Differences between Leadership and Management | Tesco

Management is a function that must be exercised in any business (Maccoby, 2000, pp57-59) management is a process of planning, organising, commanding, coordinating, and controlling and it is a systematic way of doing things.

According to Mullins (2010, p429) ‘Fayol describes these elements as:

Planning – examining the future, deciding what needs to be achieved and developing a plan of action.

Organising – providing the material and human resources and building the structure to carry out the activities of the organisation.

Command – maintaining activity among personnel, getting the optimum return from all employees in the interest of the whole organisation.

Co-ordination – unifying and harmonising all activities and effort of the organisation to facilitate its working and success.

Control – verifying that everything occurs in accordance with plans, instructions, established principles and expressed command’.

‘Leadership is an attempt to influence group or individuals’ (Russell C, Richard J, 2002, p406) he further explains that leadership gets organizations and people to change. Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.

Differences between Leadership and Management

Mullins demonstrated the differences of leadership and management.

‘Managers tend to adopt impersonal or passives attitudes towards goal. Leaders adopt a more personal and active attitude towards goals. In order to get people to accept solutions, the managers needs continually to co-ordinate and balance in order to compromise conflicting values. The leaders create excitement in work and develop choices that give substance to images that excite people. In their relationship with other people, managers maintain a low level of emotional involvement. Leaders have empathy with other people and give attention to what events and actions mean.’ (2010, p374)

Leadership differs from management in a sense that:

Management includes focus on function, authority relationship and creates stability. However, for a business to excel leadership is vital, because leaders motivate, secure commitment and inspire people.

Relationship between Management and Leadership

Leadership and management are the terms that are often considered synonymous. Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the accomplishment of goals. This influence may originate from formal sources, such as that provided by acquisition of managerial position in an organization.

According to Mullins (2010, p374) ‘Despite a continuing debate on differences between management and leadership, there is a close relationship between them and it is not easy to separate them as distinct activities’.

He further describes management and leadership, ‘they overlap and you need both qualities. Increasingly, management and leadership are being seen as inextricably linked. It is one thing for a leader to propound a grand vision, but this is redundant unless the vision is managed so it becomes real achievement’.

A manager must have traits of a leader. Leaders develop strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations require strong leadership and strong management for optimal organizational efficiency. Both managers and leaders aim to achieve goals, mobilize and utilize resource.

Section – 2

Managers have to perform many roles in an organization, how they handle various situations will depend on their style of management.

According to Mullins (2010, p381), ‘there are many dimensions to describe leadership style and he simplified three fold heading;

The authoritarian (autocratic) Style: The manager alone exercises decision making and authority for determining policy, procedures for achieving goals, work tasks and relationships, control of rewards or punishments.

The democratic Style: The leadership functions are shared with members of the group and the manager is more part of team. The group members have a greater say in decision making, determination of policy, implementation of systems and procedures.

A laissez – faire (genuine) style: The manager consciously makes a decision to pass the focus of power to members, to allow them freedom of action ‘to do as they think best’, and not to interfere; but is readily available if help needed. There is an often confusion over this style of leadership behavior. The word ‘genuine’ is emphasized because this is to be contrasted with the manager who could not care, who deliberately keeps away from the trouble spots and does not want to get involved’.

From my own experience of working in ABA – Beverages, management decided to implement HACCP using autocratic style of leadership style. This decision of quality control was taken to attract new customers and satisfy existing customers.

According to Wikipedia (ONLINE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard_analysis_and_critical_control_points) ‘HACCP (Hazard analysis and critical control points), is a systematic preventive approach to food safety and pharmaceutical safety that identifies physical, allergenic, chemical, and biological hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe, and designs measurements to reduce these risks to a safe level. In this manner, HACCP is referred as the prevention of hazards rather than finished product inspection’.

A key role of the quality manager in the company is to maintain the food safety. He has vital responsibilities and challenges to achieve HACCP. In order to achieve HACCP, he uses autocratic style of leadership.

This autocratic style was necessary because it is a matter of food safety. Employers view this safety principal as a critical, therefore use autocratic style. Employees must comply with instructions at all times.

The positive impacts food safety is met, objective of customer satisfaction met. If they do not use autocratic style, quality would be compromised and customers would not be satisfied.

Sri Lanka Red Cross Society

SLRCS (Sri Lanka Red Cross Society) (ONLINE: http://beta.redcross.lk/vision-mission.asp) ‘has operated since 1936. The SLRCS covers all 25 administrative districts of the Sri Lanka and the total membership 100,000.The total number of active volunteers 6,500’.

From my own experience of working in SLRCS, during the war in 2007 in Sri Lanka, it was involved to help victims who affected by war. They have divide teams and work under a coordinator. The coordinator gives freedom to the team leader to take appropriate actions within agreed boundaries (within set time limit and safety clearance). For example teams have to reach the camp and distribute all foods to beneficiaries. In case any problem arises team leaders have to make the decision. At this point Laissez – Faire style help to achieve the scope of the organization. Here, team leader is trusted to make decision by the coordinator follows laissez – faire style. On the other hand, when the team is in dangerous war zone, for the safety of team members’ team leader follows an autocratic style of leadership. For example if the supply not distributed on the agreed time limit or if the situation becomes dangerous, team leader take own decision either stay or leave for the camp and team members follow his autocratic style of leadership.

Tesco

Tesco is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer in United Kingdom. One of the business objectives of Tesco is customer satisfaction.

‘Tesco is a customer-orientated business. It aims to offer products that provide value for money for its customers and to deliver high quality service. Tesco wants to attract new customers, but it also wants to keep its existing customers happy’.

‘To keep at the top of its game and to maintain its number one spot in the market, the company needs skilled staff at all levels and in all roles’.

‘The style of leadership can vary depending on the task. Some managers allow teams to take charge of their own decision-making for many tasks. Team leaders will set the objectives but empower team members to decide how these objectives are achieved. This has several advantages. It helps to motivate individuals in the team and it draws on the expertise of the members of the team’.

‘Berian manages a team of 17 in a Tesco in-store bakery. One of the key challenges of Berian’s job is to ensure his team produces the right products to meet demand at key times. His usual management approach is to allow the team to take responsibility for achieving the desired result. In this way, the team not only buys into the activity, but also develops new skills. For example, when the bakery expanded its product range and Berian needed to ensure that all the products would be on the shelves by 8.00 am, rather than enforce a solution, he turned to the team for ideas. The team solved the problem by agreeing to split break times so that productivity could be maintained. Berian’s approach produced a positive outcome and increased team motivation’. (ONLINE: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/tesco/developing-appropriate-leadership-styles/management-and-leadership.html#axzz2DWoXdm7O)

Berian uses democratic style of leadership to achieve the target. This style encourages ideas, feedback, suggestion and team sprit from all team members.

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