The Leadership Methods Used in the Nandos Corporation - Case Study Example

Case Study for Nandos by Introduction Nandos is a chain of restaurants originating from South Africa. This restaurant first came to the United Kingdom in 1992. The Nandos franchise has one hundred and twenty two restaurants in total with up to 3,000 employees. The corporation has a very strong policy on employee motivation. The corporation believes that happy employees mean happy customers. The human resources department in the company has up to ten managers. Each restaurant has about two people in charge of human resources issues and training. The paper will research on the leadership methods used in the Nandos Corporation. The leadership theories and methods the management uses to build an efficient team of employees. The way in which the organization achieves a sense of family culture and the positive effects it has on team performance. The paper will also outline the recommendation that may improve the company’s employee performance in relation to the team and leadership theories (Burns, 1998). Team Performance The organization may improve the team performance by focusing on the team and leadership theories. The use of these main theories will outline the methods the organization’s human resources team may employ to breed a family culture and improve team performance. Most successful leaders get this way because they understand and utilise the right approaches for different situations. The best way to do this is to learn the main leadership theories. These provide the backbone for the understanding of good leadership (House & Mitchell, 1994). Leadership Theories The use of the traits theory is one of the most well-known theories of leadership. This theory states that effective and successful leaders share common characteristics or traits. This theory believes that leadership is an innate quality that people are born with. The Nandos Corporation may develop the leadership qualities and traits in their human resources leaders. The organization should learn and research on the traits shown by successful leaders. They should identify traits and qualities and foster them in their leaders. The behavioural theory of leadership focuses on the behaviours of the successful leaders. The leaders in the organization should involve the team members in their decision making process. This situation allows the development of a family culture. This will subsequently encourage support and acceptance among their team members. The employees will feel involved and important to the company. The will feel a sense of belonging which will improve team performance and loyalty (House & Shamir, 1993). The Nandos organization employed a talent management program in 2001. This involved the implementation of in house training programmes. The program involves the training of the company’s managing directors and the human resources team in leadership methods. They introduced the concept of ‘the one-minute manager’. Another method used in the Nandos Corporation is referred to as GROW. This stands for goal, realities, option, and will, it is a concept developed by John Whitmore. This is a four-day training programme for the managing directors. There is a place for the three different types of leaders in the organization. Autocratic leaders are those who make decisions without much consultation. These leaders are beneficial when it comes to decisions are to be made quickly and when the team input is not very necessary. The democratic leader allows for input from the team and is necessary when the decision will affect the team and their input and agreement is necessary. Laissez-faire leaders are those that do not interfere and the team has the leeway to make decisions. These leaders build a capable, reliable and motivated team. All the leader is required to do is supervise the team. The organization must make sure the leader does not become lazy and unproductive. The possibility of the development of leadership redundancy becomes very high in these situations. The leaders must apply all these different types and theories of leadership for different situations in the running of the organization. This is the description of the situational leadership theory. The theory is a contingency-based leadership style. The Hershey-Blanchard Situational Leadership is a framework that outlines the link between the ability of leaders to assess a situation and act effectively. This framework also bases the effect different situations will have on leadership skills and the effect of leadership of certain factors in the organization (Hoffman & Hegarty, 1993). The company should use the power and influence leadership style. This is where the leaders will employ the power they have and their influence on the employees. One of the well-known theories that use this method is the French and Raven forms of power. This framework focuses on the types of power a leader has. These include legitimate power, reward, coercive power, expert power and referent power, which apply to personal charm and appeal. This power and influence style may describe the transactional leadership style. This approach focuses on the concept that people do things with the hope of a reward. The Nandos franchise may use this style to develop methods and designs for tasks and the reward system for those that successfully complete the tasks. This method is mainly beneficial in the cases of developing a motivated workforce and team (Hackman & Walton, 1996). Another important leadership style that may be useful in Nandos is transformational leadership. The leaders using this method lead by example. This is a highly effective method. The leaders show integrity and they inspire the team to work hard. The team is inspired and therefore, motivated. This method builds strong and very successful teams. Adaptation of various methods in the Nandos Corporation is necessary towards building an effective team. These include the creation of a good and conducive working environment. Team members should feel treated with respect and dignity. Recommendations to make it clear to the entire team that all the team players are important and they should strive to maintain a positive work environment. Address factors such as body language, tone of voice, sexual harassment issues and language during general meetings or seminars to ensure comfort for all employees. Creation of an open door policy where employees can air their views and complaints develops a sense of family (Forsyth, 1990). Recommendations Boosting employee motivation has a positive impact on team performance. Motivation goes beyond money. The introduction of this concept was by McKinsely Business quarterly report. A reward system or recognition, in the form of award ceremonies and employee of the month culture is very important. The company leaders show and give praise when the employees do good work. This shows acknowledgement for their hard work. When the team feels valued, they become more passionately engaged in their work. The organization should set different goals for each of their subsidiaries. When an employee knows, exactly what they are supposed to do and in what period, their performance improves. The goals set should be specific, in terms of both time and description of tasks. The goals should also be broken down into smaller chunks each with their own period this increases performance (McIntyre & Salas, 1995). The provision of continuous and explicit feedback in a company as big as Nandos allows the employees to know where to improve and what to maximise. This accelerates learning and performance (Cooper, Shiflett, Korotkin & Fleishman, 1994). Another important recommendation that improves performance and a feeling of belonging in the employees is nurturing of talents. The Corporation strongly believes in coaching its employees to nurture their talents. These talents may be beneficial to the company’s success. The talent management coaching process involves various methods. These include coaching to prepare individuals for promotions. This involves nurturing talents that are necessary for the new job. The use of mentorship programs to create a relationship between an employee and an experienced individual. The creation of a mentor bank of successful individuals who can provide informal coaching on a regular basis is important to this organization. Taking such an interest in an employee will give them a sense of belonging and make them feel valued. This will also promote the development of in house leadership. The training of employees with leadership qualities may lead to the promotion of team members to leadership positions. The company should add counselling and mentorship to their business plan and develop the culture in all the subsidiaries. The creation of an in house succession plan will be both motivational and important for the company (House, 1997). To say a company has effective team performance derives from various characteristics. The main characteristics that a consultant would recommend for this company mainly stem on the development and integration of the individual team members characteristics, strengths and actions. The performance of the specific roles contributes to the overall success. Therefore, efforts focused on improvement of team performance are on these individual tasks. If the individual teamwork processes are above par but the task of synchronizing and coordinating them is not, the team performance will remain low. The opposite is true. The bridging of this gap using effective communication tools and technologies is fundamental. This will deal with the fact that Nandos has multiple stakeholders and each of them will have their own agenda. Effective performance requires the coordination of all these members and the management needs to ensure the members are willing to work together. The ability and success of the team leader in the definition of team directions and organization of the team to achieve these goals and maximize progress along the set directions will contribute significantly to team effectiveness (Fleishman & Zaccaro, 1992). The effectiveness of a team will directly relay on the leaders and the team-leader relationship. The Nandos franchise may use this information to their advantage. Hiring a consultancy firm that specialises in the development of effective teams may be a good move. These professionals will offer the company full knowledge and skills on how to manage the entire 122 chain restaurants all over the world. Effective and fast communication is an important factor in any global corporation. Consultants become part of the team and may act as mediators between the diverse groups of international stakeholders. This leads to good results (Hackman & Walton, 1996). Conclusion Group cohesion is an important determinant in any organization. The Nandos Corporation seeks to foster a sense of belonging and a family culture among their employees. The concept of group cohesion refers to the level of which members of a team wish to remain in the team and outlines the attractiveness of the group to individuals. The concept will greatly affect effectiveness of a team. It means that every employee is resistant to any disruption of their team that reflects a certain degree of bonding and belonging. If the team members are committed to one another, they care about each other’s performance. They will thereby go out of their way to help each other because they realise that there is a link between their success and subsequent rewards. The members of a high cohesive group are more likely to band together when faced with the possibility of failure. There is more commitment to tasks and therefore more devotion and effort seen in these cohesive groups. The managing directors in Nandos should enforce these strategies and create more cohesion, which will improve performance (Forsyth, 1990). References Burns, J. M. 1998. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row. Cooper, M., Shiflett, S., Korotkin, A. L., & Fleishman, E. A. 1994. Command and control teams: techniques for assessing team performance. Washington. Fleishman, E. A., & Zaccaro, S. J. 1992. Toward a taxonomy of team performance functions. Norwood, NJ. Forsyth, D. R. 1990. Group dynamics (2nd. ed.). Pacific Grove. Cole Publishing. Hackman, J. R., & Walton, R. E. 1996. Leading groups in organizations: Designing effective work groups (pp. 72–119). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Press. Hoffman, R. C., & Hegarty, W. H. 1993. Top management influence on innovations: effects of executive characteristics and social culture. Journal of Management, 19, 549–574.New York Press. House, R. J. 1997. A theory of charismatic leadership. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. House, R. J., & Mitchell, T. R. 1994. Path–goal theory of leadership. Kagen Press. House, R. J., & Shamir, B. 1993. Toward an integration of transformational, charismatic, and visionary theories. New York: Academic Press. McIntyre, R. M., & Salas, E. 1995. Measuring and managing for team performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Press. Read More