Unilever: Leadership Styles and Organizational Performance Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's organizational theory and practice. It begins with an introduction to the significance of effective management and then delves into the management styles employed by Unilever, specifically highlighting CEO Alan Jope's democratic leadership approach. The report examines the organizational structure, emphasizing the divisional structure, and its impact on achieving high performance and fostering a positive organizational culture. It explores the leadership styles utilized to enhance organizational performance, the effects of power, influence, and conflicts within the company, and the motivation theories applied. Through a corporate example, the report provides insights into real-world applications, offering recommendations and concluding with a summary of key findings and references.

Organisational Theory and
Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
A. The management styles and state the principle and functions of management......................3
B. Organisational Structure to Achieve High Performance and Organisational Culture...........4
C. The leadership styles of CEO of that firm to enhance the organisational performance of the
organisation.................................................................................................................................5
D. Effects of Power, Influence and Conflicts of Unilever..........................................................6
E. Motivation theory used by the Unilever's...............................................................................7
F. Corporate Example.................................................................................................................9
RECOMENDATIONS....................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
In an organisation, managing of all together on a common platform, integrating
employees of the organisation in one place consider as an art. For effective management it is
important that the leader of the organisation take control of overall performing of the
organisation in way that their organisation through their assign tasks, duties and management can
reflect their productivity (Valmohammadi, and Ahmadi, 2015). Thus management plays a
significant role in strengthening the bond among the employees and unite their effort at the
centre of the organisation. For better understand the different styles of management and how
much effective role they play in an organisation. For this purpose the chosen organisation is
Unilever and the CEO of the organisation is Alan Jope was appointed in January 2019. Company
give thrust on sustainable business which derives superior performance and creating long term
values for the stakeholders of the company.
Main Body
A. The management styles and state the principle and functions of management
In every organisation, leader's have their unique style of handling their juniors. This style
is called Management Style which is used by the superior in the company. It is highly depend on
their culture and working condition (Schatzki, 2017). This may also be affected by the nature and
mindset of their employees. At Unilever, Alan Jope, is the Chief executive officer of the
company. He has adopted Democratic Style to lead the company. He took this decision due to his
realisation that for him to achieve his goals, it is important to consider the opinions of other
employees of his task force. Their valuable contribution is important for the success of the
organisation. So, he organises an open form and ensured that each and every employee's voiced
their opinion. This aid the company to a build healthy and effective communication between
employee's and the management. He even make sure that everyone is well equipped with all the
principles set by him and embraced appropriately as they defines their business integrity. Some
of their principles includes their ethical standards, clear policies, guidelines, their retailed
learning material and the powerful procedures. The company even see to it, that the company's
third party compliance programs are regularly monitored. This help Unilever, to prevent, identify
and be able to timely correct them on the time of arrival. These principles provides them the
assurance that they are following all the laws, thereby protecting their brand. Along with this,

they even ensure that they proceed in the right direction while ensuring they directly as well as
indirectly don't harm their people and the environment that are vital for their existence and even
are essential contribution for their long term success. The CEO also make use of variety of
Function in order to be able to achieve their desired objective efficiently. They utilize
comprehensive list of the function that helps them to improve their performance, their
productivity and gain Competitive advantage in their industry. This list mainly include designing
their product and services by the management by continuously identifying the challenges and
addressing them by continuously innovating their offerings. They even focus on Quality
management in order to ensure that their customer's are highly satisfied with their product as
well as service quality. Adding to this, their strategies related with job designed and managing
employees, locations are cost effective and most important monitoring them at every stage
(Otoo, 2019). This helps them to reach their target market and even increase their presence at
large.
B. Organisational Structure to Achieve High Performance and Organisational Culture
Unilever follows Divisional Structure in order to achieve higher performance in the
overall performing of the organisation. An organisation structure defines the arrangement and
systems that have used to build and interconnect between various organizational components,
like offices, leaders and teams etc. (Mostafa, and et. al., 2015). This type of structure follows
when a company grows into successful product lines in different part of the world and therefore
the organisation divide into sub divisions or units on the basis of products, brand or may be on
the basis of geographical area. The CEO of Unilever company focuses on product wise
divisional as the company have different categories of their products like; food, home-care
products, personal products etc. which also have sub categories of them. Unilever is one of the
leading consumer goods company or FMCG that have an organizational structure which suitably
supports diversified global operation in its organisation. Therefore such organisational structure
enable the company to grow despite of complexity in the global operations.
Since the company operate on global level therefore the employees of Unilever progress linked
with their organisational culture and the different policies they have and implement them over
time. As Unilever is a integrated company therefore any changes in at any level of the
organisation could affect the development areas of the company. Unilever is successful because

of overall effectiveness of the leaders importantly the CEO of the company for supporting
improvements in the organisational culture. The company emphasize the importance of their
employee output because, it is the ultimate asset of the company. The company's organisational
culture emphasize on following points i.e. Performance, Efficiency and Quality (Kamau and
Kagiri, 2015). Unilever believes that every individual is different and therefore the performance
of each individual has its different impact in the organisation. Quality refers to individual effort
that results in quality output in all areas and efficiency means the efficient work in terms of using
different tools and technology. Unilever's organisational culture involve their employees high
performance and quality work helps company to maximize the business output at large and
provide competitive advantage. Therefore any changes in organisational culture could have huge
impact in its employees working and so on the organisation productivity. For example, A new
management or a new team leader can bring a change in the organization culture. As the new
employee may have new ideas, concepts and try them on his/her level to implement them.
His/her style of working, behaviour and ideologies can definitely bring a changes if applied in
the work culture (Hosking and et. al., 2018). Sometime these changes feel negative impact while
working as they are totally different than what the cultures used to but on long term perspective
these changes can have positive impact too.
C. The leadership styles of CEO of that firm to enhance the organisational performance of
the organisation
There are different style used by different leaders in the Organisation. Each style has it's
own value and it is highly dependant on the existing situation which style will be most
appropriate in a specific situation (Hazy and et. al., 2015). It is must for the leaders to be
innovative and he should be able to analyse the best style for his team as it has wider influence
on the company's culture and even for their employee's engagement. It will ultimately be
beneficial for the company as a whole. Unilever's uses Democratic Style of leadership. It is one
of the most effective leadership style as it considers the viewpoint of each and every team
member before taking any important decision for accomplishing the task . CEO Alan Jope,
organises an open discussion at the board meeting and discloses the number of decisions that can
be taken for maximising the efficiency of the organisation. This utilises the mindset of each of
their talented employee's and through a healthier discussion helps in reaching the best decision.
This has dual advantage one is that employee's feels highly valued, be focused, also take into

consideration the results of their existing market and continually enhance their performance. This
help them in brainstorming and thinking innovative ideas that haven't ever been thought off by
any of their managers. Another merit is that it will help in carefully analysing the pros and cons
of each of their decision. At the time he even ensures that the decision is feasible and can be
implemented with minimised cost and maximising their profit. Then leader will provide all of his
talented workforce his feedback through his experience as the consequence of each of these
decision as it has direct impact on the productivity of the Company. This had helped them in
improving in their Productivity particularly in their main Business i.e. Consumer's Good. His
leadership style has had a great influence on their human resource and their practices. This in
turn has ultimately helped in strengthening as well as developing the culture of the Organisation.
He even carefully evaluates the activities at every step of each of their employee's. This ensure
that the people are complying with all the laws and maintain their corporate culture. Along with
this, there is constant improvement in their quality and performance. This eventually improves
the productivity and have helped the company become a leader in their industry by gaining
competitive edge over their immediate competitors including Nestle and P.G (Hager, and
Brudney, 2015).
D. Effects of Power, Influence and Conflicts of Unilever.
Unilever works with clear purpose i.e. to make sustainable living at commonplace. Power
refers to the capacity to get others to act as per the position of authority exercised over others. It
is the ability that can be based on a number of factors like; knowledge, personality, and even on
authority or position he/ she may poses (Haas, 2019). Power is wider term which include
authority. Since power have several forms. These are as; coercive power, charismatic, expert and
so on. As company known for their sustainable living and value creation; company give
emphasize on positive use of power in the organisation. Work environment is also similar to a
society, involve people, different culture and expertise on their delegated tasks (Daft, 2020).
Thus it effect the people of the Unilever, mostly the source of power come from the personal
qualities of individual. This ability can be based on many factors such as; knowledge, personality
and even on authority in organisation. When source of power derive from personal qualities, then
that power consider as a bias-free. Since Unilever promote equal opportunity for every individual
at work place to avoid any kind of resentment.

Whereas Influence refers to the ability of one to modify other person or make an influence on
other through developing, behaviours or maybe thoughts can pursue others. Influence often have
positive and maybe sometime negative impact also (Foster and et. al., 2017). As Unilever's
employees are independent at workplace and therefore they lead innovation and ideas which only
make positive impact on other fellow employees as well. Thus such behaviour of leader towards
the employees only provide an influence that make them do better and learn better from their
work.
Conflicts refers to some issues one may have with other or maybe with any managerial or other
issue. Conflicts are central to organization's operations and no organization can do without it.
Although conflict usually leads to some frustrations and confrontations within or between
organizations (Austin and Jones, 2015). Conflicts are part of the universal principle of
organizational management. At Unilever the leaders have framed policies in way that most of
conflicts doesn't result in company's image break, productivity, environment or its working.
Though the coin of Conflicts have both the sides i.e. positive and negative respectively. On
positive side of conflict it can be a catalyst for changes as conflict can force organization to re-
examine its organisational goals or reset priorities if needed. Which can also push managers to
face important issues they may have ignoring or maybe didn't realise the seriousness and make
effective decisions on those issues and many more. Whereas in negative side of Conflict and
have adverse affect on the organisation. Conflict cause loss of productivity, demotivate
workforce, long stretched conflict even cause stress, frustration and chaos which are harmful for
workers well-being.
E. Motivation theory used by the Unilever's
It is must for the Company to motivate their employee's as they the more employee is
motivated, the more productive be becomes to attain their objectives and become profitable.
Different organisation use different motivation theories that is appropriate for them to ensure that
there employee's are highly engaged and motivated. Some of the main motivation theories are
explained below:
Maslow's theory of Needs
Hertzberg's two factory Theory
McClelland's Theory of Needs
Vroom's Theory of expectancy

McGregor’s theory X and theory Y
Unilever give more focus on Maslow's theory of Needs, as it is most appropriate for the company
to motivate their employees. The leader of the company is of the opinion that happiness of their
talented people has direct influence on their performance and in turn for the long term success of
their firm. For doing this they have created a new and efficient human resource management
system that is flexible and easy to implement with the happening in their industry. The theory
follows a top down approach as it states that it is essential that their staff's lower level of needs
are satisfied before proceeding further to satisfy their higher level of needs (Alatailat, 2019). This
has motivated them and proved beneficial for the company in reaching closer to their desired
objectives. For doing this, how they satisfy employee's needs. The five stages of the theory to
ensure that they are engaged is explained in detailed below:
Physiological Needs: It is important for Human's to fulfil their basic needs that are must
for their survival. It includes food, water, clothing, health and education. Unilever sees to
it that their essential requirements are satisfied as it is impossible for their staff's to work
in a optimal manner if their physiological needs are not satisfied.
Safety Needs: Then it is important for an individual to satisfy their safety needs. It
includes emotional security and financial security. The CEO, ensures that satisfy them by
provide them raises and incentive that are highly dependant on their performance.
Love and Belongingness Need: When the above two needs are satisfied then their love
and belongingness needs are to be fulfilled. As employees spend half of their in their
office, the management engages their employee's in diverse activities. Lately, the
company have launched social impact hub that helped them in building healthy relations
among one another.
Esteem Needs: This needs emphasises of needs to earn respect for oneself and also from
another. Unilever is engaged in fulfilling their esteem needs by annual honouring them
with Young entrepreneurship awards.
Self Actualisation Needs: This needs is last and helps one to realise his potential and
analyse his achievements. Once the employee's esteem needs are fulfilled it become easy
for them to analyse in term's of their personal growth and know their level of further
improvement .

F. Corporate Example
For better understand the above theory of management style which is Democratic style in
the Unilever; other companies who successfully implemented them in their organisation and the
style of the leader also get affected from such exercise. Since the democratic style of leadership
is based on mutual respect that is combined the efforts of employees and managers as a
collaborative leadership because it requires cooperation between leaders and the people they
guide in the organisation. For example Google company: The founders Sergey Brin and Larry
Page developed their internet search engine while pursued their doctorates at Stanford
University. After got initial finance, both of them did something unusual. Brin and Page
followed the advice of experienced entrepreneurs and hired Eric Schmidt to jump-start their own
company. Integrate a mix of autocratic, laissez-faire and democratic leadership styles, the Novell
and Sun executive brought experience into Google’s excavation. The three immediately began
hunt experienced talents to set up democratic/participative teams. Today, Google remains
relatively democratic in its approach to product development under the guidance of CEO Page.
Another example of Democratic Style of leadership is Amazon, when it launched, Amazon was
only known for selling books. The company start prospered by implementing all three of
Lewin’s leadership style. The company started as a laissez-faire company, with Jeff Bezos as
final authority of all key decisions of the company. He recruited a lot of computer programmers
from nearby software companies and quickly implemented a democratic/participative leadership
model in his company. Today, Amazon sells everything which are imaginable, from clothing to
cloud services and big data security storage. At its core, the company retains its democratic
values in the organisation.
RECOMENDATIONS
Based on above report of Unilever, it can be suggest that Unilever can extract more
power if they can explore more in different types of management styles. After all it is the
ultimate leader or CEO of the organisation who exercise it power to draw out best within the
individual. Because each style of management have its typical impact that brings newness in
performance, productivity, values among the of the employees in the organisation. Because in
current management style have also cons which may have impacting organisation that have no
initial signs.

Cons in Democratic Management style can be following: One of the biggest downside of
democratic management is that it takes lot of time. As it involves most of the people of the
company and if company needs to take fast decision which needs to be made quickly, company
won’t have time to reach out and consider the suggestions from rest of the people in the
organisation.
Another drawback is that employees in the company can become frustrated or dissatisfied if
they feel like company is not truly taking their ideas into consideration and other consequences
as well are there.
So if company involve variety in management as in above example companies do posses.
This can enhance the efficiency more broader way for Unilever. Such as Visionary Management
style, Authoritarian Management style, Transactional management style can be exercised in
order to achieve higher performance level of the employees in the organisation. In Visionary
Style of management which involve vision of the company. It is also known strategic,
inspirational, transformational. In this the company leaders focus on convey the overall visions
of company to their employees. In this style of management it doesn't involve day to day details
of working of its employee instead the leaders focuses on motivation and arrangement of their
groups. The leader directs their employees in united direction.
CONCLUSION
From the presented report it is concluded that, Unilever's management style and
motivation theory plays an important role in operation of the company. The CEO of company
have effectively manage the organisational structure to extract their employees effort to achieve
the organizational objectives. Also from above suggestions company can mastery in its
objectives if implemented carefully after analysing the requirement and fulfil them.

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