Leadership Styles and Employee Morale at Tesco: A Research Proposal

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RESEARCH PROPOSAL
HOW DOES LEADERSHIP STYLES AFFECT EMPLOYEE MORALE IN ACHIEVING THE
TESCO GOAL?
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................................... 3
RATIONALE OF THE STUDY................................................................................................................................. 4
RESEARCH AIM & OBJECTIVES........................................................................................................................... 5
RESEARCH QUESTIONS.......................................................................................................................................... 5
LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................................................................. 6
METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................................................... 10
TIMESCALE................................................................................................................................................................ 14
RESOURCES............................................................................................................................................................... 15
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................................ 16
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TITLE - HOW DOES LEADERSHIP STYLES AFFECT EMPLOYEE MORALE IN ACHIEVING THE
TESCO GOAL?
INTRODUCTION
Leadership refers to the research area and a pragmatic capability encompassing the
capability of an organization and individual to guide or lead team, sub-ordinates or other
individuals or the entire organization. The leaders are the people that guide employees or
individual towards business goals (Western, 2019). Leaders are the individuals that do the
right thing that helps the business to achieve business goals and objectives. The leadership
may vary in images but ultimate it produces the same outcome such as a political leader
chasing an obsessive, subjective cause whereas an explorer, make way for the group or his
followers to pass through the jungle by cutting the path.
Leaders are the very important individuals of the company as they not only help
themselves but also make others to do the right activities that help the business cause as
well as help in growth and development. Leaders create an inspiring idea, set course and
innovate something new. Leadership is about shaping the things into a perfect way that
needed to win for the team or an organization (Western, 2019). The research shows the
influence of leadership styles on employee morale to achieve business goals of Tesco
Company.
Tesco is a world-known British based supermarket business chain that covers the business
market of more than 7 countries. Tesco is a public limited company founded in 1919 in
Hackney, London, UK. Tesco is the 3rd largest retailer in terms of gross revenues and overall
9th largest business chain in terms of gross revenues. The company has a very strong
human resource as currently, it has over 450,000 employees working for it.
Tesco is been in the supermarket business for about 100 years and gains high success
during this period because of its effective leaders. The accomplishment of the industry
directly shows the effectiveness and quality of the leadership within Tesco because, in
business success, the role of leadership is immense.
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RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
The role and contribution of leadership within the business organization is undeniable, no
business can survive without leaders and their leadership. Leaders make sure that the
business is progressing in the accurate direction with the support of planning, directing,
the reason behind choosing this research topic is because leadership has many styles that
need to understand for the effective management of the business organization because it is
necessary to know which leadership style is suitable for various situations and through this
research might help in order to understand it. Tesco is the best suitable business
organization for this research because it completes approx. 100 years in the supermarket
and these 100 years business faces all type of problems that is effective resolve by the
effective leadership of leaders of Tesco.
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RESEARCH AIM & OBJECTIVES
The ultimate aim of the research is to identify how leadership styles affect the morale of the
employees in achieving the business goal of Tesco Company. Following are the objective in
context to the research aim:
 To assess the various aspects of leadership and its importance.
 To assess the various styles of leadership used by the leaders of the Tesco to achieve
business goals.
 To understand the role of leadership in the success and growth of the Tesco
Company.
 To assess various factors that affect employee morale
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Following are the research questions that help in guiding the research:
 What are leadership and its various aspects? Why it is important for a business
organization?
 What are the several styles of leadership used by the leaders of Tesco supermarket
to achieve business goals?
 What is the part of leadership in the growth and development of Tesco Company?
 What are the various factors that affect the morale of the employee?
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LITERATURE REVIEW
LEADERSHIP
According to Grint et al (2016), Leadership refers to the process or activity of guiding and
directing individual, groups, and sub-ordinates towards mutual goal and objectives. It is a
very important role in business management because leaders are the responsible person
for business growth and devastation (Grint et al., 2016). Leaders are the person that not do
great work but makes other to do great instead as they focuses on the team rather than
individual performance because the ultimate aim of the leaders is attaining mutual or
shared business aim and objectives.
According to Northouse (2017), the influence of leadership is the power of assimilating
because the leadership is the process for the business in which leaders seek best in
individuals and unites to work as a team effectively. Leadership is the process of motivating
and build up confidence and enthusiasm among employees as well as to create a desire
amongst them to be led (Northouse, P.G., 2017).
IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP
According to Hartmann et al (2016), Leadership is very important and one can say most
critical part of the business management because leaders are responsible for business
decision-making, planning, strategy, control and management which are the core business
activities. Leadership is the process and ability performs by leaders to influence the
behaviour of group, team, employees etc. and drive them towards business goals and
objectives (Hartmann et al., 2016). Leaders motivate employees for better work, guide
them, and provide necessary information that helps the cause of the business organization.
According to Dunne et al (2016), Leadership is required at all the levels of business
management because lack of leadership or absence of leadership in various levels of
business management decrease efficiency and effectiveness of the business organization
because without leadership no management can survive for long. Leadership is also
important within the business organization because effective leadership increase business
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efficiency as well as the efficiency of the employees that ultimate help to achieve business
aims and goals (Dunne et al., 2016).
According to Hargett et al (2017), Effective leaders and their leadership styles create a
healthy and competitive environment within a business organization that encourage
innovation and creativity of the employees which ultimately boost employees morale.
Focusing on the team rather than individual for the business perspective helps in co-
ordination among the employees as well as help in induces change (Hargett et al., 2017).
According to Fillol et al (2019), Leadership is very important to resolve conflicts and solve
the problems of the employees. Leadership focuses on the whole, team effort and aims to
create a healthy and competitive environment within the business organization which can
be done through resolving conflicts and problems between and amongst the employees
through inspiring them, creating a passion within them for work (Fillol et al., 2019).
LEADERSHIP STYLES
According to Yahaya and Ebrahim (2016), there are numerous leadership styles or
methods adopted by the leaders to guide their subordinates or followers towards success
and growth as well as direct to achieve business goals and objectives. The leadership styles
reflect the personality of the leaders and their skills and ability because the more effective
leaders the better their leadership (Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016). It is very important to
choose the correct leadership style because business success and devastation is entirely
depended on the effectiveness of the leadership. According to Arnold et al (2015), Leaders
should choose leadership based on the situation and capability of the employees as it
increases employee’s efficiency and affects the morale of the employees positively.
According to Becker (2019), Democratic style of leadership is widely accepted & commonly
used in the business organization as it is neither too strict nor not a too friendly style of
leadership. Democratic leadership is the style of leadership in which leaders consults or
take suggestions from its team members and then make a final decision regarding the
business activity. Democratic leadership significantly boosts employee’s morale because it
involves lower-order employees to take part in the business meetings and has their say
(Becker, 2019). It is a commonly effective or average effective style of leadership because
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opinions and suggestions may vary from the entire team members that can confuse which
can lead to poor decision-making.
According to Yang (2015), Laissez-Faire leadership style is referred to the free-flow style of
the leadership in which leaders just sit back asks employees or team member to do
business work as they want. Laissez-faire is a French word which means "let them do".
Leaders provide authority to the team members to take all the respected or related
business decision in which leaders won’t interfere too much (Yang, 2015). This style of
leadership is sometimes effective because to gain success through this leadership style
employees should be capable and should know their responsibilities because in this style of
leadership the contribution or role of the leadership is low compared to the role of
employees.
According to Proofhub (2018), Coach-style leadership is a coaching type of leadership in
which leaders develops individual strength through coaching them and nurture their skill
and abilities. This is commonly used leadership style and widely used too because it
increases productivity and efficiency of the employees that ultimately helps in achieving
business goals and objectives (Proofhub, 2018). This leadership style has a success rate and
effective as well because the leader focuses on individual skill and identify a suitable
person for a suitable task.
LEADERSHIP IN TESCO
According to Akhtar et al (2016), In around 100 years Tesco sees many leaders and
manager that change time to time but the business remain successful because of the
leadership style in Tesco is always been effective. The leadership style of the Tesco always
been the supportive type as Tesco business is customer-oriented that highly influence on
the leadership style as well. The democratic leadership style suits the business nature of
Tesco because through supportive and democratic leadership style leaders also focus on
making new leaders for the future (Akhtar et al., 2016). According to Morais and de Moura
(2018), The influence of supportive leadership style can be seen within the Tesco in
current time as business continuously gain success and gain further achievements because
employees gain the same coaching and support from the all the leaders that increase
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efficiency and boost employee's morale that significantly increases business productivity
(Morais and de Moura, 2018).
According to Khan (2018), some leaders of the Tesco also adopted Laissez-faire leadership
style in some phases to boost the morale of the employees and in tough times they also take
business decisions themselves. The leadership style in Tesco is flexible but the core is
always democratic or supportive (Khan, 2018).
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METHODOLOGY
The researcher uses proper and strategic steps to gain the research data and identify the
sway of leadership styles on the morale of the employees in context to achieving business
goals (McCusker and Gunaydin, 2015). It is very necessary to choose correct and suitable
research methodology because the entire research success and effectiveness is based on
the usefulness of the research methodology.
The researcher aims to use the research onion method proposed by Saunders. It is a very
effective research methodology that effectively covers all the key areas of the study such as
philosophy, method, strategy etc. The researcher uses positivism and interpretivism
philosophy in this study along with the inductive research approach.
Figure: Saunders’s Research Onion
Source: Cuervo et al., 2017
RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY
In this study, the researcher aims to use interpretivism and positivism philosophy as
interpretivism philosophy will help in qualitative research whereas positivism study
philosophy is very effective for quantitative research approach. In positive research,
philosophy researcher justifies the research question through statistical responses
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obtained from the quantitative research whereas interpretivism research philosophy is
more focused on the behaviour of the participants (Cuervo et al., 2017). Both the research
philosophy is very effective and helps to gain research data in context to leadership styles
and their impression on employee morale.
RESEARCH APPROACH
The researcher uses the inductive approach in this research as inductive research approach
is compatible with both interpretivism and positivism research philosophies that help to
assess the effect of leadership style on the employee morale in Tesco to achieve the
business goal through qualitative and quantitative research (Snyder, 2019). The inductive
approach creates a research question which moves to observation to data study and
concludes with creating theory.
RESEARCH CHOICE
The researcher uses a mixed-method in this research to gain research data because many
styles can be adopted by the leaders to guide employees to achieve business goals. Using
mixed-method accurate and reliable data can be obtained that helps the researcher
significantly.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
The researcher aims to obtain research data in the structure of primary and secondary data
of the research. Secondary data of the research will be obtained through qualitative
research in which data will gain through source literature reviews, internet articles, blogs
etc. that provide the good knowledge about various types of leadership styles and its effect
on the employee morale to achieve goals of Tesco (Sutrisna and Setiawan, 2016). On the
other hand qualitative and quantitative both study methods will be used to gain prime data
of the research. Questionnaire survey will be used to gain quantitative primary data and
interview process will be used to obtain primary qualitative data.
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SAMPLE SIZE
For the questionnaire survey, a researcher prepares set of questions that will be asked to
100 participants, the participants of the questionnaire survey will be employees of the
Tesco Company and researcher conducts interview process for 25 Tesco employees to gain
qualitative primary data (Antwi and Hamza, 2015). The reason behind choosing employees
as participants is because; employees of the Tesco can provide more reliable and accurate
responses.
DATA ANALYSIS
The researcher uses thematic analysis to analyze study data as well as tables and graphs
also used to interpret quantitative research data which will be obtained from a
questionnaire survey.
TIME HORIZON
Cross-sectional time horizon is very suitable time-horizon for this research as it helps the
researcher to analyze large and multiple research data at once and this time horizon
technique can also be used for both research methods (Snyder, 2019).
TECHNIQUE AND PROCEDURE
The researcher will manually ask employees of the Tesco Company to take part in the
interview process and questionnaire survey and provide their valuable responses that
helps research cause. Also, the interview process will be conducted which followed by
questionnaire survey. Both the data gaining process will be conducted offline in one of the
stores of Tesco (Sutrisna and Setiawan, 2016). On a final thought, it is necessary to ensure
that all the research method activity is compatible with each other and fit properly to
ensure research success.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
The researcher will take prior permission from the lecturer and other respected authority
of Tesco Supermarket. The researcher also provides information to the participants of the
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