This assessment will cover the following questions:
- Analysation of the current leadership style in the organization, and evaluation of the current leadership policy that will help Marks & Spencer to grow.
- Explain how your chosen leadership style will impact the company’s culture.
- Detailed evaluation of networks that exist within Marks & Spencer, and how they may be better utilized by the leadership in the future.
INTRODUCTION
Leadership is more like an action plan or approach of the top management in the company towards achieving organizational goals and objectives. Leadership involves providing a suitable path to achieve various objectives of the company. In this report Marks and Spencer (M&S) is taken as an organization. M&S was founded in the year 1884 by Micheal Marks and Thomas Spencer. M&S is a retail brand based in the UK that also serves a worldwide market of the retail sector by having retail outlets at more than 1400 locations across the globe. The company headquarter is located in London, UK. In this report various organizational practices will be expressed and also the impact of such organizational practices on the various aspects of the organization will also be specified in this report. Based on the organizational structure a new leadership style will also be reported to improve the organizational structure of the company.
MAIN BODY
Organization's Leadership Practices
The management of the M&S follows certain practices to cope up with the expectations of all the stake holders of the company. Such practices are as follows.
- Transformational Practice: The leadership approach in M&S is more towards transformational oriented. Transformational leadership approach enables the leadership in the M&S to motivate all the employee's in the company with various practices such as reward productive performance, promotions and many more that efficiently motivate all the human resources in the company. The leadership in the company also share values to improve the work culture in the company from time to time (Regy and Malini, 2019). The practice of transformational leadership also allows the leaders and senior management in the company to innovate and create new working practices and approaches that can drive the improved efficiency and performance with the outcomes. For example the employee's of the M&S has rewarded with productive bonus and allowances by the company management that improved the motivation and confidence level of all the employee's in the company. The management of M&S has also promoted various lower designated employee's to the senior positions to justify the skills and performance of all such employee's to implement the transformational leadership practices in the company.
- Transactional Practice: To improve the operational efficiency the management of M&S apply the leadership approach of transactional practice. The practice of transactional approach allows management to give various allowances and rewards best on the performance analysis of each employee in the company. By following the approach of rewarding and benefiting the productive employee's the company management assure the high performance and efficiency from the employee's in the company (Pilbeam and et.al., 2016). The company management also apply bureaucracy approaches as a part of transactional practices. Application of bureaucracy approach allows employee's in the company to follow the certain routine set by the management as per the organization hierarchy of the M&S. This approach of set routine give the proper road map to all experienced and inexperienced human resources of the company to work effectively in the organization. For example the company management has drafter the suitable road map for all the operational departments to implement the leadership practice of transactional approach and based on the performance measurement various perks and allowances has granted to owner the productivity of human resources in the company.
- Innovative and Creative Approach: The management and leadership of the M&S also support the innovation and development in the organization hierarchy of the company. The company management also challenge the process by critical evaluating all the working techniques and practices. Critical evaluation give the proper scope to the employee's to take various steps to improve the operation practices by removing all the negative aspects of the work practice (Robinson, 2019). The company management also focus over creativity and innovation in the company. This give extra freedom to the human resources in the company to innovate and apply new methodologies and practices that can improve the work efficiency of all the employee's. Innovation and creative also resulted into a dynamic and suitable work culture of the M&S. For example the company management has followed the work culture that allows the employee's in the company to apply various new techniques that are suitable enough as per the operational structure of the company.
- Autocratic Approach: Autocratic operational approach is one of the effective approach the leadership of the M&S follow. Autocratic approach allows the leadership of M&S to give full control over certain operational tasks to employee's (Harrison, 2016). This also give freedom to enable complete decision-making to conduct all the related operations to such tasks. In case of retail organizations this approach play the key role as many time various new situations arises while conducting various operations and tasks that required quick decision-making to implement such actions effectively. This approach also improved the decision-making and confidence level of all the employee's in the company. The leadership of M&S could develop the over all personality of the employee's with the implementing of this leadership approach. For example the company management has granted proper authorities to the team leaders and senior employee's to take all the suitable decisions based on the practical situation to implement the task in the estimated time frame.
- Performance Analysis Approach: To analyse the performance of all the human eresources is among the major tool the leadership of the M&S follow. The leadership of the company conduct a complete analytical review about the efficiencies of all the employee's on a timely basis. Team leader's in each operational department has provided the authority to analyse and measure the performance of all the team member's (Para-González, Jiménez-Jiménez and Martínez-Lorente, 2018). This leadership approach has guided all the employee's to improve the work practices by efficiently remove the negative aspects of the working approaches. Team discussions about the team performance also involve the experience sharing sessions about the work culture and work practices that also guided the employee's to focus on applying new techniques and practices. This leadership approach has improved the work culture of the M&S by enhancing the operational efficiency of various operations in the organization structure. For example the management of M&S conducts monthly team meeting of all the operational departments to review and analyse team performance and also to critically review the operational practices to highlight the negative aspects of practices. The leader's also discuss the possible developments in the working practices to remove the various obstacles.
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Leadership Practice of the Company
Leadership practices are giving great contribution in the over all growth of the Tesco. Without these practices it is hard for the company to gain its decided goals in the market. The main role of the leadership in this company is lead different team in the company's business environment. The company currently working at large scale in which it also has large number of employees in their organization. So, leadership is necessary in this company to perfectly manage all employees in the operations (Oberg, 2017). The top-level management of the Tesco specially focuses on the implementation of leadership practices in their workplace for take effective work from their employees. For systematically manage people at the workplace the company divided all employees into small team, where each team has their own team leader. These all tea leader are responsible to supervise their team in a proper manner. These leaders are really very helpful for the company to achieve its target in specific time period.
There are main tasks for the leader in the Tesco are give order to the employees which comes under their command. Many times these leader needs to motivate their team members for improve workability. The leaders are also taking order from their upper level management, and always try to implement decision of the top-level management in the workplace. Many times the management need to take important decisions for growth of the company. In which the management takes some suggestions from the leader also for effective decision-making. The leaders are providing necessary guidelines and terminologies also to their employees for cover all activities in productive way. It is necessary also for save useful time and cost of the Tesco. The leadership also providing clear vision also to their employees about 'what to do', 'when to do' and 'how to do', etc. When employees face some issues and challenges at the work place. In which case these leaders are responsible to solve those issues.
Leadership also important in the company for maintain good relationship between employer and employees. The leadership is totally work like a messenger, who take message or order from the top-level management and deliver to the low-level management. Many times leaders need to take some necessary decisions also at their workplace to deal with uncertainty (DOYLE, 2019). The company give leadership position to only those people which has great leadership skills. The major skills which required in the leadership are; punctuality, good communication, creativity, innovation, honesty, motivation, etc. These all skills are highly needed for the job role of a leader in the Tesco. The good leadership also the main element behind company's current high reputation. With the support of leadership the company is able to run their all activities in a proper channel.
Leadership Strategy Plan
Objectives: The main goal of the new leadership strategy plan is to Better communication and improves organization's network effectively. Current leadership style Marks & Spencer is a British multinational retailer company. The main vision of the company to give the value of the customers and holds talented employee at the workplace so that they help to achieve the vision of the company. Manager of the M&S company applies democratic leadership style to meet employee objectives so that enable to get high productivity of the employee at workplace (Nazim, 2016). Where Manager invites employee in decision-making so that organization enable to get creative idea which improve organization performance and second gives the value to employee to listening them properly. It has drawback it enhances turnover of the employee and reduce competitive advantage. Even organization doesn't get confident decision during emergency which can lead effectiveness in the process. Manager uses autocratic leadership for inspiring large number of the employee to give the best performance and deal with work pressure. The main goal of the leadership retain talented employee at workplace. Where organization enable to take competitive advantage but unable to retain employee. Even manager doesn't involve them in decision decision-making as result organization enables to achieve short term goal not long term goal. Due to above reviews can understand manage unable to communicate with their employees. In that state organization should apply transactional leadership style which is more effective for the employees and can achieve goal of the company. Transactional leadership style is proposed by the Max Weber in 1947. This style is applies by the various manager for improve the communication between employees and management. It involves in motivating and guiding the group of the people in the company (Khan, 2017). In this leadership style exchange policy between leader and employee which is directly takes place to achieve organizational goals. |
Current leadership policy Transactional leadership is based on the exchange policy between leader and employees in four dimensions such as-
Thus type policies of transaction leadership can help organization to achieve their objectives. |
Transactional leadership impact on organization's culture It gives profitable impact on organization's culture because manager enables to communicate with employees and can defined task clearly so that employees doesn't fuss in confusion. This leadership style helps HR department also to improve their communication skills and efficacy during taking decision (Kalsoom, Khan and Zubair, 2018). On other hand employees gets comfortable atmosphere at workplace where they can direct communicate with manager and shares their issues relevant salary or work load. Manager enables to motivate employees effectively by meeting their objectives. Even fair treatment to each employee in M&S attracts each employee and inspires them to give the loyal performance at job place. Manager can monitor each department working performance in the company through the outcomes or daily basis interaction. Even M&S can act as passive management which helps to select profitable employees who can meet company from vision. Passive management policy helps organization to reduce high turnover of the employee and retain talented employee in company. Even transactional leadership style supports employees by offering opportunity environment. For example manager offers skill and development classes for employees so that organization gets multitasking employees. On other hand employees gets opportunity to learn new skills and improves their existing skills so that they can apply at workplace and become eligible for rewards. Even transaction leadership style leads power in relation with department as result conflict doesn't take place in company. Transactional leadership style can easy to deal with employees during work pressure and can inspire them for giving the best performance by offering appraisal and incentive strategy. Thus, organization gets healthy culture in company. |
21st century technologies 21st century is digital technology age where all operation is completed on the digital platform. Various organization uses digital platform for improving their communication with customers and trading business. The better department communication plan is channel. It is appropriate plan for the department communication. If organization aligns all department and links them by the channel (Aga 2016). Based on the channel techniques can communicate regular basis. For example department can coordinate to each other by using internal communication strategies and maximize their task achievement. To influence channel effectiveness in department communication can use 21st century technology such as internet and social media. Technologies can play significant role to improve internal department communication. Technologies are-
These technologies lead effectiveness in department communication plan where they can direct their instruction and can discuss issues relevant to task issues. Even it improves department communication networks and builds good relation to each other. Through the technologies each department can monitor their operations and outcomes in th |