Leadership Styles and Changes in Tesco - Case Study Example

Client inserts his/her name Client inserts tutor’s name Subject of Study Date Introduction In a layman’s language, change can basically be referred to as the act of making something different. The theory of change defines all the building blocks that are necessary for attainment of a long-term goal. To trace the path taken by a change, there are several outcomes or results that are quite pronounced, maybe in the context of an institution or a business organization. Every result obtained from a change is related to an intervention that reveals the web of activities that are necessary to cause the change. Leadership, in an organization, can be described as a collective activity of leading a people or a group. It involves developing and implementing a clear vision for an organization, sharing of the vision with other members of the organization, providing the relevant information and knowledge needed for realization of the vision and coordinating the conflicting interests of several stakeholders and members of the organization. In most cases, a leader would step up whenever there is a crisis in an organization, think and act with creativity in difficult circumstances. Unlike in management, leadership may not be taught even though it might be learned and improved through mentoring. Anyone who has greater leadership skills has the ability precede with passion when he or she fails since success is the ultimate destination (Pinar and Kiyak, 2011). Change management, on the other hand refers to an approach that is meant to transition the organization, a team of individuals and various people to a desired future shape or state. In the current business environments, organizations encounter rapid changes that require a stable management strategy. Thus, organization change is termed as a structured approach in any organization that ensures smooth and successful implementation of changes in order to attain future lasting benefits. This is because constant innovation and presence of globalization result to a constant evolving environment. Organizational change affects all the departments starting from junior employees to the senior most management. The process of change management may involve some bit of creative marketing in order to facilitate communication among the transforming audiences together with a deep understanding of various leadership styles. Moreover, it aligns the expectations of people, communicates and integrates teams of people so as to effectively manage the outcomes of change. In spite of its nature, change initiators must just be present and be implemented by persons. The persons to implement the change are now the leadership in the management. It has been discovered that the organizations which have gone on well or rather have coped with changes have a strong leadership system that leads the organization through some steps essential for organizational success. The persons who are responsible for the changes are the leaders in an organization. Changes should be brought about by leaders because it is their duty. For a positive change to occur, the leadership should be actively engaged. In addition, the entire team of employees should be included in implementation of the change and ensure that they fully take part. For an organization to have a wide organizational change, the leaders should have wide range of skills that can effectively transform and convince every member of the organization. The change process often wallows because of poor framing by the topmost supervision. Keeping in mind how organizations operate is the key thing in determining a good approach to take as a change agent (Pinar and Kiyak, 2011). Leaders play the major role in planning and selecting a change which is appropriate. Change can be classified in a number of ways. A change in an organization can be from the top to the bottom or from the bottom to the top. Furthermore, there are developmental changes which are planned by the leaders of the organization. Contrary to this, we also have emergency changes that take on an organization abruptly and tend to make corrections on the already existing features of the organization. The major focus of this change is to improve on the skills of staff and general face of the organization. This paper is meant to discuss a significant change that occurred in an organization, causes of the change, implementation and change management alongside the leadership styles of the organization. The focused company in this paper is Tesco. Changes in Tesco Having worked and studied the management and leadership systems at an international organization called Tesco, various changes were underway to facilitate or transform the face of the company. These changes are planned and leadership-based thus they are effectively implemented or rather introduced into the firm’s operations. The workers of this organization are key players in implementation of the changes. For the period I was in the company, I encountered the following changes: Branding of products for reputation purposes, integration of the latest technology system for competition and effectiveness purposes and expansion of supplies in order to widen the market. Branding Previously, the company engaged in supply of products without brands. This was quite challenging since its rivals were coming up with attractive brands that appealed to customers. Because of this, the leadership team at Tesco came up with functional strategies that would initiate branding of the firm’s products for competition purposes. The aim of this change was to change the face of generic products into a brand specific product, triggered by stiff competition in the market. Tesco has successfully promoted the business environments and largely transformed packaging of brands to change its entire image. Through branding, Tesco has developed a better reputation that is associated with extremely quality goods that are trustworthy with an excellently represented value. Integration of the latest technology In today’s business environment that is complex and ever dynamic, organizations struggle to adapt to the challenging and difficult changes. For a firm to compete perfectly in this environment, it is crucial for them to become innovative at a higher when it comes to improving their products. Management at Tesco used to watch and supervise operations using technological systems that were low compared to its competitors. The systems that controlled stock, kept and analyzed all the deliveries alongside business transactions were not effective. Due to this, Tesco leadership team developed a number of strategies that would introduce and implement the use of the latest technology so as to comfortably tackle or attend to the entire firm’s operations. Information technology has actually risen and occupied a central role in Tesco’s formulation of business strategy thus changing the whole image of the company. Expansion of the market through increase in supplies Tesco vends in grocery as one of its major products. Like any other grocery firm, its chief supplies or rather sources are overseas producers who are extremely competitive in terms of volumes and general prices. This company, for many years, has been in full support of British market through creation of employment opportunities in order to encourage suppliers to maintain their exclusive facilities that sustain its operations. For the company to maintain its position in the British market, the leadership team decided to expand or rather increase job opportunities for the citizens of this nation. The aim of this change was to increase the level of supplies so as to stabilize its market and operations in Britain. The Organization Tesco is an international company that has adopted various strategies since the beginning of its operation, that have enable it to become on top of the list of the most successful companies. The entire products and services in Tesco have been developed substantially in order to facilitate an appropriate management system of the lifecycles in products and production processes. This enhances an efficient and provision of a wider range of products to clients. Tesco’s focus on a range of products has enabled it to introduce variety of quality products in to the market. This company has an innovative way of improving its client’s shopping experience together with the entire struggle to venture into insurance and finance (Okumus, 2003). This has assisted the Tesco to capitalize on a purposeful and strong brand reputation. Moreover, Tesco is a successful firm when it comes to loyalty of clients because of its card systems and generally its approach to customization of services in line with the customers’ needs. All this is evident in its growth of online transactions where Tesco has an extremely strong platform to develop more revenue for the organization. It is now the greatest online supermarket (Pandeleton, 2004). The extranet system that is employed by the firm enables it to use internet in order to create customized flow of information that exists between Tesco and its business partners. This system links official business partners on-line for attainment of flexibility, integration, extensibility and generally the distribution channel. Moreover, the extranet has assisted in the entire extension of information to clients and business partners in the whole supply chains so as to facilitate good relationships among associates. The current trend in Tesco’s technological advancement is an effort to sustain its ability in handling of production processes in order to raise the volumes while at the same time controlling the costs (Reynolds, 2004). Tesco is a chief retailer that is engaged in sells of variety of products. The company works with suppliers from diverse regions worldwide, alongside employees from various cultures and ethnicity. Thus, the firm has a duty to maintain a purposeful, or rather meaningful relationship with its associates. In order to accomplish this, Tesco applies an advanced technology in all its communications. This enables the organization to aim at complete cooperation with its suppliers so as to control the efficiency in deliveries (Powell 1991). Moreover, it has established an extremely strong relationship with its contractors with a belief that long-term and regular orders lay a foundation for investments. Tesco is an international firm that has developed various management programs that enables it to survey principal suppliers and satisfy its franchisee. This organization has gone further to take part in ethnical trade initiative. All these achievements are as a result of a leadership system that is appropriate for the nature of this company. Leadership Styles at Tesco Leadership in any organization has a significant impact on the entire operations and performance. The culture of an organization plays a key role in mediating the styles of leadership and the general performance of the company. Thus, Tesco is using various leadership styles to achieve the organization’s ultimate goal. Every type of leadership style discussed below is meant to attain or rather achieve a specific goal for the organization (Sosik, 2011). To start with, the company uses autocratic style of leadership to achieve a number of its objectives. A number of circumstances depict autocratic leadership in the management system. For instance, the company uses this kind of leadership on new recruits who know nothing about their duties and policies of the organization. Thus, it tends to give direction and procedures to be followed. In addition, the firm uses this style of leadership whenever effective supervision is required, that is in situations where there are large volumes of production needed daily and employees are not responding faster to the instructions given. There was an instance when an employee attempted to challenge the powers of a manager. Autocratic leadership was used here since a punishment was to be given to the employee followed by a threat. However, the leadership team of this company is keen not to use autocratic leadership style in situations where employees are tense and have low morale, expect to present their views which should be heard and where employees depend on the management to make all the decisions. Tesco uses Bureaucratic style of leadership under various circumstances. Whenever the workers of this organization need to understand various procedures and standards, the management is forced to apply this kind of leadership so as attain its departmental objective (Jensen, 2011). Moreover, during safety and security training at the organization, bureaucratic style of leadership is used since there are rules and laws that must be strictly followed when delivering the training. Of all the departments in the company, the finance department is the sole frequent user of this kind of leadership since it deals with daily handling of cash. However, this style is not applicable in situations where the staff loses interest in their jobs; always do what the organization expects them to do and when they form unbreakable habits (Powell, 2004). The organization applies democratic style of leadership to encourage employees to become part of or rather participate in decision making. Seventy five percent of leadership seen in this organization is the democratic style because the management always keep the workers informed on everything that is taking place in the firm. With this style of leadership, the company has managed to produce both high quantity and quality products since the employees enjoy the kind of trust and motivation provided by the overall management. Tesco has applied democratic leadership in various circumstances: When leaders want to update employees on issues related to their welfare, when leaders want the staff to take part in decision making, when the overall management wants the workers to develop a sense of growth and job satisfaction and whenever the leaders want to encourage employees to have effective participation in team building. However, the firm’s management is keen not to apply this style of leadership when it is easier to make decisions without involving workers, when the safety of the staff is a major concern, when the management feels threatened by the kind of leadership and when the entire organization cannot afford to make mistakes. Like other leadership styles, democratic leadership is not an appropriate one since it requires extremely skilled and experienced whenever the organization is implementing significant changes or when solving casual disputes inside the company. Tesco applies the Laissez-Faire style of leadership in various circumstances. This type of leadership provides the workers with sufficient freedom. In addition, the employees are given all the powers and chances to determine the organization’s goals, make relevant decisions engage in solving problems on their own without involving the management. Thus, the company uses this kind of leadership in situations where the staff is highly skilled, educated and experienced, when the workers have that pride and the personal drive to do their job successfully with minimal supervision, where the outside experts or specialist consultants are being used in various departments of the firm and where the staff is experienced and trustworthy. However, the Laissez leadership style is not used by the company when the workers feel insecure in absentia of the managers, when the management department is not in a position to provide a regular feedback on the progress of its workers, whenever the management department is not able to appreciate the efforts made by the staffing body and the work done by the employees and where the managers do not understand their responsibilities and roles in the firm hoping that the workers would cover them up (Jensen, 2011). Tesco once applied this type of leadership but the management became too lazy to deliver their duties. Lastly, the organization has always applied Varying leadership styles which greatly depended on situations or rather circumstances. Among the factors that would determine the kind of leadership to be used by a firm are the personal backgrounds of the managers. Under the background, the organization focuses on the general personality, the level of skills and knowledge, experiences and ethics. It considers what the managers think will work or will be functional. Furthermore, the company also considers the workers being supervised putting in mind that the employees are individuals from diverse backgrounds having different personalities. Thus, the style of leadership to be used is greatly depended upon an individual staff and what his or her response will be. Probably, the focus is on the best response. Tesco has always considered the entire company, the culture and traditions, philosophy and values related to its operations. Thus, how a manager acts greatly depends upon the concerns of an organization. Conclusion The role of a leader in any organization is extremely vital since it is the sole determinant of the company’s survival and progress. The style of leadership applied in any firm enables it to effectively develop the relevant objectives, vision and values. The leaders who meet the standards of the organization alongside its culture and tradition are in a position to effectively achieve the set goals and targets in general operations. Thus, the behavior and general competence of leaders have a consistent relation with effectiveness of the every visible performance. The culture of the company plays a crucial role in determining the style of leadership to be used (Womack, 1996). For the case of Tesco, a series of leadership styles are used to achieve various goals. For instance, the organizational changes depicted in its operations applied more than one style of leadership. Branding, the organization’s chief change, used two leadership styles at the implementation stage. First, the leaders used democratic style of leadership so as to convince the employees about the relevance of this change. It was quite challenging since a number of employees had doubts about the changes that were supposed to be applied on the final products. When the management faced some opposition, it changed the style of leadership to autocratic whereby all the workers of the company were demanded to accept the change regardless of the position held. Autocratic leadership worked well in implementation of branding. In implementation of the second change (integration of the current technology), Tesco applied the bureaucratic style of leadership since every worker in the firm was required to understand the set goals and relevance of establishment of the new technology. This style of leadership worked well and nor opposition was evident. The last change was the trickiest bit to implement since every department had suggestions about implementation. Thus, the leaders of the organization decided on laissez-faire style of leadership since every department was required to exercise its freedom to make sure that the change is effectively implemented (Combe, 2006). To sum up, the style of leadership in any organization has a greater effect on the management of changes required. This determines how objectives and visions are set and achieved. References Barker, C. & Coy, R. (Eds). (2005). Understanding Influence for Leaders at all Levels. McGraw Hill: North Ryde, NSW (Australia). Combe, C. 2006, Introduction to e-Business, Case Study 3- Tesco.com. p. 377-386. Cox, T. (1991) Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research and Practice. Berrett- Koehler Publishers, Inc. California (USA). Edwards, M. (2004) Future Positive – International Co-operation in the 21st Century . Earthscan: London (UK). Jensen, P., (2011). The effect of leadership style on the information receivers’ reaction to management accounting change. Management accounting vol.22. Okumus, F. (2003) A framework to implement strategies in organizations, Journal of Management Decision, Vol. 41 Issue 9, pp.871-882. Pandeleton, D. (2004). Tesco's Steering Wheel Strategy. Pinar, T.B., & Kiyak, M., (2011). Strategic leadership and organizational financial performance: A qualitative study on private organization. Social and behavioral sciences vol.24. Powell, D, 1991, Long Range Planning, Counter Revolution: The Tesco Story, p. 122. Reynolds, J. 2004, Retail Strategy, An Exercise in successful retailing: Case of Tesco. P. 311- 330. Sosik, J.J. (2007). Relationships between leadership style and vision content: The moderating role of need for social approval, self-monitoring and need for social power. The leadership quarterly vol.18. Womack, R.B. (1996). Measuring the leadership styles and scholarly productivity of nursing Department chairpersons. Journal of professional nursing.Vol.12, Issue, 3 p.133- 140. Elsevier. Read More