Strategic Management And Leadership Within McDonalds

‘It deals with the most fundamental and basic question that involve the very existence of the whole organisation and guide the whole company’s future.’ (Kerry Napuk1999)

Strategic management entails both strategic planning and implementation, and is “the process of identifying and executing the organization’s strategic plan, by matching the company’s capabilities with the demands of its environment.”(AritGadiesh and James Gilbart 2001)

In layman terms strategic management provides overall direction to the organisation. This is in turn entails specifying the organisation’s mission, vision and objectives, developing plans etc.

Leadership is defined as ‘influence, that is the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievements of the group’s mission. Visionary leadership inspires the impossible: fiction becomes truth. (Corporate strategy 1997 Richard Lynch)

People who run the organisation and they lead the organisation at one place to another. The vast majority of business leaders have succeeded, not through charisma, but through experience, judgement, boldness, tenacity, and hard work. Leaders born in their family with leadership skills. (Corporate strategy 1997 richard lynch)

1.1.2 LINK BETWEEN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP:

A rapidly changing world and new technology has created a society craving for speed and action as leaders, we face incredible pressures to deliver immediate results, to do more with less and to manage an ever -increasing personal work loads but in a world changing conditions and priorities, leaders and individuals contributors alike must be able to look beyond the now and take a more strategic leadership approach to their work. For any ongoing of business strategy is a main important thing and for the implementation of that strategy, leaders are required.

Real strategic leadership means taking responsibility for the future as well as what is happening today. A primary goal of a strategic leader is to gain a better understanding of the business conditions, the environment and the leading indicators that identify new trends and situations that may arise. According to the situation leadership styles can be varied like autocratic, democratic and charismatic and so on. In any organisation it is required to have a good strategic management with good leadership skills. Leaders have that skill to running the business successfully in any situation.

1.2 LEADERSHIP STYLES ON DIFFERENT SITUATION:

As I have taken McDonald as case study so I would like to discuss the management style that operates in McDonald. I have realised that McDonald operates in Democratic style of management. This realisation comes to me while I am working with the company and it gives freedom and flexibility of change according to different situations. In this style, the employee and people associated with the company have more participatory role in the decision making process.

All McDonald have a democratic style and there is a less gap between manager and employees. They have two way relationships between them. They have a comfortable working pattern. So the manager can easily get the feedback from the employees. Also on the other hand, the employees understand the situation and they follow the rules without any difficulty. There are same levels of working. According to the different situation they have a different style of leadership. In this particular approach one person i.e. manager retail all power to run the branch but allows employees to share their ideas and insights.

Also in McDonald, all have a participation role in decision making process. All the employees have to work with their strengths and they provide input that how to divide work in the team. They give more important to work in a team rather than doing individually. In McDonald ideas move freely amongst the group and discussed openly so ultimately they achieving their objective. This works both ways for the company by fulfilling individual objectives in line with the overall objective of organisation.

In McDonald they motivate their employees to do more work by involving into decisions which are really affected to the objective of the organisation. This particular approach affects the productivity of employees and they feel important to be a part of the organisation by providing a value. They lead all the employees into same level and the manager is always try to know that what are the strengths and weakness of employees and they gives training that how to overcome these difficulties.

In McDonald, they have a flexible hour of working, so not any one can feel stress that may affect to their work .They are free to ask with the manager. So they have strong relationship between the subordinates and the manager.

OBJECTIVE OF MCDONALDS:

The main objective of MacDonald is to make people aware of an item, feel positive about it and remember it. The right message has to be communicated to the right audience through the right media. Another objective is that McDonald understands value of both its employee and its customers. It understands the fact that the happy employee can serve well and result in a happy customer. This serves as a win-win situation for both organisation and employee. McDonald has continuously does internal marketing. This is important as it must precede external marketing. This includes hiring, training and motivating employees. This way they serve customers well and meet their overall objective. The ultimate aim of service marketing is not just to become a service leader but to create service brand. The service delivery process is the key to achieving this aim of service marketing.

1.3 IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP STYLE ON STRATEGIC DECISION:

Leadership have skill to adapt any changes at any time. They have that skill to do the right thing at a right time. Because of democratic style of leadership, employees can work comfortably and they can share their ideas and insights with the management. Also in McDonald, managers effectively delegates work to their subordinates and give them full control and responsibility to the tasks. In McDonald, managers welcome feedback on the result of initiatives and the work environment. Strategic decision has to be made by the leaders who have the ability to be able to take an effective decision and be able to adapt to change in any situation.

Because of democratic leadership, employees and managers are easily understand the situation. They work freely and comfortably. In McDonald all employees have a right to participate in the objective of organisation. McDonald has a strategic decision which implicated and formulated by leaders and managers of the organisation. First they decide the future plans and objective of McDonald and how to get there in minimum time. They also motivate people to do more work and they appreciate their work by giving the performance award at the end of month.

1.4 CONCLUSION:

From above discussion, I came on conclusion that in the democratic style adopted by McDonald is really effective and it provides employees to feel valuable. However, this style has its disadvantages as well. Sometime it creates conflicts because of the differences in ideas, decision. But still it may be useful in such type of organisation where managers and employees can easily understand the situation and work according to that. Strategic management and leadership co-relate with each other and they go parallel. Without making any effective strategic decision, leadership cannot work and it cannot reach to the final objective of an organisation.