Question :
Research and academic is the skill that involves carrying out the activities and strategies which are necessary for learning. Personal development is an ongoing process. This project shall cover the following outcome.
- Provide the reflection on learning, setting the target and how to monitor the progress.
- How to carry out the academic research project.
- Conducting the personal SWOT analysis in order to identify strength and weakness.
- The development of SMART objectives and the personal development plan.
Answer :
INTRODUCTION
Management and operations play an important role in every business. Operations and management help in planning, organizing and designing for higher profitability. Main aim of report is to understand the meaning of leadership as well as management. The report deals with operations management of Marks and Spencer. Company has a brand image in the UK that operates its retail stores worldwide and offers a variety of products as per customer’s needs or requirements. The present report explains about differences and similarities of leaders as well as managers. It also describes the functions of a manager in Marks & Spencer along with various theories of leadership such as situational, system and contingency. The report also explains different approaches of operations management and the role of store manager in IKEA. Further, it focuses on the importance of operations management in a company and assesses outside key factors that also affect the management system of operations.
TASK 1
a) Differences and similarities between leader and manager of Marks & Spencer
Difference between manager and leaders
- Leaders always create vision while managers create a goal of a company. Managers of Marks & Spencer focus on setting, measuring and achieving goals.
- Leaders are unique because they are self-aware and work actively for their brand while, managers are copy as they learn their work from upper authority and adopt leadership style (Difference between leaders and managers, 2018).
- Leaders of a company want to try new things even if they fell while, managers do not take any type of risk for a firm.
- Main aim of leaders is to motivate their team members while managers focus only to complete their work at any cost.
- Leaders of a company always promote for changes while managers react on it.
- Leaders focus on building long lasting relationship with their stakeholders, team members while managers focus on system and process as well as ensure members to attain desired goals and objectives (Kim and Cho, 2018).
- Managers give direction to their staff while leaders motivate the team members.
- Leaders help to define goals and objectives of a business while manager just help their employees by giving direction in order to attain that goals and aims.
- Managers of Marks and Spencer create new ideas while leaders help them to implement those into a work area.
- The biggest difference is that leaders always take responsibilities while managers take credit of their work.
Similarities between managers and leaders
- Both managers and leaders work for the welfare of company and they both want to lead the firm and take it on the further level of success (Johnson, 2017).
- Leaders and managers; both work and take decisions for the success of business and they give direction and guidance to employees to attain all defined goals and objectives of a company.
- For the betterment of organization, it is necessary to have both leaders and manager. They both should work to lead a business and improve their employee’s performance in a company.
- Both; leaders and manager work for the planning, organizing and directing of a company.
b) Functions of manager according to Fayol
According to Henri Fayol, there are five different functions which every manager must possess. These five functions mainly focus on the relationship between personnel and its management that help them to solve various types of problems in a creative manner. These functions are:
- Planning
- Organizing
- Commanding
- Coordinating
- Controlling
These functions of Fayol help to increase the efficiency of managers as well as employees (Five functions of Fayol, 2018). These functions also show the relationship between all departments and provide the scenario to manage the work as well as help in decision making of managers. By using Fayol’s five functions, managers of Marks and Spencer try to achieve all targets. By using his first function i.e. planning, managers start focusing and preparing a course of action which help to increase their personnel’s skills. An important concern for the managers for planning is to take into account all organizational resources as well as human resource capability. Even managers can plan, implement and review regularly to see whether their plan is on progress or not. The next function is organizing. Managers take this function in order to develop an effective coordination between various levels of departments as company has different structures and sizes.
Also Check: Thesis Help
Third function is commanding which helps to give proper direction by the managers in order to produce desired output for a company. With proper communication, managers earn respect from their staff as well as the departments. Fourth function of Fayol is coordination which is the most important function that creates a direct impact on productivity of a company. By using this function, managers of a company establish effective communication skills in between different departments (Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014).
Students also like to read: Importance of Planning and Management in Organisation