Free Paper for You: Retro Cosmetic Company Management and Leadership Case Study

Retro is a multi-national cosmetic company that has been recently acquired by Aroma, which is in itself a beauty product distribution company. Since the takeover, Retro has been afflicted by gradually escalating internal and external problems, involving customer's dissatisfaction in the handling of the new products, and employee's discontent with the administration of the company by the managers. Reasons on how the company's management and leadership decisions ganged up to create a detrimental business environment will be explored. By examining the shortcoming in leadership skills and managerial style shown by the managers, it is conclusive that these problems at the Retro company resulted in its current demise. Consequently, solutions into how management tools can be used to counter these flaws in production and sales department will be sought.

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Management

There are five functions of management, namely Planning, staffing, directing, organizing and control. For a company to realize its vision, its managers should use management tools and qualities to lead the team members in achieving the organization's goals.

Management Roles

According to Shawn Grimsley (n.d), three management roles are attributed to management skills. The first role involves Interpersonal skills between the manager, employees, suppliers, superiors, and customers which acts both internally and externally in an organization. Managers are the face of the company, and should also act as a leader to the employees while at the same time serve as a bridge between the employees and the upper management.

Managers should also act as information conduits, collecting, receiving and disseminating information up and down the hierarchy. They should be a representative of the team to the higher management while acting as the face of upper management to the employees under them.

Another role associated with the managerial position is decision making, they must collect all the information necessary and make creative decisions that will assist in achieving the organization's goals. They are responsible for managing and allocating resources, be a good negotiator and resolve conflicts. The decisions must not only be practical but also have a positive impact on the area of the level they present. In the case of Retro, the managers in the production and sales department are shown to make decisions that are detrimental to the company's profitability.

Leadership

Leaders have the inherent ability to motivate, lead and direct a team, to take into consideration the employees individual personalities, talent acquisition and ability to put them in a position they are most productive. They are malleable in adapting to a new organizations structure and use the situation at hand to make the most informed and suitable decision. For an understanding of the leadership wrangles that are plaguing the organization, a look at the four most widely practiced leadership styles that govern a leader's perception of their interaction with employees is paramount

The Laissez Faire Leadership Style is a leadership style that follows when the leader puts all his trust on the team, placing the burden of decision making solely on them. The team share suggestions and views, agreeing on the best way forward for the organization (Juneja, n.d.).This leadership style is best for employees who are highly loyal, skilled intellectual and experienced

Autocratic leadership style is another common style that gives the final command to the leader of the group. The employees cannot put their views forward, or question and criticize their leader's decision and views (Juneja, n.d.). The benefits accrued to this system are that decision making is fast, and it results in more significant productivity. A significant drawback to this style of leadership is the high cases of employee's turnover and may result in disgruntled team members seeking better employment opportunities.

Participative leadership style, also known as Democratic is prevalent in organizations that involve the employees playing a role in decision making, but the ultimate decision rests with the leader. The leader directs the team members on what to perform, and the employees give feedback on their experience and any other suggestion that may improve their working experience, and ultimately their collective goal (Juneja, n.d.).Democratic leadership style is the best, and it projects an optimist working experience, and the only demerit is that it is time-consuming.

The proponent of Bureaucratic leadership style adhere to the red tape method of leadership, whereby, the employees should always follow the procedure, rules and policies already laid out by the organization (Juneja, n.d.). This is the best leadership style for workplaces that need safe working conditions and also quality in their final products.

From the four leadership styles outlined, it can be shown that the Marketing department is headed by a person who follows the Autocratic method to lead their employees; this observation is backed by the lack of consultation to the stakeholders resulting in the employee's dissatisfaction. Subsequently, the production sector is driven by graduate managers, who employ the participative leadership method, taking into consideration the introduction of suggestion boxes and product development meetings. The only drawback is that in the production managers' decision, they should have taken more consideration into the customer's views and feelings first.

Leadership in Management

A good manager should also be good at leading, which means that both roles are intrinsically tied, and work together to integrate and exploit human personality, traits, and interactions for the overall good of the organization. These skills are instrumental in developing more cutting-edge practices.

Managers who are also leaders should maintain cohesiveness in their team; it's a trait of a leader to unite the team and of the manager to use resources to achieve staffing. The sales manager lacks the necessary knowledge in business culture, and employee's motivation showed by the decision to introduce a commission based sales marketing method resulted in a threatening of their job security, which leads to demotivation. Additionally, the manager lacks motivation skills and a positive attitude that are some of the marks of a real leader. On the other hand; the production manager comes out as lacking in knowledge in Total Quality management, by prioritizing the views of the floor workers, to those of the customers.

Other leadership skills namely communication, delegation, trustworthiness, positivity, commitment, and flexibility should be nurtured in the management team, to ensure productivity in the workplace. Additionally, when managers move to a new organization, they should take time and study the system in place, and adopt the managerial processes and business culture that brought success and do away with those that hamper productivity.

Business Culture

A business culture refers to behaviors and beliefs that determine how the staff interacts at different levels in the organization, as well as with customers and clients. It involves a combination of vision, mission, interactions values and operation goals that create a business atmosphere that affects how people work. According to Ostoff and Schmitt (1993), the business culture heavily influences an organization's effectiveness. The organizations also tend to experience strife and tension if the business culture is not stable, and the effectiveness of a business depends on the management's ability to strike the right balance between discipline and need for control, and freedom and autonomy (Kathryn and Branch, n.d.).

The effects that are seen by an escalating strive between the new management team and the employees at Retro are brought about by a clash in the two business's cultures. Arguably, this has prompted some protests especially by some top-notch workers who eventually moved to the competitors. A merger or takeover should not destroy the existing business culture but should enhance and share benefits brought about by a shared culture. Conclusively, the target culture that has been beneficial to the business should remain intact, while the less successful ones should be changed internally through consultations.

Stakeholder's management in a changed environmental context

The first step involves identification of the triggers that lead to complaining, in this case, they include marketing strategies that threaten the sales and marketing team's job security, and in the market, it is the change of natural products to other more diverse products. These triggers coupled with the dismantling of the business culture already in place threaten the cohesiveness of the employees as well as the whole distribution and consumers' chain.

One of the ways that can be used to handle changed environment in a workplace is understanding your stakeholders and what triggers them; from there henceforth, develop a proactive mitigation plan. In the analysis, detail the risks that can be allowed and those that can be shared or ignored to avoid the overall impact. Identification of the non-negotiables and negotiables is crucial, and consequently, working with the stakeholders to improve ownership, improve buy-in and project buy-in of the mitigation measure.

For the customers, a need for reassurance in the quality of the product through informing the customers that they only use products which are eco-friendly and healthy for their skin and that the quality of the products used before the company's takeover is still being upheld. The manager who oversees the sales department should cease using commission- based sales and find other ways to boost the sales while spurring the sales team on through incentives. Finally, look for opportunities in the stakeholders, identifying those that view the changes favorably. It is tempting to only focus on the disgruntled stakeholders, but those who consider the project positively in a positive light, present an opportunity to give their views to others.

Total Quality Management

Quality management involves long-term decisions and strategic moves that are customer focused, through integrating data, strategies and effective communication to the organization's culture.

Total Quality Management is an approach to a management style that was introduced in the 1950s (Hashmi , n.d.). The philosophy behind the concept describes how customer satisfaction can be achieved through cultivating a positive business culture and altitude. It seeks to explore the necessity to continuously provide the customers with services and products geared towards the customer's needs. One of the effects to poor Total Quality Management at Retro that lead to a decline in the customer's appeal to the products is the change from natural, healthy products in contrast to a broader range and increased raw material base variety. This effect has been noticeable in the declining sales from the UK which resulted from customer's dissatisfaction brought about by late deliveries, confusion, poor advertising, poor quality, inferior products and poor customer service.

Development of TQM for the Aroma company needs to start with listening to the customer's concern about it being eco-friendly and safe for their skin when they have addressed these concerns. They should seek similar natural products to supplement and improve on the ones used and expand the range through finding eco-friendly alternatives that will complement, develop, and continually enhance the ones already being used.

Total Quality Management (TQM) can be implemented using fact-based d...