Organizational Culture, Leadership, and Management at Tesco Retail

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Tesco's leadership and management practices, organizational culture, and their impact on business performance. The report begins with an overview of Tesco's history and rationale for selection, highlighting its position as a leading multinational retailer. It then delves into Tesco's organizational culture, emphasizing its focus on employee productivity, diversity, and effective communication. The report explores Tesco's transformational leadership style, where leaders collaborate with team members to achieve shared goals, as well as the use of autocratic leadership in certain situations to improve operational efficiency. Management practices, including performance monitoring, feedback mechanisms, and technology integration, are also discussed. The report examines the impact of management style and organizational culture on business outcomes, emphasizing the influence of managers on the working environment and employee behavior. Recommendations are made to consider alternative management styles, such as democratic and transactional leadership, to further enhance Tesco's effectiveness. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of aligning leadership, culture, and management practices to achieve organizational goals and sustain a competitive advantage. The report references various academic sources to support its analysis.

Context of Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Organisational history and rationale for selection.......................................................................1
Organisational culture, vision, leadership and management practices .......................................1
Impact of management style and organisational culture on business .........................................4
Recommendations .......................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Leadership refers to the skills to motivate and guide the individuals so that shared
business goals can be achieved. The management and leadership practices followed by the
organisation plays significant role in the success of organisations. These approaches are often
influenced and depends upon the organisational culture. Thus, it becomes very essential for the
organisations to analyse these managerial and leadership practices so that operational efficiency
can be improved and competitive success can be assured (Renz, 2016). The study will analyse
the leadership approaches and management practices followed by a retail business. It will also
describe the impact of culture and management on the success of organisation so that necessary
improvement strategies can be adopted.
Organisational history and rationale for selection
Tesco is one of the famous and successful multinational retailer dealing in general
merchandise and groceries. The organisation has its headquarter in England, United Kingdom
and in terms of gross revenue holds the third position in the world. The grocery stores of Tesco
are present in UK, Aisa, Thailand, Hungary, Ireland and other European countries. Though
effective management practices has helped organisation to sustain the high quality services from
long but increasing global and local competition has made it essential for the organisation to
review its leadership approaches and organisational culture (Oshagbemi, 2017).
Thus, the main reason for choosing the organisation as basis for this study is that it aims
at delivering high quality services and has potential to achieve its goals. However, there is need
that the organisation responds to global and technical changes by improved leadership
approaches (Klinga and et.al., 2016). Thus, its study can help to effectively review the role of
leadership on business.
Organisational culture, vision, leadership and management practices
The vision of Tesco is to ensure that customers are served complete value of and service
quality is excellence. The vision of the organisation is based upon various principles and
elements which are to establish itself all over the world as a highly efficient global service
provider, to enhance the customer loyalty along with the trust of communities and employees
and to serve communities with innovative ideas and practices (Herman, 2016). For achieving
this vision the management practices followed by Tesco are as follows:
Organisation culture:
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The organisational culture has significant impact upon the performance of employees.
The effective customer service has been one of the key reason for the success of organisation and
thus Tesco maintain a culture which maximises the employee productivity. For this purpose
Tesco culture appreciate the hard work its employee through suitable motivational and reward
system. The employees are allowed to have flexible working system so that staff members can
provide services to customers with more focus (Hallinger and Wang, 2015). To improve the
organisational culture Tesco also ensures that diversity is respected in its culture and thus there
is strict monitoring that no discriminatory practices are followed at the organisation. To enhance
the productivity of culture company also pay much emphasis on its recruitment, selection and
training process so that its workforce planning can deliver efficient planning. Another
characteristic feature of the organisational culture of Tesco is that it has effective communication
network. Employees as well as customers can find it very easy to share their concerns and
innovative ideas so that there is innovative and interactive culture within organisation. These
practices make the culture of the organisation highly productive and efficient in terms of output
and functional efficiencies.
Leadership approaches:
The leadership style followed by Tesco is one of its key strength in retaining its
efficiency in the competitive business environment. Currently the organisation is following
transformational leadership style. According to this leadership approach leaders of the
organisation works in collaboration with the other team members and specific vision is created to
accomplish those changes (Gopee and Galloway, 2017). In order to achieve those goals the
leaders inspire the employees so that commitment and contribution of the team members can be
increased. This leadership style has been very helpful for the organisation to achieve its vision of
providing quality services to its consumers. Since leaders and team members work together to
identify the business opportunities and risks there are higher possibilities of overcoming the
operational challenges for the business.
Another benefit of using transformational leadership is that it becomes very easy for the
Tesco to integrate change management. Since there is good integration of leaders with other
team members and situational analysis company find it easy to analyse the changes and to
incorporate them into functionality (Thorpe, 2016). For instance when online retailing trends are
in peak Tesco has found it easy to cope up with the changes and to implement them without any
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difficulty. Though still there is need to improve several operational parameters so that
organisation can compete with other online retail service providers.
It has been also analysed that in certain situation company need to change its leadership
style. For instance there are situations when there is need to improve operational efficiency
through complete transformation of the skills and processes (McCaffery, 2018). In such cases
autocratic leadership style proves to be more beneficial for the company. In autocratic leadership
styles leaders tend to have more authority to implement decision without considering the
opinions of other team members.
Management practices:
It is very essential for the company to regularly monitor the performance of employees so
that service quality can be improved and operational errors can be avoided. Contrary to the
leadership approach Tesco follows the autocratic principle in its management practices. There is
regular monitoring and performance evaluation to assure that all team members are performing
their job roles and duties as per the recommended standards. Along with the monitoring
strategies the organisation pay high emphasis to the feedbacks and safety of its employees and
customers.
The feedbacks and suggestions regarding quality are given first priority in the company
so that customers can receive high quality services as per their needs. To enhance the quality of
individuals management also consider the reviews and feedbacks from the staff members. Since
online retailing has become one of the leading trend in retail sector it is very essential for the
Tesco management to understand those trends and to respond accordingly (Bush, Bell and
Middlewood, 2019). With the global expansion and the emergence to online retail practices it has
become vital for the company to integrate its operations with the technology. Thus, management
identify such needs and conduct training sessions so that all necessary resources are available to
human resources for the execution of the plans.
Impact of management style and organisational culture on business
Managers are people who are mostly influential in nature as they are the one who are
powerfully impacting the working environment and culture within company. The type of
management style or approach which they are using will be mostly impacting the culture of
business, team and individual behaviour as well (McCaffery, 2018). Whatever manager or
leaders are doing will be impacting the employees and thusly profits of company as well.
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Whereas this will be depending upon the organisational culture as well which means the stronger
is the culture of firm will be impacting the employees as to what they are doing. This helps in
organising, leading and controlling the employees are their behaviour.
The organisational culture will be affected by employees more by the way in which
managers are planning, organising and leading their team members. The employees and their
behaviour would also be affected by this as will be underlying the value or belief will existing
continuously and driving behaviour in organisation. There is several type of management style
like the autocratic mangers will be supervising the subordinate very closely. While on the other
hand very good or strong leaders who are using management skill positively impact company
into various ways like that of reducing turnover, empowering employees and improving morale
for being more and more productive. While the democratic leadership style would be highly
impacting the business of firm for employee retention, reducing the gap between employer and
employee. Thus will be improving the employee willingness for exerting extra efforts and will be
revealing leadership styles (Bush, Bell and Middlewood, 2019). One of the most influential
concept within the organisational behaviour which impact the interrelationship between culture
and different leadership styles as well.
While there are certain management style which will be impacting employee and their
performance in negative way. Like that autocratic management style will not allow any of the
employee to perform in better way as they could not be giving their personal views and ideas
into this. The culture of company will impact its sales, profits, employee morale and recruiting
efforts as well which could be both negative and positive. The culture of company will attract
people who want to work with business of firm so this will reduce the turnover of employees.
The culture of Tesco is giving identity for organisation and making it distinct from
others, communication and relationship playing very important role into healthy organisation
culture (Hallinger and Wang, 2015). Effectively communicating in company will be playing very
essential role into building up of positive culture at workplace.
Recommendations
It could be recommended that instead of using Transformational management style Tesco
could also use democratic or transactional method of management which will be considered to as
effective for company (Renz, 2016). Transactional leadership which is promoting compliance by
followers through reward and punishment. This particular type of management effective into
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emergency of crisis situation of company for projects that need to carried for specified way. This
type of management will be having certain characteristics like that of extrinsic motivation which
means that manger will be aiming at desired performance of their employees from the team with
help of motivating employees. Other than this the management will assist into positive resistant
to change which people or employees of company will be having within them. Even it was found
in one of the research that transactional management is most effective into given situations where
the problems are very well defined and known by manager (Hallinger and Wang, 2015). This
will also be working during the time of crisis where more focus should be there within the
certain number of task by having focus on maintaining structure of group. Other than this
manager could also use other management styles like that of democratic under which they will
give equal opportunity to employees by listening to their ideas and thought.
CONCLUSION
From the report it can be concluded that in order to sustain the efficiency and competitive
in the business market. Managerial practices can influence the contribution and response of the
employees towards goal achievement process. Thus, leadership and cultural aspects must be
taken into account in the planning and implementation process so that human resources can
accomplish the tasks with desired efficiency. The failure to incorporate suitable leadership can
make it hard for the organisation to sustain its excellence. It can also be conclude from the report
that retail organisations must emphasis on their business culture so that consumer engagement
can be increased and profitability goals can be achieved.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Renz, D.O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
McCaffery, P., 2018. The higher education manager's handbook: effective leadership and
management in universities and colleges. Routledge.
Thorpe, R., 2016. Gower handbook of leadership and management development. CRC Press.
Gopee, N. and Galloway, J., 2017. Leadership and management in healthcare. Sage.
Hallinger, P. and Wang, W.C., 2015. Assessing instructional leadership with the principal
instructional management rating scale. Dordrecht: Springer.
Oshagbemi, T., 2017. Leadership and Management in universities: Britain and Nigeria (Vol.
14). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Herman, R.D., 2016. Executive leadership. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership
and management, p.167.
Klinga, C., and et.al., 2016. Co-leadership–a management solution for integrated health and
social care. International journal of integrated care, 16(2).
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