Tesco PLC: Leadership Styles, Management Practices, and Culture Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Tesco's leadership styles, management practices, and organizational culture. It begins with a brief history of Tesco and then delves into its vision, leadership styles (directive, transformational, and participative), and management practices, including engaging workers, rewarding efforts, and staying committed. The report also examines Tesco's organizational culture, including power, role, task, and personal cultures. The main body further analyzes how Tesco's culture, management practices, and leadership styles influence its business functions and strategies, providing specific examples. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings, highlighting the importance of aligning leadership styles, management practices, and organizational culture to achieve organizational goals. The report emphasizes the importance of these factors in maintaining a motivated workforce and achieving desired business outcomes, making it a valuable resource for understanding leadership and management in a large retail organization.

REPORT

ABSTRACT
This preset report was based on the management practices, leadership styles and culture of the
organisation. Tesco Plc was being chosen for assessment as it is one of the biggest retail sector I
United Kingdom. Leading people in the organisation in order to achieve the desire goals and
objectives is called as leadership. Leadership styles that leaders in Tesco apply for smooth
functioning of organisation as well as to accomplish the profit margin of the company.
Participative, Transformational and directive leadership styles was the best leader style plays an
effective role in managing as it helps in keeping the employee encouraged and motivated.
Motivate employees can do anything for organisation and it also builds loyalty among the team
members. In addition to this, role culture and task culture is the best culture that organisation.
The summarization of the report is that management practices, leadership styles plays a great
role within organisation to achieve the desire goals and objectives.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
1. Brief History of Tesco.............................................................................................................4
2. Discussion of Vision, leadership style and management practices and organisational culture
of Tesco. .....................................................................................................................................5
3. Analyse culture and their management style influence their business functions and
strategies with specific examples................................................................................................8
4. Recommendations...................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
For the years, the culture of organisation was considered a trendy, transit buzzword in the
corporate world but it has much more than a passing phase. The retention ad recruitment of
employees is a tool of culture now because the human resource directors knows the right culture
of organisation. The best leaders strive to influence the culture through their leadership but its
how they do this is there leadership style that ultimately shapes the entire culture of the company
(Iqbal, Anwar and Haider, 2015). Leadership and management style plays an important role in
maintaining and managing an effective culture within workplace and it is also true that entire
reputation either domestic or international of organisation is get influenced by the culture of firm
in both positive and negative way.
In this present report, Tesco PlC is being chosen for assessment as it is one of the biggest
retail sector of United Kingdom. This report will present the importance of leadership styles and
management practices and culture of organisation. Report will demonstrate the brief history of
organisation and after that discuss and analyse the leadership, management style and
organisation culture using framework and theories.
MAIN BODY
1. Brief History of Tesco
Tesco is of the biggest retail sector in United Kingdom. It is a British multinational
groceries and general seller with headquarter in England. The journey of Tesco was stated in
1918 when the founder of Tesco i.e. Jack Cohen has begun the business selling groceries items
from a stall. In 1924, the brand of Tesco was first come out and in 1929 Jack has opened a
flagship of Tesco stores in Burnt Oak, North London. The success of Tesco continued to rise in
1930 and by opening headquarter firm has become the company privately limited. Tesco has
opened up many stores and raised the sales to the greatest extent. In 1974. Tesco has open up a
petrol station and would become one of the biggest petrol retailer in United Kingdom. In 1990,
Tesco has started competition and attempting to overtake Sainsbury (Brief History of Tesco,
2017). In 1996, Tesco has started to expand the business at global level like in Poland, Thailand
and many other countries. In 2000, organisation has started selling in different range of products
like clothing, shoes, food items, accessories, electricals, furniture and personal finance products.

With the passing of time, the success of Tesco has achieved success and now Tesco is one the
largest company in UK in terms of revenue. At present there are 6800 stores of Tesco across UK.
2. Discussion of Vision, leadership style and management practices and organisational culture of
Tesco.
VISION:
The vision of Tesco encompasses more than one perspective by referring to innovation,
employees, communities, societies and way of carrying the business. The main vision of Tesco is
to “ We make what makes better, together”.
LEADERSHIP STYLE:
The action of leading people in the organisation in order to achieve the desire goals and
objectives is called as leadership. Leaders are the only one who influenced employees towards
achieving the organisational goals as well as influenced the behaviour of employees by setting
the clear vision, goals in front of employees (Islam and et.al., 2018). There are some leadership
styles that leaders in Tesco apply for smooth functioning of organisation as well as to accomplish
the profit margin of the company (Leadership Styles, 2018).
Directive Leadership Style:
Directive leadership style uses a pyramid structure where the power flows from the top
down. Leaders used to instruct the employees for completing the given work or task to them.
This type of leadership style boost the culture of collaboration which is very important to keep
the employee motivated at workplace (Akhtar and et.al., 2016). This style of leadership creates
consistency as each and every thing remain clear in-front of employees.
Transformational Leadership Style:
In today's era, changes are very important for organisation in order to remain competitive
at workplace. Thus, leadership style emphasized on bringing changes within organisation either
external or internal. Leaders following this leadership style bring the team of employees together
to provide honest feedbacks (Moccia, 2018). After taking the feedback, leader used to align the
goals of company to those team mates who are supporting for positive changes within
organisation that ultimately result in raising the productivity. Employees remains motivated with
this type of leaders.

Participative Leadership Style:
This leadership style refers to the type of leaders who includes employees in decision
making. Transformational, supportive and participative leadership are quite close to each other
but participative leadership style used to gain commitment and trust of employee to execute the
entire system to change (Steinhouse, 2017). The leaders of Tesco involves the views and opinion
of each members so that they fell valued and worth for organisation and it also creates the culture
of innovation.
MANAGEMENT PRACTICES:
It is true that the best manager is one who keep their whole workplace motivated and
satisfied with the application of business management practices for success. The process by
which organisation can get their employees to produce the best result with the least amount of
efforts of utilising the available resources is the business management (Samantara and Sharma,
2015). Here are the following practices of management used by the managers of Tesco to
achieve expected goals and objectives which are as follows-
Engage Workers: It is very important to keep the employees engage within organisation,
subordinates seniors, juniors and among each other who are working in the company. Sometimes
it has been noticed that employee's comes at organisation only for earning or pay-check but this
type of personal culture is not good for the organisation. Disoriented workers do not care about
performing their jobs (Al Mehrzi and Singh, 2016). So, in order to overcome or remove this type
of culture from organisation, the very first thing manager need to do is engage the workers so
that they care about the vision of the firm. It is because, the employees who are engaged are not
only productive and enthusiastic but they are also becomes less passive and take responsibilities
very delightedly.
Reward Efforts: This is also one of the management practice that is important for
manager to apply it is because no any person wants their work and efforts go unorganized.
Managers should appreciate employees for good working. Motivate employees can do anything
for organisation and it also builds loyalty among the team members (Management Practices,
2017).

Stay Committed: it is very important that managers should stay committed to employees
at workplace because it creates trust and enthusiasm among employees. Lack of commitment
leads to poor decision making along with stifle productivity (Campatelli, Richter and Stocker,
2016).
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Organisational culture is the values, behaviours that contribute the unique
psychophysiological and social environment of a business (Quang, 2017). It is very important to
maintain and manage the culture of the organisation in a systematic way so that the desire goals
and objectives could be achieved.
Handy Culture Typology
This is one of the best model that helps in defining the culture of the organisation. Tesco
also apply this model to analyse the organisational culture. There are four types of culture which
are as follows-
Power Culture:
This is the type of culture where power remains in the hand of few persons and they are
only authorised to take decisions. Those people are most important person at workplace and they
are called as major decision maker of the company but this type of culture creates a sense of high
control and lots of interdependence (Reid, 2016). Tesco has also power culture within
organisation a some areas.
Role Culture:
This is the type of culture where all the roles and responsibilities are delegated as per the
skills, qualities, education, interest and knowledge so that organisation can obtain productive
work. With the interest and knowledge, work becomes more effective and efficient and with
responsibilities, accountability is also transferred to employees. The managers of Tesco has
adopted this culture within workplace and its is the reason why company is getting the highest
level of efficiency in retail industry (Nobandile, and Oyelana, 2017).
Task Culture:

This is also one present within organisation where teams were formed to achieve the set
goals or targets or solve all critical issues. In task culture, individuals with common interest
come together to form a team and work for the common interest. The contribution of each and
every employees are equal.
Personal Culture:
This is one the culture that is not acceptable at workplace. Employees within organisation
feels that they are unique and superior in the organisation. They do not have any interest on
achieving the desire gaols and objectives of the organisation as they only come to earn money.
Tesco do not have this type of culture (Sadighi, 2017).
3. Analyse culture and their management style influence their business functions and strategies
with specific examples.
The functions and strategies of organisation is greatly influences by the culture,
management practices and leadership styles followed within organisation. It is very important
that the goals of organisation and leadership, management styles along with culture of the
company should be align in strategic way (Mekraz and Gundala, 2016).
Leadership styles used by the leaders influences the business functions and strategies in
positive way. Directive leadership allows the flow of power in hierarchy that allows all the
departments to function properly. This type of leadership allows the sense of collaboration
among the employees. In addition to this, the change policies and strategies of Tesco is managed
by leaders following transformational leadership as they bring all the employee together and
make them ready to adopt the change. For example, when Tesco has introduced technological
changes within organisations and system, at that time, transformational leaders plays a crucial
role (Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016). Whereas, the sense of motivation within workplace is
contributed by the leaders of Tesco following the participative leadership style. The vision of
Tesco is to bring all together and makes the work more perfect.
On the other hand, The policies of Tesco allows all the employees should be remain
motivated and satisfied at workplace and it is contributed by the management practices adopted
by the managers of Tesco. Superiors manages of Tesco used to interact with the employees at
workplace so that they keep their employees attached towards the organisation. Managers of
Tesco engaged their workers so that they care about the vision of the firm. Tesco have strategies

to appreciate or recognised the performance of employees that enables them to engaged and
improve the performance.
In addition to this, the culture of company is created by the strategic leadership and
management practices provided by Tesco is greatly influenced the functions and strategies of the
company. The role culture has brought positive culture within organisation as they are allowed
delegation of role and responsibilities as per the education, knowledge, interest that ultimately
produce effective work (Pantano and et.al., 2017). On the flip side, Power culture within
organisation creates sense of fear and interdependency as well as develops communication gap
within workplace.
4. Recommendations.
In accordance with discussion of culture, leadership and management style of Tesco, it can be
said the company supports employee’s participation and managing continuous changes in
organisational activities to coordinate with dynamic business environment (Elsmore, 2017).
However, there are few changes which can be recommend for Retail organisation which are as
follows:
Management practices of Tesco are focused on employee engagement and motivation of
employee by reward management strategies. As per this, it can be suggested that management of
Tesco should focus on its ongoing professional development which helps improvement in career
development and personal and professional growth. For this company organise yearly training
session with University campus or can take employees for business seminars and conferences.
This will help the management in increasing workplace knowledge of employees and will also in
career growth or knowledge management.
Tesco should focus on managing task culture within organisation because it will aid the
firm in encouraging team working spirt at workplace (Willar, Trigunarsyah and Coffey, 2016).
Implementing task culture will assist management of Tesco in deriving coordination and interest
of employees in organisational activities.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that management practices, leadership
styles plays a great role within organisation to achieve the desire goals and objectives. It is very

important to manage and maintain the culture within workplace. The values, behaviours that
contribute the unique psychophysiological and social environment of a business constitutes the
culture of the organisation. Managing task culture within organisation because it will aid the firm
in encouraging team working spirt at workplace.

REFERENCES
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Online:
Brief History of Tesco. 2017. [ONLINE]. Available through:
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2788089/A-history-of-Tesco-The-rise-of-
Britains-biggest-supermarket.html>.
Leadership Styles. 2018. [ONLINE]. Available through: <(https://ideas.bkconnection.com/the-5-
types-of-leadership-styles-that-can-define-your-organizations-culture)>.
Management Practices. 2017. [ONLINE]. Available
through:<https://online.stmary.edu/mba/resources/8-best-practices-in-business-
management>.