Vauxhall Motors Leadership and Management Operations Report

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Management and Operations
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Executive summary
In this report, analysis of the roles and responsibilities of the leaders and managers are
explained that will help in developing the operations of Vauxhall Motors effectively. The
report will describe the operation and management of the chosen organization using
situational leadership, systems leadership, and contingency theory of leadership. This
study will help to understand the strategies that should be used by the firm for
developing the sales figures substantially.
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 4
LO1.................................................................................................................................. 5
LO2.................................................................................................................................. 7
LO3................................................................................................................................ 12
LO4................................................................................................................................ 19
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 21
Reference list................................................................................................................. 22
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Introduction
Management operations help in expanding the output of a company for the creation of
more services and products so that the organization can earn more profits and revenue
(Schönsleben, 2016). It is immensely essential for the company to provide the best
resources for an operation to produce high quality commodities. In this study, a
company named Vauxhall Motors will be chosen. Vauxhall Motors (Vauxhall.co.uk,
2019) is a British car corporation. A German car manufacturer named Opel owns this
enterprise, which then owned by Groupe PSA of France. The headquarters of the
company is situated in Park Town, Luton, Bedfordshire, England. As per the report of
2016, the output of the company is 118,182. The organisation sells both commercial
vehicles and automobiles. As per the report of 2014, the revenue of the organisation is
£3,837 million. As per 2011, the company comprises of 4,029 Employees. Stephen
Norman is the managing director and the chairperson of the company. The company
has a hierarchical structure and there are various levels of the company where on the
top consist of the managerial heads and below that consist of the sub employees. In this
report, it will discuss the management and the leadership operations of Vauxhall Motors
in the United Kingdom.
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LO1
Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader and a
manager
Management means the process of controlling and organising resources in an effort to
achieve goals. Henri Fayol, a French mining engineer has derived a theory of scientific
management. As per the theory, the managers of the company have to play four
different roles. They organise, lead, manage, and control the staffs working under them.
The managers of Vauxhall Motors determine actions and set goals for the staffs. They
distribute different tasks to their employees and define who will complete which task.
Motivating and directing (Chirculescu, 2017) are the other two roles of the managers
that help to achieve goals for the Vauxhall Motors. They observe overall performance of
the company, identify the divergence between the original and the planned results. In
case some challenging situations arise in the automobile industry, the organisation will
take various preventive measures.
Through the conclusion of the scientific management theory, Vauxhall Motors introduce
the best practices and modern approaches of work. It is immensely important to deal
with the problems related to the improvement of product efficiency and product quality.
The company applies Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Effect of behavioural studies for
improving and modifying the behaviour of the staffs. Vauxhall use social system to their
workplace. The employees have a freedom to use various skills to accomplish the
directives that are provided by the supervisors. By focusing on the employee behaviour
and improving quality, both theories assist sustainable performance of the company.
Leadership is the ability and art to affect the human behaviour to accomplish a mission
by setting a vision for people (Antonakis and Day, 2017). There are three types of
leadership roles identified by Mintzberg such as interpersonal, informational, and
decisional that every manager has to exhibit. Under interpersonal roles, the managers
have to manage the relationships between suppliers, stakeholders, subordinators, and
clients. Under informational roles, the managers have to collect information and transfer
to the stakeholders of Vauxhall Motor. It is the major role of the manager to gather
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information and make final decision. The main difference between the managers and
the leaders is that managers have the people who work for them and the leaders have
the people who follow them. An individual should have some good qualities to become a
strong leader. The characteristics are Integrity and honesty, Inspiration, Communication
skills, Vision, Ability to challenge. An individual should have some qualities like being
able to execute a vision, process management, ability to direct and focus of the people
to become a good manager.
Difference
Leaders Managers
The responsibility of the leaders is to bring
new changes to the existing organisational
practices, systems and processes
(Epstein, 2018)
The responsibility of the managers is to
bring consistency in organisation policies
and practices
They create direction by clarifying the
vision, setting strategies and creating a
vision
They originate a plan and produce a
budget by setting a timetable, allocating
tasks, and establishing agendas (Kerzner
and Kerzner, 2017)
They have the responsibility to range the
people by building association among the
team members, communicating goals and
pursuing commitment
They initiate new rules, policies and
procedures to regulate people
systematically
They motivate the people by fulfilling the
wants and needs of the staffs and
emancipate them through training
programs
They try to solve the problems of the staffs
by taking corrective and preventive
measures and by producing innovation
solutions
Some appreciable business leaders are
Tim Cook, Stewart Butterfield, and Warren
Buffett
Some appreciable business managers are
Harriet Green, Sheryl Sandberg, and
others
Table 1: Difference between leaders and managers
(Source: Created by the learner)
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Similarities
Managers and leaders both work within the teams, as they trust in teamwork. They
develop the organisation for the managerial, organisation, and the functional structure of
Vauxhall Motors. Both of them exert influence on the organisational practices, work
structure, and work environment (Biemann et al., 2015). They mainly focus on the
practices and the processes to achieve the goal. The supreme concern of both the
managers and the leaders is to allocate resources productively to achieve efficiency.
Both the leaders and the managers are superior if they have self-awareness and
empathy. The leader and the manager create the functional structure and the
foundation of the company. They influence on the environment and the work structure.
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LO2
Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a manager
apply in different situational contexts.
In terms of functionality, three types of situations in context analysis are discussed
below. The effect of these situations on the roles of a manager and a leader, and their
efforts to increase the output of an organisation will be explained here. Three types of
situation are fast-charging situations, slow to moderate moving situations, and stable
situations.
Stable situation
There are least degree of changes in the resources, demands and the other factors of
the employees (Dóci and Hofmans, 2015). This situation is immensely common for the
automobile industry as more individuals are trying to purchase the vehicles. Stable
situation occurs when the preferences and the needs of the automobiles are increasing
day by day and the organisation remains in a stable state like Vauxhall Motors.
Slow to moderate situation
This situation occurs when there is a less demand of automobiles from the side of the
customers. The slow to moderate situation may occur within a car manufacturing
industry. In this situation, there is a less supply of work and large regression is spread
all over the organisation (Northouse, 2017). When the marketing efforts are put into the
company, this situation is subverted and over the passage of time, the degree of the
demand increases. As a result, the output of the company increases and the situation
got stable for the car manufacturing industry like Vauxhall Motors.
Fast charging situation
This situation occurs when the demand and needs of the customers changes rapidly. As
a result, the type of the commodities to fulfil the customer requirement has to be
changed by the company such as Vauxhall Motors (Reed and Bazalgette, 2018). This
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may result in increasing the force of the operations and there will be large products with
varying qualities exist in the market as there are various types of goods in the market.
Managerial accountability
Inside Vauxhall Motors, it is the responsibility of the managerial head of the organisation
to record all the operation of the organisation at every stage (Jaques, 2017). This
method is done to evaluate various fast changing, moderate and slow situations that
can be prepared and accessed easily in the future. For the record of the work performed
in the organisation, it is the responsibility of the employees to directly report to the
manager and the director of the company. This is immensely helpful for the manager to
identify the employee with more efforts.
Roles of the Leaders
ï‚· The major role of the leaders is to motivate other employees to perform and
produce better (Chiu et al., 2016).
ï‚· Leaders have to find out the wants and the needs of the employees, providing
them their needs and praising them for the job well done.
ï‚· Leaders of the company are the individuals who give objectives and directions to
others so that the operational goals are set out and managed properly. A good
leader will know the wants and the needs of the employees. While guiding the
employees it is very essential to assign the employees with their works and give
them the necessary tools they need to perform the task.
ï‚· The major role of a leader is to build morale among the employees so that
everyone will work together towards a common goal.
ï‚· Leadership is immensely important at every level of management. In the top
level, it is important to have cooperation among the employees. In the middle and
the lower level, it is important for the understanding and execution of
programmes and plans.
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Apply different theories and models of approach, including situational leadership,
systems leadership, and contingency
Situational leadership
Situational leadership is defined as the type of leadership where style depends on the
skills as well as capabilities of employees. As mentioned by Thompson and Glasø
(2015), situational leadership enable the organization to assess the situation as well as
behaviours of team members in order to get effective productivity. By developing
situational leadership in Vauxhall, Motors can help in the enhancement of the
operations, as leaders will be able to adopt various styles of leadership associated with
different situation. As it is found that the company is presently facing issues with
increasing costs and ineffective productivity, situational leadership can help in providing
direction in order to overcome the situation of the organization. On the other hand,
Zigarmi and Roberts (2017) commented that successful leaders that are using
situational leadership tactics are able to adjust in different situations. In Vauxhall
Motors, it has been found that employees feel interest to work due to friendly working
environment. However, as the car-manufacturing firm is currently surrounded with
competitive environment, it needs to use situational leadership tactics for developing
products for increasing quality of the car products.
Figure 1: Situational leadership
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(Source: Zigarmi and Roberts, 2017)
Systems leadership
System leadership is the one that used sound principle to enhance the organizational
strategy, system design, as well as social operation process. Cabeza et al. (2017)
opined that systems leadership assist the leaders with effective techniques and enable
to predict the behaviour of the employees in the organization. For example, in Vauxhall,
Motors, using system leadership, the leaders, and managers can understand the
working motivation of the staffs. Moreover, applying systems leaderships in the
Vauxhall, Motors, and the leaders will be able to control the working principles of staffs
along with effective communications as per the situation of the company. Vauxhall,
Motors need to use this leadership style for bringing improvement and fulfilling the
needs of KAIZEN. This will help the employees to excel in operational departments and
enhance the activities that are related to the manufacturing of cars at the lowest cost.
Figure 2: Systems leadership
(Source: Cabeza et al., 2017)
Contingency theory of leadership
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As per the principle of Contingency theory, it has been found that effectiveness of
leaders is contingent upon the leadership style used in the organization. As defined by
Chuang et al. (2016), task-oriented leaders are the one that are having positional power
in the organization. Based on this theory, Vauxhall Motors need to understand the
task-oriented relationship associated with the operations. As the organization is
responsible for manufacturing innovative cars, understanding the operational strategies
is most important. For example, prioritising the tasks based on the contingency of the
managers and employees would help in the understanding of internal mechanism of the
car products. Hence, it can be said that using contingency theory, the operational
managers of the organization can be able to discover the R&D division that would help
in mitigating the negative issues of the firm.
Figure 3: Contingency theory of leadership
(Source: Villoria, 2016)
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