Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
DEVELOPING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP SKILLS (EXTENDED DIPLOMA IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP) EDEXCEL QCF LEVEL 7: BTEC PROFESSIONAL
LECTURER: Dr Peter Mcgee STUDENT: SYED ZEESHAN AHMED BUKHARI STUDENT ID: 000105776 Unit Id: 01
Assessment criteria
explain the link between strategic
management
and leadership
2. Be
able
to theory
apply and to
2.1
review the impact that selected theories of management and leadership have on organizational strategy
3. Be
able
to
assess
3.1
Use
appropriate
methods
to
review
development of leadership
Primark is a clothing retailer, started running a business in 1969 in Marry Street, Dublin. It is founded as Penneys in Dublin by Arthur Ryan who is Irish man, still chairs the business. In 1973, Primark came in to Ireland to begin treading in Great Britain. After that many stores were opened across Ireland such as in Derby, Bristol. Between years 1984-1994, 25 stores added in the UK and Ireland to bring up to 66 stores. Milestone year happened to Primark in 1995 with development of the UK business. As a result, 16 stores were opened mostly in London. Another important development occurred in 1999 with acquisition of 11 stores. At the end of 2002, Primark reached 115 stores. In 2005, 41 stores from Little wood by ABF plc which transferred into Primark. Following year 2006, Primark extended its business to abroad where took place in Madrid and Murcia in Spain. Several stores were opened followed years in 2007 and 2008 in Spain. After accessing Spain market, Primark decided to go Netherland, Portugal, German and Belgium to open new stores in 2008 and 2009. Nowadays, Primark operates a total of 215 stores with 38 in Ireland, 150 in UK, 19 in Spain, 3 in German, 2 in Portugal and 1 in Belgium. Primark is a subsidiary of Associated British Food (ABF) which is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group with global sales and employees in 44 countries. However, Primarks offer to customers is one of the high quality merchandise, at value for money, backed by the Primark service promise. This target has been done by sourcing product efficiently, making clothes simple design, not spending heavily on advert, using local fabrics and trims, focusing on popular size and buying in volume. Moreover, Primarks business success comes from meeting customer needs and demands while expending to stores to find new markets. Primark targets young fashion conscious under 35s, offering high quality, fashion basics at value for money prices. Almost half of sales are in womens wear, a quarter mens wear and childrens wear with other items constituting the remaining sales. The important point here is that Primark works with manufacturers to meet customer demands. In competitive environment, it is said that very difficult to have a sustainable sales market. Having a tough market, as a retailer something has to be done different to continue business. Some strategies and action must be taken to management to achieve the organisation objectives which are the aim for future. As far as sustainable market concerned, Primark has been doing well in retail sector. It is a major UK retail group, employing more than 12,000 people. It is also known that Primark has many competitors who have same aim to attract a customer.
Introduction:
In current era, world like a global village to compete in current market companies must have long term planning and strategies which they will be implement through their management. Leadership and management skills and styles have been the most debateable topic in recent history. Top management are those who makes polices and strategies for the organization, in other words we can say they are making the companies strategies and polices. Other employees implement the polices and strategy according to the given set of standard instruction to achieve the desired goals of the organization. While making the polices and strategies leader always keep in mind the strategies for long term this things make them differentiae from other member of the organization. A lot of people have presented new research regarding leadership styles and skills. There are different books written on this said topic but everyone have a different theory and perspective about the styles and skills of leader ship. So for a good leader/manager it is important to show different styles for different situation and conditions. Strategic Management is also an important tool for any organization. When policies and strategy have been made and defining strategies for an organization the leader/manager must take different steps to make sure that the overall working of the organization is going according to the strategy. A good leader/manager should be able to manage with the future challenges of the organizations and must keep in mind the effect of certain strategies on organizations in long term.
relationship
between
strategic
Task 1.1: Explain the link between strategic management and leadership. To discuss the relation among the leader ship and strategic management we must have some knowledge and information what is the meaning of these two boarder terms. These two terms are interrelate with each other if we understand the concept of said terms its easy to explain the whole process in a good manner. Strategic Management: Strategy: Strategy is a long term plan basic purpose to make a strategy to achieve the objective of the organization. We can say that strategy is not about ideas only. Explaining a strategy means that you are actually defining a plan for achieving organization goals. When we explain the word of strategy we are actually working out a plan for the improvement of our organization. Strategy tells us to make sure that all our work and things we do every day are going to help us in the long term interests of the organization. (S. Arulraj,M. W. Waldron,and J. Vsanthakumar ch13). Strategic Management is the procedure of establishing and maintaining good strategies. Making and defining strategy is not enough, you will have to work out a plan for implementing that strategy in its correct way. Good strategic management is plays a vital role in approaching business opportunities and challenges.
Leadership: There are different styles of explaining leadership so it is not very easy to give a single definition that complete the task. Leadership has been recognized as the procedure by which individual and group performance is subjective towards organizational goals. Because when the goals and target of the organization achieved according to the strategy and plan then the actual leadership performance influence the whole organization to become more aggressive, more market share, more profit and competent Leadership is a procedure by which individuals are impressed so that they will be ready to contribute in the accomplishment of organizational or group goals. All these factors are belongings stress on one basic plan and that is motivation or Influence. So we can say that Leadership is the art of getting things done by motivation or influence of the leader on its followers whereas Management mainly depends on the analysis and ground realities. After all the discussion we came to an end that Leadership and Strategic management are interrelated with each other but there are some slight differences. In the case of strategic management we are trying our best to get some long term goals and the same is the case with leadership. We must have somebody with a broad idea; either its a leader or a manager In both cases. The main idea of all this discussion is wonderfully explained by the golden words of Field Marshal Slim that (quoted in Business Management Study Manual), Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision: its practice is an art. Management is more a matter of accurate calculation, of statistics, methods, timetable and routine: its practice is a science.
Task 1.2: Analyse the impact of management and leadership styles on strategic decisions.
Leadership and Management Styles: In our daily life things are changing rapidly and we have to adopt ourselves to these changes. We cant say that we will stay in the same circumstances forever. With the passage of time everything has changed its just like the theory of Darwin survival of the fittest those who adopt the change they can survive otherwise its very difficult to survive We have to take action according the condition. Likewise there certain ups and fall in organizations as well. So the managers and leaders implement different styles for different circumstances. According to Whitcomb some famous and widely recognized styles are: Autocratic: In this style people are advised what job they need to do and how to do. They have not got any part in decision or making strategy. They made, a decision once should not be questioned. Democratic: In this style of power decisions are made on the views of as many people as possible that are involved. Passive:
Whereas the organizations led by Democratic leaders have showed good because they are both job oriented as well as Relationship oriented. Barratt and Mottershead (2002) the decision making process is time-consuming and that can be unsafe. The organizations guide by Passive style is Relationship oriented. Marcous (2008) is of the observation that this only occur when the manager is very full of activity or very lazy or has rely on his/her team and knows what they are capable of. Charismatic style of leadership is one of the very rare but can be very effective in the level to which they can motivate others to do things to support them.
Task 1.3: Evaluate how leadership styles can be adopted to different situations. Leadership styles are different with time to time or according to the situations. For example; In case during a war a commander has to make quick decisions or in the case of a natural disaster e.g. flood, earth quake, riots there is no time for suggestions from the people, so autocratic style will be perfect. The subject is that for quick and effective decision making must always go for the Autocratic style. Employees of Research and Development Organization are highly trained, skilled, informative and professional people so they can adopt their self according to the situation. Because employees know what they are doing and what are their goals and the situation that is the best candidate for Democratic style is a youth club planning for their summer camp. They will have to take suggestions from all the persons involved and then will make a decision. In this case the decision making process is slow but WHO CARES.
Impact on Primark:
Primark is one of the leading organizations, with a vision of providing people everything they need, under one roof at affordable price. Now we see the impact of the selected theories of management on the strategy of Primark. The impact of Classical School theory on Primarks strategy is a bit disappointing
Source: http://www.womenpr.com (Accessed on 19th October, 2011) We have seen the impact of different theories of management and leadership on the strategy of Primark. And we came to the conclusion that there is no single theory that can support Primarks strategy. Everything depends on the situation of that organization in a particular time frame. So in the case of Primark the best strategy that supports organizational direction is the Bureaucratic approach along with a flavour of Human Relation theory. The Bureaucratic approach will be helpful to Primark in achieving the organizational goals and keeping everything on track. It will also help Primark to maintain its day-to-day budgets in control and will make some serious profits for the organization. The Human relation approach will take into account the feelings and needs of the staff and the people attached with Primark. It will ensure that the workforce is enjoying its time working with Primark and take their work to perfection. This new combination will be very helpful in maintaining the discipline in the organization and will be very beneficial for the employees of Primark. So the working and the progress of Primark will be very smooth. The people will be aware of their position and duty in Primark and they will be free to work out a plan for performing their duties efficiently. Although this new leadership strategy seems a bit odd to many people but if it is implemented in its true spirit, it will be very helpful.
There are different ways available for reviewing the leadership requirements. Some of them are listed below. 360 Feedback: According to Mullins (2005), The idea of 360 feedback involves an appraisal and feedback from different groups within the work situation peers and subordinates as well as bosses, and possibly internal and external customers. The main purpose of the 360 feedback is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of an individual or an organization. It may include a self-assessment questionnaire. This feedback helps in overcoming the weaknesses and exploiting the strengths of the organization.
Source: cycle2.gif
http://www.leapcomp.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/mbo-process-
Mc. Gregorys Theory X and Theory Y: The figure defines both the theories in detail. The bottom line is that Theory X is Task oriented and Theory Y is Relationship oriented.
Task 3.2: Plan for the development of future situations requiring leadership.
A good leader is always ready for the any kind of challenge. He acts quickly and accurately according to the given situation. We can say that a good leader takes the right decision at the right time. I have listed a couple of future situations here that will require a firm leadership. Conflict Resolution: You cannot stop conflicts from occurring between individuals and organizations. Sometimes these conflicts are useful and sometimes they are not. When I say useful, it means that sometimes new ideas are created from these conflicts. Or these conflicts point to a deficiency or a week point in the management of the organization. So they are helpful in pinpointing the lapses. On the other hand sometime these conflicts leave a bad impression. Whatever the reason is, conflicts
Conclusion:
This unit explained the link between strategic management and leadership. Leadership is the art of getting things done by influence; whereas management is the science of getting things done by the employees. Leaders are born and the leadership characters are in their genes; while organization is the game of statistics. Anyone can grow to be a good leader by adopting certain skills and techniques and applying them in their daily life. There are different styles of leadership. No single leadership style is best for every situation. These styles have definite impact on the working and progress of the organization. For a good leader all styles should be
References:
-PRIMARK UK (n.d) Company history [WWW] Primark UK available from: http://www.primark.co.uk/page.aspx? pointerid=eb44df4565934edca627dac6ec12145a -THE TIMES 100 (1995) Case study of Primark [WWW] The Times 100 available from: http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/case-study--providingconsumers-with-ethically-sourced-garments--158-412-1.php -Morden, T, 2007, Principle of Strategic Management, 3rd edn. -Warren, K,2008, Strategic Management Dynamic. -Hitt,M, Ireland, D & Hoskisson, R, 2007, Strategic Management(Competitiveness and Globalisation), 8th edn. -Harrison, J & John, K, 2008, Foundation in Strategic Management, 5th edn Business Management Study Manual, The Association of Business Executives. Essential Managers Manual, Heller, Hindle (2007), London: A Penguin Company Marcous, Surridge and Gillespie (2003), Business Studies for A Level, Third edition, Italy: Hodder Education.