection to boost their
employees.
They use the formal and
rational method in terms of
managing things.
Evaluate the leadership and management with the help of theories
Management theories
Management by objectives: It is a strategic management model which helps the
company in improving their performance by providing clear objectives of the company to the
management and the employees of the company. According to the model, there should be a set
goals and an action plan available in all the organisation which can help the employees in
working according to the objectives of the company (Zeier, Plimmer, and Franken, 2021). It is
also referring to as management by planning whose objective is to set up a management
information system in the organisation that can help the company in comparing and examine the
actual performance with the expected performance. The first step in the process is to provide a
view of objectives of the company to the employees with the help of mission and vision of the
company. Second step is to make sure that the objectives of the company are according to the
SMART model. Thirdly the company must divide the tasks into individual objectives which are
easier to achieve. Forth step is to monitor the progress of the employees in order to make
changes wherever required and the fifth step is to provide rewards to employee. In context to
Sainsbury, the company understands the value of motivation in the workings of the company as
well as of the employees. By using this management technique, the company promotes open
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communication in the organisation which is also beneficial for good employer employee
relationship within the organisation.
Chaos theory of management: The theory states that the mangers of the company must
always be ready for the environmental and technological changes of the industry. It is important
for the managers to make sure that they are acting proactively on the changes taking place in the
industry so that they can cope with it. It focuses mainly on unpredictability in behaviour and
occurrences (Heinze and Weisskircher, 2021). In context to Sainsbury, the company understands
that they require increased efforts and energy in order to cope with these changes in the
organisation and make sure that they are providing proper training to their managers so that they
can enhance their skills and abilities.
Leadership theories
Trait theory: It refers to the theory which states that natural qualities of a human being
tends to create a good leader. The qualities include strong leadership skills, good listening skills,
good communication skills, etc. In reference to Sainsbury, the company makes sure that the
employees of the company are developing skills which can help them in becoming a good and
effective leader.
Behavioural theory of leadership: the theory of leadership states that the direction of
leader should be on the environment instead on the abilities. The surrounding of people makes
them efficient leaders rather than the abilities of the person (Karatepe, Ozturk and Kim, 2019). It
is important for the companies to look for the behaviour of a person rather than their natural
attributes. In context to Sainsbury, the company focuses on the observation and analysis of the
actions of leaders in a given situation. It helps them in understanding whether the leader is
capable or not.
Key performance metrics of organizational sector/market/industry
Key performance metrics are the suitable factors of company that leads to tell that what is
needed by the company and how much period of time it will take to achieve their goal and
success. Through this, the company acquire to experience regarding their result by which they
can meet suitable goals and objectives. Further, the suitable leadership and management skills
are helpful for them to improve their overall performance. In this context, Sainsbury’s leads to
use Corporate Steering Wheel to measure their key performance indicators but now the company
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tends to replace their six KPIs that include sales, profit, customer recommendations, opinion of
colleague, trusted partnership and operating cash flow.
Apart from this, the company tends to reduce their KPIs so that they can put more
emphasis on the priorities instead of other things. They also want to eliminate their complexities
by using the steering wheel which is quite complex that has several indicators (Fan, 2018) . The
six KPs are needs to be cautiously communicated by Sainsbury’s so, they can achieve Buy-in
and involve rights in whole the company.
Organizational leadership and management performance
The world of the business has been transformed to great extent and is evolving dramatically in
the global economic scenario. Due to significant changes in the business environment the leaders
and managers of the organisations have to pull up their socks in order to adapt and the changes in
effective and efficient manner. Therefore, the leaders and managers of the Sainsbury are focusing
on the leadership and management skills in order to manage the changes and to enhance the
performance of the organisation (Sarwar and et. al., 2020). Leadership is the process of
supervising, guiding and directing the employees in order to develop learning. The leaders of the
Sainsbury have a golden rule of using two more leadership style at one time in order to succeed
in the role and to lead and supervise the team of the Sainsbury in efficient manner. The leaders of
the Sainsbury have empathy and politeness and does not think their power as the position rather
choose it as strategic tool to increase the performance and productivity of the employees to foster
the sales and profits (Schultz and et. al., 2018).
The mangers and leaders of the Sainsbury are always in phase of continuous learning and
improvement so that they can grab new ideas to apply within an organisation for the
accomplishment of goals and objectives. The Sainsbury gains higher performance because they
have developed and implemented the highly effective leadership and management that helps the
business in gaining higher success and growth (Sousa and Rocha, 2019). The managers and
leaders of Sainsbury are ambitious to build a strong and high performance organisation that their
brand can speak itself and can imprint a good impression on the customers. The main role of the
manager of the Sainsbury is to manage the human resource and their actions in right direction to
gain the utmost benefit of their skills in increasing the performance of the company as well as of
employees. The effective management of the resources, technology, employee’s skills helps the
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organisation in enhancing performance and also helps the Sainsbury in gaining competitive
advantage.
The some of the guidelines that the leaders and managers of the Sainsbury follow and that also
create some impact on organisational performance are:
 they have tendency to regularly analyse their potential strengths so that during the
uncertain situations or unplanned activities the challenges can be solved with the pre-
recognised potential strengths (Knudsen and Larsson, 2021).
 They have rule to communicate the vision, missions and values of the company to the
subordinates and followers in order to have honesty and transparency. This will help the
Sainsbury to create a high performance working culture.
 The training and development is the most essential practice in the Sainsbury so that the
leaders and managers of the company can upgrade the skills of the other subordinates for
better performance.
 The company also implemented the strategy ongoing learning as this motivates the
employees to work with better performance.
The effective leadership and management of the leaders and managers of the Sainsbury is highly
useful and assisting in boosting the high performance working culture within the organisation
(Amankwaa, Gyensare and Susomrith, 2019). With the help of this the company so increases it
market share and profit margin in the market. The benefits of leadership and management in
terms of performance in Sainsbury is discussed below:
 Enhance the employee’s performance: In Sainsbury every employees is treated fairly
and paid equal attention which delivers the job satisfaction to the employees (Pearse,
2019). This is useful to the Sainsbury in increasing the level or retaining the employees as
the employees are more comfortable where there is ethical working environment. Thus
this overall practice of the leadership and management is useful in enhancing the
performance of the employees of the Sainsbury. Also through this employee’s attitude
towards the company and its job is more positive and helpful in implementing better
skills during daily operations.
 Useful in creating best performance strategy: to incorporate the outstanding
performance culture in the Sainsbury the leaders and managers of the company are
always planning and analysing the different strategy that can increase the performance of
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the employees (Lumbers, 2018). Rewards and appraisals is one of such strategy of the
Sainsbury that helps to motivate the employees to work effectively to the best of their
performance. With the performance management strategy, the employees and their efforts
remain in track towards the acquiring the organisational goals in best performance. This
also keeps the entire team of the Salisbury determined and focused towards the end.
 Boost the sales: the leadership and management styles of the managers and leaders of the
Sainsbury are focused on aims of the organisation that is to increase the sales to certain
percentage (Bush, 2018). The leadership theory opted by the leaders of the company that
is contingency theory and situational leadership style are always effective in eliminating
the obstacles in the business performance and try to exploit the current market
opportunity that can help in gaining larger profits.
So therefore, the organisations like Sainsbury always keep their hands and mind on leading and
managing the daily operations of the company in order to enhance business performance. Thus,
leaders and managers must choose effective leadership and management styles for the higher
performance.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that the concept of leadership has transformed to huge
level over the history. As now the leaders act as mentor and motivator rather than a autocratic
leader thereby helping the followers in nurturing their skills and knowledge. It is a understood
that the management and leadership are two different concept but there is on common thing that
both aims to meet the organisational goals and objectives. Among all the leadership theories
scientific management theory is considered as the most effective one as this fosters the
communication between the leaders and follows and also help the leaders in analysing the
leadership style as per the situation. Thus, managers of the company use different key
performance indicators to measures the performance of the company in different market and
industry. Thus therefore leadership and management are highly essential for the best
performance of the organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Amankwaa, A., Gyensare, M.A. and Susomrith, P., 2019. Transformational leadership with
innovative behaviour: Examining multiple mediating paths with PLS-
SEM. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
Bush, T., 2018. Prescribing distributed leadership: Is this a contradiction?. Educational
Management Administration & Leadership, 46(4), pp.535-537.
Doyle, T. and Brady, M., 2018. Reframing the university as an emergent organisation:
implications for strategic management and leadership in higher education. Journal
of Higher Education Policy and Management, 40(4), pp.305-320.
Heinze, A.S. and Weisskircher, M., 2021. No Strong Leaders Needed? AfD Party Organisation
Between Collective Leadership, Internal Democracy, and “Movement-Party”
Strategy. Politics and Governance, 9(4), pp.263-274.
Karatepe, O.M., Ozturk, A. and Kim, T.T., 2019. Servant leadership, organisational trust, and
bank employee outcomes. The Service Industries Journal, 39(2), pp.86-108.
Knudsen, M. and Larsson, M., 2021. The deep organisation: The organisational view in a public
management and leadership development programme. Teaching Public
Administration, p.01447394211013069.
Netland, T.H., Powell, D.J. and Hines, P., 2019. Demystifying lean leadership. International
Journal of Lean Six Sigma.
Pearse, N., 2019. An illustration of a deductive pattern matching procedure in qualitative
leadership research. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 17(3),
pp.pp143-154.
Sarwar, H and et. al., 2020. Ethical leadership, work engagement, employees’ well-being, and
performance: a cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, 28(12), pp.2008-2026.
Schultz, T and et. al., 2018. Building capacity for change: evaluation of an organisation-wide
leadership development program. Australian Health Review, 43(3), pp.335-344.
Sousa, M.J. and Rocha, Á., 2019. Leadership styles and skills developed through game-based
learning. Journal of Business Research, 94, pp.360-366.
Torrance, D., 2018. Leadership, management and organisation in the primary school. Scottish
Education, pp.259-269.
Zeier, K., Plimmer, G. and Franken, E., 2021. Developing shared leadership in a public
organisation: Processes, paradoxes and consequences. Journal of Management &
Organization, 27(3), pp.564-581.
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