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John Lewis Partnership is a public limited company, which was introduced by John Spedan Lewis
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At that time, he got 25% shares of
father’s store owned in Oxford Street and became directly involved in the running and development of
the business
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John Spedan Lewis Partnership success was due to the unique leadership approach: John
made people employed within the partnership as partners, which have certain rights in running a
business (John Lewis Partnership, 2015a)
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” (Torrington, Hall & Taylor, 2005: 300)
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The main purpose of this coursework is to analyse
an importance of the leadership style in the success of John Lewis
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After that, leadership styles will be revealed and applied to John
Lewis Partnership
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Management and leadership have some crucial differences
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(2011: 206) propose that
managers use various forms of control and formal methods to ensure that employees walk towards the
business objectives
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However, Hall et al
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Controversially, Pettinger and Frith (2001: 228) point out that leader is the informal
position in the company, which requires a talent to inspire other people to achieve objectives
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(1994: 259) state that leaders are an important part of the company because they can
change even the whole company
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With the successful leader,
the company can expand rapidly, however, in the persistence of own ambitions, leaders can move away
from the company’s objectives
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This
approach is used by John Lewis Partnership where manager’s and leader’s duties are inseparable (John
Lewis Partnership, 2015b)
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Some of them are strict, whereas other behave
politely to working personnel
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The autocratic style is characterised by one
person, who makes all decisions
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Similarly
to Taylor, employees are seen as soulless machines, which are lazy and only need money (Hall et al
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According to Marcouse et al
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However, this
style can solve situations where the decisions must be chosen quickly
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According to Herzberg,
exclusion of employees from decision-making processes, affect the productivity of the workforce
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, 1994: 260)
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In spite of this, John Lewis can
temporarily choose this style on the verge of decline or in the crucial contract with other companies
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The Leader plays the role of a “father”
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Leaders listen to the
complaints and requests of the workers; however, decision-making power still relies on the leaders
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, 2011: 206-207)
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Furthermore, Marcouse et al
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However, this style has drawbacks of Autocratic
style
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Although it considers the wishes of employees, it
still resulting in the deskilled and dissatisfied labour
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Also, the decisions made
solely by leaders may be wrong and harmful for John Lewis
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Despite that, this style
as Autocratic, can be used in John Lewis in critical business situations
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Leaders
trust and listen to advices of employees, in other words, there is a two-way communication (Torrington,
Hall and Taylor, 2005: 290)
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As a result, the workforce is motivated, due to
the ability to impact the company, and the best decisions are being made (Hall et al
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In
addition to that, Marcouse et al
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Despite that, Riley (2012a) states that finding a perfect decision can be timeconsuming and inappropriate in tight timeframe situations
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John Lewis has chosen democratic style (John Lewis Partnership 2015d)
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In addition to that, John
Lewis made employees delegate the authority
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Moreover, making employees as partners ensured their
interest in company’s growth
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John Lewis Partnership spends money to reward
the motivation of workers outside the workplace such as sport and voluntary activities (John Lewis
Partnership 2015f)
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However, this style is inelastic to make fast changes
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Last style, Laissez-faire consists a full freedom for employees
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In Laissez-faire style, employees are independent and fully responsible for decision-making,
therefore, to benefit from this style, employees should be highly motivated and educated due to the
lack of control (Wilkinston et al
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This style is used in creative jobs such as painting
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However, there is no purpose for leaders
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John Lewis is a company with thousands of employees
and, therefore, the lack of control can be fatal for John Lewis
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To use this style all workers in John Lewis should be motivated and educated and require creative tasks,
what will be very unlikely to happen, therefore, there will be probably no usefulness for John Lewis to
ever use this style of leadership
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He points out that in Theory X
managers believe that workers do not enjoy the work, responsibilities and will avoid it if they can and,
therefore, they should be controlled (Riley, 2012b)
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Controversially, Marcouse et al
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Employees are creative, want to work and want responsibility
with the challenging rewards
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Therefore, the behaviour of employees can help to choose the appropriate style
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As Taylor said, many employees are still motivated only
by the money
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Advertising also plays a huge role
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Moreover, the focus on the middle class customers provided
John Lewis a high level of brand loyalty, which helped John Lewis to survive during the 2007-2009
recession (John Lewis Partnership 2015g)
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Middle class orientation and high brand loyalty give the
opportunity for John Lewis to dominate among Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury
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In the era of new technologies, the online shop is
an essential part of success in the competitive market
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From the evidences above, it can be seen that the appropriate leadership style plays a vital
role in John Lewis success
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It can be concluded that
leaders should carefully choose the appropriate leadership style to different situations to ensure the
company’s growth
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Picking the wrong
leadership style can be very costly to business, even leading to its destruction
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Finch, J
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At John Lewis, 'happiness' beats profit
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theguardian
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Friedman, J
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(2012)
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5th edition
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Hall, D
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, Raffo, C
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, Chambers, I
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(2008)
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4th edition
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John Lewis Partnership
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Our founder: the John Spedan Lewis story
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johnlewispartnership
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uk/about/our-founder
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John Lewis Partnership
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Senior Management
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com/partnership-jobs/johnlewis/john-lewis-jobs/senior-management/ [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2015c)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2015d)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2015e)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2015f)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2015g)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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& Wilkinson, A
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Core Personnel and Development
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Marcouse, I
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, Gillespie, A
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, Brewer, M
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(2011)
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4th edition
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Pettinger, R
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(2001)
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Hampshire: Palgrave
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(2012a)
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http://www
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net/business/strategy/leadershipmodels-styles
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Riley, J
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Motivation Theory – McGregor
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tutor2u
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asp [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2008)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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(2013)
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http://www
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co
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html [Assessed 2nd April 2015]
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, Hall, L
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(2005)
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6th edition
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Wilkinson, R
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, Curtis, S
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, Morgan, B
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& Sykes, G
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Business Studies
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Oxford: Heinemann Educational

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