Analyzing Leadership: Authentic & Transformational Styles at Tesco

This case study examines the application of authentic and transformational leadership models within Tesco Plc, a leading UK retailer. It evaluates the role of authentic leadership in managing change processes by fostering ethical behavior, transparency, and employee trust. The study also assesses transformational leadership's impact on motivating employees and adapting to organizational changes, such as the integration of online sales and acquisitions. The analysis highlights how transformational leaders at Tesco encourage employees through rewards, communication, and alignment of personal and company goals, ultimately building a positive work environment and reducing turnover costs. The case study uses examples such as the introduction of self-service checkouts and the integration of acquired companies to illustrate the practical application and effectiveness of these leadership styles in driving organizational success.

Leadership Theory and
Practice
CASE STUDY - 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................2
Evaluation of role of authentic leadership in the Tesco Plc change process...............................2
Evaluation of role of transformational leadership in the Tesco Plc change process...................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
1

INTRODUCTION
Leadership model is a theoretical framework which state how the management of the
company can manage its employees at best level (Fox, Davis and Baucus, 2020). The leadership
model basically provides the useful structure which define management methods that fit with the
working style of company. The present report is based on Tesco Plc which is one of the leading
and second largest retailer of UK. The report will explain and evaluate the application of
authentic leadership model to a change process of Tesco. Lastly, the report will also evaluate the
role of transformational leadership in the change process of Tesco Plc.
MAIN BODY
Evaluation of role of authentic leadership in the Tesco Plc change process
Authentic leadership is of the style of leadership which focuses on ethical and transparent
behaviour from leaders where open sharing of information is encouraged while accepting input
from followers in order to fulfil the need of effective decision making. With regards to views of
experts, authentic leadership involves the participation of leaders and followers both at the time
of decision making by creating room for followers too. Tesco being a supermarket giant adopts
several leadership styles for fulfilling numerous of its needs arising from varying situations
taking place in its organizational system (Qiu and et.al., 2019). Authentic leadership model is
one of such leadership styles through which change process is managed by leaders by being self
– aware, genuine and transparent. The change process is greatly affected in every organization
due to the influence of several stakeholders such as employees, management, suppliers,
government, society, customers, etc. Out of these stakeholders, employees are considered as the
most influential stakeholders of the change process within Tesco during and post pandemic era.
It is the authentic leader who are able to inspire trust and loyalty in their employees by
understanding the needs of employees and making every effort to make them understand how
they can fulfil their needs through enhanced performance as a result of adopting change.
Tesco has achieved appreciable performance as a result of adopting authentic leadership
style in implementing change several times because this leadership style plays a significant role
in eliciting positive change within the organizational set up. Authentic leaders are able to
encourage its followers well in terms of following their leaders due to having genuine desire
towards serving others and leading from core values. Also, authentic leaders are having the skills
needed for being morally grounded, responsive towards the need of its followers and transparent
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in all their conduct. Accordingly, by upholding the core values of an organization in the midst of
change process leads to the development of confidence among stakeholders such as employees
that the leader is consistently exhibiting the ethical behaviour which in turn encourages them to
support their leaders by following their instructions and orders effectively throughout the change
process. This acts as a factor assuring the success of change process within Tesco (Alvesson and
Einola, 2019).
There are various qualities exhibited by an authentic leaders which involves authenticity in
every statements they give, exhibiting ethical behaviour, maintenance of integrity in every
actions in terms of reinforcing core values, being their own person by having the idea of who
they are, how they should move forward and where they are going and set the pace through
communicating their expectations from concerned stakeholders clearly. These qualities are
deemed to be developed or learned by authentic leaders over time.
Employees are the most significant stakeholder within the change process of every
organization such as Tesco because they are actually mean to implement the change in order to
attain the underlying aim of introducing the change. Employees demand for trust and it is the
transparency associated with authentic leadership styles that assists in fostering a culture of trust
between employees and authentic leaders. When change is introduced, authentic leaders ensures
a feeling among their followers that there is a transparent communication throughout the
working environment which allows for communicating both positive and negative aspects
associated with the change in an honest manner within the team at Tesco.
Moreover, the change process consists of three stages that is, unfreezing, change and
refreezing and the role of authentic leadership is to implement their planned change successfully
through creating employee’s readiness for accepting change (Unfreezing) by exhibiting ethical
behaviour and conducting open communication. This would led to the development of
employee’s commitment towards the change (transformation) and accordingly, behavioural
support from employees can be ensured towards the change (refreezing) (Iszatt‐White and
Kempster, 2019).
One example from Tesco can be quoted with reference to organizational change that is,
the introduction of self- service check out system which have replaced the traditional cash
payment system operated through teller because the former involves check out through self –
service machine. This was a great strategic shift adopted by Tesco. However, the success lies in
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its successful implementation which could be possible only if customers (stakeholders) will
adopt it and implement it in the required manner. This would become possible through authentic
leaders who exhibit their ethical behaviour in explaining and making understand their customers
how the self – check out system would be beneficial for them in terms of saving time in the store.
By establishing open communication with the employees who are actually confronts customers
in a day to day operations of supermarket, authentic leadership style facilitate critical evaluation
of a new payment system which highlights several advantages to customers in terms of how they
would be served better through self – check out system and how it is ethical and free from
deception. In this way, authenticity exhibited by authentic leader greater level of acceptance
from the concerned stakeholders.
Authentic leaders are regarded as the most responsible individual towards the need of the
followers as they have good listening and adaptive skills which in turn make employees feel
appreciated and important within the organization. The genuine care and compassion shown to
employees or other stakeholders by authentic leaders led to building trusting teams and
accordingly, a positive and supportive culture could be developed throughout the organization to
ensure continuous improvement through changing towards the expectation and need of the
contemporary world (Alilyyani, Wong and Cummings, 2018). Accordingly, authentic leaders are
regarded as effective leaders who possess great ability to encourage others in following them.
Also, authentic leadership is sometimes regarded as socialised leadership because of reflecting
concern towards collective good and celebrating accomplishments whether it is associated with
individual or team. This affects moral identities of followers which encourages positive action or
decision – making from them which is what the necessity of successful change process.
Evaluation of role of transformational leadership in the Tesco Plc change process
Transformational leadership is a theory of leadership where leaders of the organization work
closely with its team in order to identify needed changes and inspire the employee to adapt those
changes with positive mindset. Transformational leadership is basically a model to lead with
motivation where it is important for the leaders and followers to adopt strategies to enhance
motivation and morality of employees. For example, Tesco Plc is a retailer organization that
founded in the year 1919. Currently, the total number of employees working with Tesco Plc is
367321 as per 2021 report which is higher than the previous year figure. The employee of Tesco
is highly motivated and engaged because of the leaders of the company. Tesco Plc basically use
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transformational leadership model within the business in order to keep their employee motivated.
Transformational leaders of Tesco Plc after Covid-19 provide encouragement to its employee
with rewards and recognitions to employee (Waruwu and et.al., 2020). It is because during
pandemic and lock-down restriction, the company unable to provide increment and promotion to
its employees.
The role of transformational leaders in the change process is that it helps in building the
morale and trust of the employee over the leaders. Organizational change is the part of every
business due to various internal and external environment. For example, Tesco Plc previously
operates through its offline store only before the introduction of online mode and technology.
But as they have come across towards the change in technological factor of external
environment, they have adopted online sales along with the offline offerings in order to gain
competitive advantage (Alqatawenh, 2018). With the help of transformational leadership, Tesco
Plc encourages its employee to remain positive towards this change as leaders are always there to
guide and motivate employee towards this change adaption.
Trust in leader plays significant role between the transformational leadership and the
organizational change. The transformational leadership plays important role during the time of
change because in the present time every organization and individual has accepted that change is
unavoidable. That’s why rather than avoiding those changes, it is better to grasp its impact and
reduce the negative impact of change over business and workforce. The employee of Tesco Plc
during pandemic unable to keep themselves motivated due to change of working from office to
work from home. This change has drastically affected the morale and enthusiasm of the
employees (Faupel and Süß, 2019). Not only that, due to this change, the employer such as Tesco
has cut their employee salary because of lack of sales and production. But in order to keep their
employee motivated during the period of change, Tesco Plc has personally communicated with
its employee through virtual meeting and announce that in next year, the recognition will be
going to triple than past years. In this way, the transformational leaders of the company keep
their employee encourages. Further, Tesco has also free their employee and its family Covid-
vaccination and treatment fees in order to keep them encouraged.
Tesco Plc leaders as per transformational leadership theory started communicating
company goals to its employee and encouraged them that if they want to succeed in life then they
have to align their personal goal with the company goal. Another role of transformational
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leadership in the change process is that its build positive environment within the workplace
where each employee collaborates and support other in the situation of any change. For example,
one of the changes in Tesco company is the acquisition of other companies and stores such as
Associated British Food, hostile takeover of Hillard etc. During this change, the transformational
leadership of Tesco has supported the company to change the overall system and structure of
business along with the employee behaviour and beliefs. One of the crucial steps taken by the
company and its transformational leaders is that they have engaged the employees in the
decision-making process of merger and acquisition (Yue, Men and Ferguson, 2019). The impact
of which the employee feels encouraged that their company is concerned about their employee
thinking. Also, the leaders have told its employee that the new employee are their colleagues and
they have to respect them and support them.
Additionally, Tesco company leaders can practice transformational leadership with the
help of participating in the intellectual simulation with the others and its team members in order
to build a strong change management practice. The role of transformational leadership is quite
high in the change process because it reduces the turnover cost of the company. It is because
under this approach, the company usually provide training and development to its existing
employee in order to adapt changes rather than hiring new employee. The exiting employee do
not quite the job at the time of change as they known that their transformational leaders will
provide guidance and training on every change (Afsar, Masood and Umrani, 2019). The same
case with the Tesco Plc where the company conducted frequent training sessions for its
employees especially rural areas to teach them about technology and software. This will help
them to complete their work smoothly and without too much difficulty from home during the
lock-down restriction and pandemic situation. Thus, it can be said that transformational
leadership play vital role in exhilarated the employees about the new changes and encourage the
employee to hit their full potential in order to deal with those changes.
CONCLUSION
From the above case study analysis done with reference to Tesco, it has been identified that
the choice of leadership style greatly affects the success of change process. At first hand, the role
of authentic leadership has been evaluated with respect to change management to indicate how b
exhibiting core organizational values and authenticity in their conduct leaders at Tesco are able
to encourage stakeholders in following them. Also, the role of transformational leadership has
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been evaluated with respect to change management and it has been identified that through
creating positive change in followers, leaders are able to attain the end goal of successful change
implementation.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Afsar, B., Masood, M. and Umrani, W. A., 2019. The role of job crafting and knowledge sharing
on the effect of transformational leadership on innovative work behavior. Personnel
Review.
Alqatawenh, A. S., 2018. Transformational leadership style and its relationship with change
management. Verslas: teorija ir praktika. 19(1). pp.17-24.
Faupel, S. and Süß, S., 2019. The effect of transformational leadership on employees during
organizational change–an empirical analysis. Journal of Change Management. 19(3).
pp.145-166.
Waruwu, H. and et.al., 2020. The role of transformational leadership, organizational learning and
structure on innovation capacity: Evidence from Indonesia private
schools. EduPsyCouns: Journal of Education, Psychology and Counseling. 2(1). pp.378-
397.
Yue, C. A., Men, L. R. and Ferguson, M. A., 2019. Bridging transformational leadership,
transparent communication, and employee openness to change: The mediating role of
trust. Public relations review. 45(3). p.101779.
Alilyyani, B., Wong, C. A. and Cummings, G., 2018. Antecedents, mediators, and outcomes of
authentic leadership in healthcare: A systematic review. International journal of nursing
studies, 83, pp.34-64.
Iszatt‐White, M. and Kempster, S., 2019. Authentic leadership: Getting back to the roots of the
‘root construct’?. International Journal of Management Reviews, 21(3), pp.356-369.
Alvesson, M. and Einola, K., 2019. Warning for excessive positivity: Authentic leadership and
other traps in leadership studies. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(4), pp.383-395.
Qiu, S., and et.al., 2019. The effects of authentic leadership on trust in leaders, organizational
citizenship behavior, and service quality in the Chinese hospitality industry. Journal of
Hospitality and Tourism Management, 40, pp.77-87.
Fox, C., Davis, P. and Baucus, M., 2020. Corporate social responsibility during unprecedented
crises: The role of authentic leadership and business model flexibility. Management
Decision.
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