Emerging business reports
Emerging business reports have identified Mothercare plc as one of the leading global baby retailer with more than 50 years’ experience in all baby related commodities. Having opened its first store in 1961 in Surrey, the company witnessed significant growth compounded by an effective management system. Today, it is apparent some stores belonging to Mothercare have been closed, but the company continues to a big player in the retailer of products for babies, parents, and children up to eight years of age. Reports from the company highlights the historical progress of the business as the retailer had initially focused on nursery furniture, pushchairs, and maternity clothing. Strategic changes saw the introduction of a wide range of products to include clothing for children. Today, the retailer offers a variety of children’s and maternity clothing, bedding, travel equipment, bathing, home furnishings, and furniture together with toys. While primary retail operations are located in the United Kingdom, Mothercare has equally gone global and operates internationally through franchises in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Throughout its growth, Mothercare plc has made significant mergers with the most recent one being the merger with British Home Stores plc.
The change in management style in recent years has seen Mothercare transform the global brand into a digitally-oriented business supported by a modern store estate. The company had been working out to reinvigorate its brand reputation as a source that is not only trusted by products, but also advice for parents-to-be and new parents with maintaining its focus on customer service and relationship retailing. While Mothercare UK collapsed into administration in November 2019, its wider international arm continues to trade as usual. Emerging reports have also provided the much needed insight concerning Mothercare’s leadership structure after it was reported that Mark-Newton, the former CEO had resigned from his position and immediately replaced by Glyn Hughes who just recently took over as the interim CEO. Mark Newton is believed to have resigned at the time when the company was moving towards the final stages of its transformation plan to develop into an international franchise operation (Abdulla 2020). While Glyn Hughes has successful assumed new responsibilities as interim CEO, it is critical to analyse some of his leadership and management styles that are forecasted to benefit the company even from a longer term point of view.
Management style adopted by the CEO.
With the company moving into an international franchise operations, there is absolute need for the CEO to adopt effective management style in order to achieve the goals of the company. Recent strategies adopted by the CEO makes it clear that he has adopted the democratic management style. This can be reflected on how Glyn lets employees participate in the decision-making process. In most instances, the CEO has demonstrated the ability to value the diversity of ideas within the team and considers the fact that people are key to the success of the organization. The move by Mothercare to offer products that are of quality, and of a new style is what compounds the need to adopt a democratic management style. Experts also agree that as the company is expanding further internationally and rapidly becoming a digitally led business, there is need for more innovation which ultimately calls for new ides within the team. As a democratic manager, Hughes’s decisions are to a higher degree influenced by the team, a factor that occurs because employees are equally involved in the decision-making process. The management style has also proved to be an effective leadership approach as it lays the desired foundation for managers to convince the staff to buy into the vision of the team (Foster, 2014, p. 260). Besides, it remains apparent that as a company, everyone is executing a plan that they’ve created together.
The democratic management style to a higher degree aligns with Henri Fayol’s management theory. The theory according to researchers is a simple model of how management interacts with its workforce and employees. The management theory developed by Fayol broadly covers concepts making it possible for any business to apply this theory of management. The CEO of Mothercare is believed to have adopted the six primary functions of management which to a higher level align with the principles. The functions of management that reflect on the democratic management style include forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling (Uzuegbu, and Nnadozie, 2015, p. 60). As a 21st century manager, Glyn Hughes has equally adopted the various principles of management developed by Fayol that has proved to be a significant boost when organizing and interacting with employees in a productive way. On the other hand, Mothercare plc carries out its operations based on four foundations which include people, infrastructure, modern systems, and governance. In line with coordinating the four foundations Glyn Hughes is implementing various Fayol’s principles of management in order to have a more effective workforce. Division of work is one fundamental principle adopted by the CEO and accepts the idea that employees are specialized in different areas and each of them possess different skills. Another fundamental principle adopted by the CEO is the aspect of unity of command where every employee of Mothercare plc receives orders from the respective manager. The degree of centralization is another principle that goes in hand with the democratic management style. Centralization in this context enables the sharing of authorities with lower level management for the decision-making process.
Organization structure
According to business experts, an effective organizational structure can undoubtedly guarantee the success of an organization. From this perspective significant steps are required to come up with a reliable organizational structure. Mothercare plc is an example of an organization that relies on its organizational structure to achieve higher performance. According to researchers, the first step in designing a suitable organizational structure is having clearly defined objectives. Some of the objectives from Mothercare’s point of view is to achieve its six strategic pillars. The six pillars include becoming a digitally led business, offering innovative products that are still of style and quality, stabilizing and recapturing gross margin, running a lean organization while investing for the future, being supported by a modern retail estate and expanding further internationally. The transformation plan to become an international franchise operation is one of the primary objectives that have influenced the creation of a suitable organizational structure. With the resignation of Mark-Newton as Mothercare CEO Glyn Hughes took over in a move that directly impacts the organizational structure. With well-defined objectives the next step involves determining activities then assigning of duties takes place (Galbraith, 2014). Delegation of authority comes as the fourth step where every individual in the organization is given the necessary authority to effectively perform the assigned activity.
With proper delegation of authority, co-ordination of activities comes up as the fifth step where efforts and activities of different individuals are synchronized. This is conducted to ensure effective performance of specialized functions. The management, therefore, goes ahead and provides physical facilities and desired environment and this will also involve having the right persons on the right jobs. The organizational structure adopted by Mothercare plc directly aligns with Max Weber’s bureaucracy theory that defines bureaucracy as a formalized, highly structured organization (Cochrane 2018). The delegation of authority as the fourth step when creating an organization structure clearly links with Max Weber’s sentiments on the essentiality of having a clear line of authority together with proper procedures, rules, and regulations. While the theory focuses on coming up a hierarchical system within an organization, there are principles that have correctly been implemented by the CEO of Mothercare plc. For instance, the aspect of authority of hierarchy has been implemented through defining the position of every employee in the organization. As a result each employee clearly understands whose orders they have to follow and who they have to report to. Division of labour is another principle of the bureaucracy theory than is evident in Mothercare’s organizational structure where work has been assorted into smaller task sets (Cochrane 2018). On the other hand, Mothercare has developed a strong organizational culture in the form of innovation and risk taking. The culture from a business point of view impacts how employee’s think and major focus is given on creativity and idea generation.
Leadership style
Since assuming office as the new CEO of Mothercare plc, Glyn Hughes had adopted democratic leadership style which is pivotal in enhancing organizational effectiveness. This is reflected on how he makes decision based on each team member’s input. Although Hughes always makes the final call each employee at Mothercare plc has an equal say on the direction of the project. According to Iqbal et al. (2015, p. 4) democratic leadership remains to be one of the most effective styles of leadership considering that lower-level employees are given the opportunity to exercise authority. Such a move helps the low-level employees develop their leadership skills that they will presumably use in future positions they will hold. However, it is critical to understand that democratic leadership style works well within a highly skilled and experienced team members. Also known as participative leadership, democratic leadership has enhanced communication system within the organization through having an effective upward and downward communication. This has been made possible from the point that group members are encouraged to share opinions and ideas, even though the leader offers the final decision (Iqbal et al., 2015, p. 4). Democratic leadership style has seemingly provided the platform for creativity that is encouraged and equally rewarded.
The kind of leadership style adopted by Mothercare plc CEO can be expounded further using McGregor Theory X and Y. The leadership theory was developed by Douglas McGregor in 1960 and primarily talked about organization and management where he clearly represented two opposing perceptions about people. Having adopted democratic leadership style, it is correct to say that Glyn Hughes falls under theory Y management style. In this category, managers have a positive, optimistic opinion of their workforce and they use a more participative and decentralized management style (Lawter et al., 2015, p. 89). Such attributes of Theory Y leadership style directly aligns with democratic leadership style where there is a more trust-based, collaborative relationship between managers and their team members. The CEO further puts into consideration that employees have a greater responsibility, and as a result encourages them to develop their skills and equally suggest improvements. While the CEO conducts regular appraisals, most of them are intended to encourage open communication instead of controlling staff. Experts contend that in democratic leadership style, people are presented with the opportunity to gain self-worth as a result of doing meaningful work. The same notion is expounded in Theory Y where if the work is fulfilling, employees are likely to do a good job predominantly it is important to them.