Management, Leadership, and Operational Effectiveness: Unilever Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of leadership and management, comparing their roles and characteristics within an organizational context. It delves into situational leadership, system leadership, and contingency theories, illustrating their application through the case of Unilever. The report examines how leaders and managers function in different situations, including major product launches and conflict management. It further explores operational management approaches, the importance of these approaches in achieving organizational goals, and the influence of the business environment on decision-making. The report concludes by synthesizing the key findings and emphasizing the practical implications for effective leadership and management practices within Unilever.

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
LO 1............................................................................................................................................................3
P1 define and compare different roles and characteristics of leaders and managers................................3
LO 2............................................................................................................................................................6
P2 For different situational context, role played by leader and manager.................................................6
P3 Different approaches and theories for situational, system leadership and contingency.......................8
LO 3..........................................................................................................................................................10
P4 Operations management approaches and different roles and responsibility of both leader and
manager.................................................................................................................................................10
P5 Value of operation management to achieve goals of the organization..............................................12
LO 4..........................................................................................................................................................13
P6 Factors within business environment that impacts operational management and decision making by
leaders and managers.............................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Operation management is the proper management of business practices. This helps to
create higher efficiency possible within an organization. This is concerns with planning,
conniving as well as controlling of production business operation in order to production of goods
and services in effective manner. The present report is based on Unilever which is the British
multinational consumer goods company. Company produce various products such as food energy
drink, cleaning agents, ice cream, beauty products and personal care products.
The report will define different roles as well as characteristics of leader or manager. This
will examine role of leader and function of manager is differing in different situation within the
company using examples. Situational leadership, system leadership and contingency are different
theories which help to leaders and manager for taking better decision at workplace will also
discussing in report. The report will explain approaches of management operation with role of
leader and manager and importance of operation management for achieving business objectives.
The report will also assess factors of business environment which will affect to decision making
process of leaders and managers.
MAIN BODY
LO 1
P1 define different roles and characteristics of leaders and managers.
Leader is person who able to influence their team and subordinates for achieves specified
goals (Bateh and Sofianopoulou, 2019). On the other side, a manager is person who manages
organization and responsibility for planning, directing, coordinating and control.
Concept of leadership and leader:
Leadership is the process through person influence to others for performing better task to
achieving objectives of organization in the way of making more organized and logical manner.
This is effective and valuable meaning of working in proper manner. This is inspiring others to
pursue vision within the working edge in order to extent which is shared effective vision and
success with their subordinates in effective manner (Buell, Kim and Tsay, 2017). This is linked

with the performance of team members. On the other side, a good leader is made not born. This
is because, if person have ability and desire and willing power can help to becoming a successful
leaders with never ending process.
Concept of management and a manager:
Management is process of getting things done with carrying aims and objectives
effectively at working place. The main function of management are planning, organising,
staffing, directing and controlling. This is refers with effective knowledge, practices and
discipline. There are various reasons that describe management techniques to making effective
decision making which help to analysed management as an economic resources factor of
production and system authority (DiGirolamo and Tkach, 2019). On the other side, manager is
responsible for part of the company which manage the company. Manager may be charge of
departments and people work in effective manner. Manager has effective duty which is
managing employee of company on a day to day basis.
Compare roles of leaders and managers:
There are various roles of leaders and manager for managing people at workplace in
effective. There are important to differ betwixt managing as well as leading people. Here is
explain most effective role of leaders and manager at Unilever are as follows:
Leaders Manager
Leader is creating a vision for working in
order to achieve goals.
On the other side, manager is creating goals
for all employees.
The leader has effective ability to change
agents for working by knowing effective
things of working. Leader tries to understand
their team and accept facts of changes
management.
Manager is stick the work, system, structure,
process and other things are important to make
status better (Roles of leaders and manager,
2017).
Leaders are creating uniqueness at working On the other side, manager is mimic

place because they have willingness to build
unique and different personal brand.
competencies as well as behaviors which learn
from others as well as adopt effective
leadership style rather then it is defining in
proper manner.
Compare characteristics of leaders and managers:
It is very important to having good characteristics in leaders and managers are help to
attract employees for working effective. In order to that here is explain some characteristics of
leaders and managers are as follows:
Leaders Manager
Main and foremost characteristics of leader are
integrity with other people. This is very
essential for individual and for organization.
Manager has effective quality which is having
great vision and communicating to others. This
is very important to have mission statement for
working in better manner.
Effective leader has effective communicating
power with their team member (Characteristics
of leaders, 2018). This help to motivate their
team for working in order to achieve goals and
objectives of company in effective manner.
Time management is another good
characteristic of manager. This is very
important for being a successful manager to be
on time and prioritising day working with
proper time management.
Learning agility is another ability to know the
effective things for working and management.
It is very important for leaders to have learning
ability in order to provide effective knowledge
to their subordinates.
Delegation of work is another characteristic of
manager which is difficult but having in
manager for getting effective of company
(Mateas and Wardrip-Fruin, 2018).
Those are the important roles and characteristics of leaders and manager which are help
to getting effective result of working in effective manner.

LO 2
P2For different situational context, role played by leader and manager
There are different role of leaders and managers that are working for Unilever in order to
bring improvement and desirable changes in the operation of the organisation.
Role of a leader:-
A person that leads an organisation and is able to see how the desirable changes can be
brought to the business in order to make improvement in operations of the firm and according the
leader make its employees move towards the vision of the organisation(Murphy and Johnson,
2016). Within the organisation, leadersmotivate its working staffand understand their needs.
Accordingly, leader praise the working of its employees in order to make them work effectively
to achieve organisational mission and vision. Leaders also provide the required tools to its
employees and accordingly guide them to use it for different organisational operations. Not only
that, building morale of the employees towards the common goals of the business is also
responsibility of the leaders.
A leader plays different role in different situational context and is as following:-
 For major product launch:- The leader plays an important role for the product launch as
it motivates the working employees of marketing department to prepare the offerings that
customers are expecting from Unilever and they set a vision for the same so that all the
staff members works in the direction of achieving business goals. There are different
organisational and strategic processes for product launch and leader shape them for
getting succeed. Leader applies an effective product thinking to achieve business goals of
Unilever.
 In conflict management:- Managers at Unilever are having an effective conflict
management skills with the help of which it provides its employees a right direction and
guide them to resolve the conflicts in an effective manner. Leader here builds a team that
can work together for managing any conflict that arises doing business operations. Leader
works to bring new level of understanding among the staff members so that they can
work together in any difficult situation. Leader work as a disturbance handler as it takes
corrective actions while the business face any unexpected difficulties and not only this,

leader at Unilever are good negotiators as they are always representing their organisation
effectively in negotiations(Zhao, Thatcher and Jehn, 2019).
Function of a manager:-
Manager is the responsible person of the organisation that is having responsibility to
control all its staff members and is having skills for managing important resources of the
business. The manager of Unilever is performing different functions that include planning,
organizing, staffing, directing and also coordinating. Manager works to plan an effective
schedule of different task that employees are required to perform and they synchronize all the
things according to the plan(Kumar and et.al., 2017). If the things are not going according to the
plan, managers at Unilever look into the issues and make them work accordingly. They guide the
working employees so that no conflicts are arising while performing any task. For the same they
bring an effective coordination among the staff members by building an effective relationship
among them.
In different situational context, role of manager is as following:-
 Major product and service launch:-Manger is having an important function that is to
have an effective plan for new projects and with the allocation of required resources they
launch the major products and services that customers are actually in need of. For the
same, they work on a time integrated plans for introducing such offerings with the help of
different marketing strategies.
 Conflict management:-Managers guide their working employees in order to overcome
the conflicts that may arise during business operations and that helps to avoid delay in
task. Their major function is to communicate effectively with all the respective
employees and understand the problems that they are actually facing. They are having
effective decision making skills that helps if any conflict arise to the firm(Raines, 2019).
As per that manager and leaders have their effective roles and responsibility in different
situation. This creates more effectiveness for business in order to handle various kinds of
situation like conflict and major product and services as per requirements.

P3 Different approaches and theoriesfor situational, system leadership and contingency
Situational leadership:-
This model is used by the managers and organisation so that they can adapt different
styles of leadership on bases of different situations that they are facing within the organisation.
The different styles that leaders at Unilever can adopt in order to make the employees work at
different situations are as following:-
 Telling and Directing:-In this style of leadership, leader make the essential decisions and
inform the working employees so that they work on bases of these decisions only. Here,
leader supervises the working staff very closely and they have to do what they have been
guided to do.
 Selling and Coaching:-In this leadership style, the employees are having permission to
give their inputs but the ultimate decision is made by the leader itself. Here, the leader is
very involved with its daily activities and the supervision here is in coaching manner and
not is management style. This helps in guiding and praising the employees so that their
confidence can be increased(Lynch and et.al., 2018).
 Participating and Supporting:-Here, the employers arehaving more responsibility and
leaders just guide and show them right direction. The final decision is on the employees
and leader works to provide them feedback so that they can correct their mistakes. They
motivate and praise their employees so that they can complete their tasks more
effectively.
 Delegating to employees:-Here, the leader is less involved with the employees and the
working staff is set free to decide their own tasks and also the direction of their work.
Leaders are somewhat there for the feedback but it is at lower level as compared with
other leadership styles.
 Considering development level:-Here the situational leadership style of the leader is
determine by the development level of the business.Employees having little experience,
will need directing style and the high competent employeeswill need delegating style.
Leaders at Unilever use Telling and directing style for launching its products and services
in market as it helps the leaders to have different ideas of the employees and use them for the
product and service launch. They supervise the employees in right direction so that they can

work effectively in the direction leaders have guided to them.Thisleadership style helps them
understand the exact cause of conflict and on bases of the situation they use their best
approach to handle and solve the problem.
System leadership:-
This leadership stylehelps the leaders at Unilever to create an effective condition for the
working employees where they can work productively with all their possible efforts and
potential.The systems leadership is the set of skills that the leaders of the Unilever can use for the
process of systems-level change. Systems leaders usually have their role as catalyzing and
supporting widespread actions and they never work to have spotlight just on their work(Boylan,
2016).
For launching its products and services in market and also for the conflict management,
leaders at Unilever can use this approach as it work effectively to complex challenges that
require a collective set of actions by the organisation.With this approach, leaders are required to
engage their stakeholders in addressing the key issues and mutually they take right decisions for
solving different business conflicts. This approach also helps the business to have a continuous
communication of leaders with their employees so that they can come up with innovative ideas
for the product and service launch.
Contingency approach to leadership:-
This approach of leadership states that the effectiveness of all the leaders at the
workplace is contingent to the leadership style that they use in order to match with the situations
that arise at the business. For the same, Fiedler Contingency model can be applied by the leaders
for the product launch and also to manage conflicts at Unilever. The required steps in this model
are as following:-
 Identify your leadership style:-With the use of LPC scale, leaders can determine the
leadership style that are preferable and can be implemented. If the score is high, then it is
been analyzed that the leader is relationship focused and with low score, it can be said
that the leader is task focused (Kulkarni, 2017).

 Identify the situation:-By identifying and analyzing different situations, that is whether
the relationship of leader is good with the leader or not. The task that the employees are
performing is structured not etc.
 Determine the most effective leadership style:- According to above situations, leaders
can determine the leadership styles that they are required to adopt for having an effective
product launch and also to manage different conflicts arising at Unilever.
As per the above, there are different theories and models that help leaders and managers to
handle each and every situation within the business. By using situation theory leader is able to
solve the problems.
LO 3
P4Operations management approachesand different roles and responsibility of bothleader and
manager
There are different approaches with respect to operation management that leaders and
managers at Unilever can opt for increasing the efficiency of the business. The approaches are as
following:-
Six sigma approach:-
This methodology is used to improve quality of operation management of Unilever. This
works with the elimination of errors and different defects that are arising within the business
operations and that helps the business to reduce the associated cost and also its leads to less
consumption. There are five major steps that that lead to this approach and the first step is that
the leader identifies the requirementsof clientsso that Unilever can work to fulfill the same.
Second step is the measurement of changes that are essential to meet the respective business
goals. Next step is to analyze the root cause of the problems that are arising in the business
operations so that the respective changes can be brought to meet the goals of Unilever. Next step
is that the managers workto achieve the business goals by improving its operations. At the end,
manager work to have control on the process so that in near future all the goals are easily
achieved(Chuganiand et.al., 2017).

Here, role of leader is to lead the overall effort and approve the respective projects that
are undertaken by the business to improve its business operations. On the other hand, the role of
manager of the organisation is to build a successful lean six sigma organisation by creating an
environment for the working employees where they have clearly defined roles and responsibility
and also an effective communication within the team. This helps in setting the stage for
employee’s success.
Lean production:-
This approach is used by the management at Unilever so that they have their focus on
cutting out waste and ensuring quality of offerings. This approach is applicable for designing,
production and also to distribution of the goods and services. This approach is used at Unilever
forminimizing the operational activities that are not adding value to the production of the
organisation(Uhrin, Bruque-Cámara and Moyano-Fuentes, 2017).
For lean production, role played by leaderis to ensure that the work of employees at
Unilever are contributing effectively to customer value and for the same they engages the staff
members in the change process in order to meet the standards. On other side,Manager defines the
process and products on which the employees are required to work on. They study the process
that is presently been implemented and accordingly brings changes in operations of the business.
Total Quality management:-
TQM is the process in operational management that removesall the errors that are coming
in manufacturing of the products and works to reduce these defects. This directly leads to supply
chain management of the business and this helps Unilever to improve its customer experience
with the improved speed of the working staff. This helps the organisation to increase the
awareness with respect to quality of culture that they have. This also leads to an effective team
work and commitment of working employees towards improvement of the organisational
operations.
Role of leader in total quality management is to set desirable culture for the working
employees and inspire the team with sufficient competency so that organisational goals are

achievable. Manager is having its major functionin TQM to act as a facilitator and to appoint
right people who can take charge of the entire project(Aquilaniand et.al., 2017).
Above mention model are helping to maintain quality of product and services in effective
manner at the workplace. This is more effective in nature for company users. By using these
models business is able to have quality of its offerings.
P5 Value of operation management to achievegoals of the organization
Operation management works to create huge efficiency for the business and is having its
concern on the material and labor that is how it can be converted into essential products and
services that can be offered in front of the customers in order to maximize the business
profitability. Operation management is basically planning and organizing the respective business
resources that is transforming the respective inputs such raw materials with the help of machine,
labor and capital with overall management into output that is finished good and different services
for the customers.
There are different operational functions that help the business to achieve its objectives
and these functions are as following:-
 Control and Distribution Systems:-This basisof operational management works
effectively to oversee the movement of goods from the manufacturer of the organisation
to the sales team.
 Transformation of raw material into finished goods and services:-The basic function of
operational management is to transform the allocated resources into final offeringwith the
help of an effective planning and controlling systems in hand(Reid and Sanders, 2019).
 Process design:-Another function of operational management is process design and here
offering is been dividedinto parts with the use of an effective process strategy as it deals
with raw material procurement, technology investment etc. This process works
effectively in achieving the overall organisational objectives.
There are different business objectives that can be achieved by the business with the help of
different operational functions that are as following:-

 Enhancing products and service quality:-With the help Control and Distribution
Systems, business is able to enhance the quality of its product and service with the help
of an effective product improvement program. By having an effective distribution system
service quality, customers of Unilever become satisfied and that is having a positive
impact over quality of its offering.
 The reduction of wastage:-By having aneffective process design,organisation
minimizethe wastage in best possible manner. The way a product is been designed at
Unilever can prevent the wastage with respect to packaging, cleaning products
etc(Ravinder and Kollikkathara, 2017).
 Profitability:-The profitability of the business can be achieved with an effective
transformation of raw material into final offering. Business is required to process the raw
material into something useful so that it can add value these finished goods and may
leads to business profitability.
The operation management is very effective for the organization as it helps to manage
profitability of the business and manages to bring an huge advantage to the firm.
LO 4
P6Factors within business environment that impacts operational management and decision
making by leaders and managers
There are different factors that impacts the operational management and decision making
of the leaders and managers of Unilever and the different factors are as following:-
 Corporate social responsibility:- The CSR activities of the business helps the
organisation be socially responsible to all its stakeholder and society. It plays an
important role in operation management as it helps the business to set its operations in
such a way that it creates highest quality of products at the lowest possible price without
harming the environment. Role of manager and leaders is to be ethically responsible and
to become morally conscious about different business operations. They have to motivate
their working employees to for different CSR activities. It also affects the business
negatively as affects the image of the organisation if the business do not operates socially
and that affects the brand name and reputation of organisation is market. Therefore, the

operational decision of the business is required to be based on CSR activities as it may
affect the sales of the organisation negatively(Famiyeh, 2017).
 Culture:-The organisational culture is having a great impact over the operation
management as there is a correlation between organisational culture and its commitment.
It is having a great influence in productivity and quality of the business operations and it
also impacts the performance of the employee and their motivational level. Leaders and
managers are required to set an effective working culture for the employees where they
are been motivated on daily bases and are guided in right direction in order to
achievebusiness objectives.
 Ethics:-If Unilever is socially responsible than the business will be having the trust of its
potential customers and not only this, business will also be able to gain the trust of its
working employees. An organisation that works on ethics, have a long run business
operations and that helps the business to increase to its profitability. Having ethical
relationship with the customers leads to success of the organisation and unethical
behavior like false claims may result in conversion of leads, but it may not work in long
run. That is the reason leaders and managers at Unilever are required to share a vision to
the employees that also includes business ethics(Goebel and Tran, 2016). The ethical
decision making by the leaders and managers at the workplace leads to new opportunity
for the business and brings understanding with the working staff.
Those are the factors which are affecting to business in negative and positive manner. In That
company required to make their decision by considering those factors.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it had been concluded that the operation management had been
more important and effective for company to manage employees and working process in
effective manner. Leaders and manager has various effective roles for performing within the
company with some of effective characteristics. The leaders have their effective role in managing
conflicts and product launches services has to motivate other for working and manager has role
to set guideline for working. For managing situation manager and leader both had been take help
by applying theories at workplace which gave effective solution for handling situation at
workplace. TQM and six sigma have the effective approach of operation management helped to

manage quality of product and services at market place in effective manner. Operation
management had been helped transform raw material into finished goods, product and service
qualities. Corporate social, culture and ethics has the factors which has affect to business and its
environment in negative and positive manner.
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ONLINE
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https://www.ccl.org/blog/characteristics-good-leader/>
Roles of leaders and manager. 2017. [Online]. Available through: <
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