Answer To: Microsoft Word - BUS606 Assessment 2 S2 2020 Assessment Information Subject Code: BUS606 Subject...
Parul answered on Oct 24 2021
Woolworths Australia
leadership within woolworths
Introduction
One of the major Australian retail organisations, Woolworths Group has strong foundation in the country and presence in New Zealand. The retail giant is the largest company by revenue in Australia and second-largest in New Zealand. Woolworths Group is the market leader in liquor-retailer in Australia as well as largest operator of gaming-poker machine. In 2008, Woolworths Group was ranked as 19th in the world in terms of scale and scope. One of the important aspects of Woolworths Group has no connection or affiliation with the Woolworths company in USA and UK. Woolworths Group in Australia is a different organisation all together whose primary business operation involves liquor retailing, maintaining chains of supermarket under the brand name in Australia as well as the countdown brand in New Zealand, pubs and hotels under the Australian Leisure and hospitality group (Everyday Rewards - Woolworths Limited, 2015).
By the virtue of this report, I have performed extensive analysis on the leadership theories and applied it to one of the largest retail chains in Australia Woolworths Limited. It is the market leader and its presence for more than 90 years drew my attention to find out the rationale behind its tremendous growth over the year and its journey of survival in this competitive environment. The report also provides leadership issues in the organisation and new strategies to improve profitability and maintain their position in this dynamic market (Bauer, T. and Erdogan, B., 2015).
Company Background
Woolworths Limited is one the primary retailer giant in the country with extensive operations widespread all across Australia and New Zealand. It also operates discount department-stores in Australia under brand of Big W. Woolworths marks its presence of more than a century now, since the organisation was founded in 1924 by Percy Christmas, George Creed and Ernest Williams. With it headquarter in New South Wales employing more than 2,00,000 people effective 2020. The organisation has been recovering from a significant loss in recent times yet the faith and relationship it has built over the years, fuels for growth.
Essentially, this faith in the brand and strong relationship with the customers emerges from the innate drive to serve the customers, offering quality in product as well as service. Ever since its inceptions, the organisation has always focused in offering customers with wide range of services and products. Although over the long journey of 96 years, the situation has not always been conducive to growth however the strong leadership and management Woolworths has attained the stature it has reached in current dynamics.
Literature Review
Leaders are the backbone of the Woolworths Group, the skills and insights they have offered has helped the organisation not only survive the test of time but also thrive in the years to come. It is the leadership skills of the managers, leaders and senior management that organisation reached new heights. Retail industry was static before but with the advent of technology and its penetration the entire dynamics of retails has complete disrupted. This dynamic of the industry enables in comprehending the performance in past as well as forecast for future. Out of few primary retail organisations there are several smaller local as well as regional competitors in the industry (Avolio, B. and Gardner, W., 2005). Woolworths encompasses enormous scale with more than 30 million customers. Although the organisation has faced tremendous problem in terms of aligning the strategy with highly agile and dynamic external environment but the business has subsequently bounced back. In retail industry it is essential that maintains market position and focus on consistent improvement of productivity as well as strong supply chain unit. There is various framework of leadership that can be applied to Woolworths Group that can help the business elevate from the current challenges as well as grow in this highly competitive market environment. Primarily leadership theories that can be implemented in the present context is Situational, Contingency, Participative, Behavioural and McGregor Theory (Giltinane, CL. 2013).
Situational Theory of Leadership
First theory that can be widely applied in Woodsworth is leadership's Situational theory that explains the different style of leadership and its importance. In this dynamic environment, it is counter-productive to use only one style of leadership rather adapt it as per the requirement of the situation. We live in most competitive times of the century where there are multiple disruptions taking place every second in the market. Indeed, change is the only constant that businesses thrive today believes and only prospective to advance in future (Kaifi et al., 2013).
Type of Style \ Attributes
Autocratic
Democratic
Laissez-Faire
Transactional
Transformational
Leader has all the control over how the goals are achieved.
Follows Hard Influencing Tactics
Team Members have no power to influence decision making
Leaders are delegate control and authority to team members based on skills.
Leaders follow soft influencing tactics
In this kind of style there...