TABLE OF CONTENTS

TALBE OF FIGURES.....................................................................................................................3

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................................................3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................5

LEADERSHIP PATCH...................................................................................................................6

Entrepreneurial leadership Model................................................................................................6

Situational leadership Style.........................................................................................................7

Applying the Leadership Styles to Keells Supermarket..............................................................7

Entrepreneurial Leadership......................................................................................................7

Situational Leadership.................................................................................................................8

CULTURE PATCH.........................................................................................................................9

Web of Culture............................................................................................................................9

Application of Cultural Web to Keells Supermarket.................................................................10

CHANGE PATCH.........................................................................................................................13

Kurt Lewin’s Change Model.....................................................................................................13

Application to John Keells Holdings.........................................................................................14

CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16

RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................17

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................18

2
 TALBE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Johnson's cultural web (cited from Doherty and Stephens, 2019..................................10
Figure 2: Kurt ewin's Change process (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2015)..........................14

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CEO - Chief Executive Officer

EBITDA - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization

JKIT - John Keells Information Technology

PLC - Public Limited Company

3
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The paper purpose of this report is to identify the correlation between leadership adapted by an
organization, the culture within the organization and the process of change itself required to
introduce innovation within an organization to respond to a crisis situation. The organization in
consideration is Keells Super, a subsidiary of the parent company the John Keells Group. It may
look at how Keells Supermarkets, as a retail chain responded to the most recent COVID-19
crisis, by introducing innovation within the organization, via Corporate Entrepreneurship.

4
 INTRODUCTION
Keells Super, one of the main subsidiaries of the group, operates in the retail industry,
functioning with the core principle of improving the quality and standard of life of the
households in the country by catering to their basic, daily needs whilst, at the same time
providing them with a first-class retail/shopping experience (Keells, 2021a). This sector has
seemed to record growth in profits in the past financial year 2019/2020. It has recorded a growth
in its EBITDA from Rupees 2,890,342 to Rupees 5,109,601 and have been considered the main
reason behind the group’s growth in annual revenue. This retail store chain has also attained a
growth in market share in terms of revenue as a result of a higher contribution from the outlets,
whilst providing employment for 4,900 individuals in the entire supermarket chain (John Keells
Holdings PLC, 2020).

5
 LEADERSHIP PATCH
Entrepreneurial leadership Model
This leadership model has been known to evolve in the recent years and considered a theoretical
subject. Most of its studies have begun in the beginning of the first decade of the 21 st century
(Selvaraja and Akmaliah Lope Pihie, 2017). According to (Esmer and Dayi, 2016), the
Entrepreneurial Leadership model is said to be a perfect combination of leadership and
entrepreneurship. This is where the isolated variable of leadership is blended with the concept of
entrepreneurship so that decisions and actions can be taken at an organizational level to introduce
innovation across an entire organization successfully, whilst looking at opportunities and threats
at a market level so that the optimum benefit can be attained whilst, taking necessary action to
minimize adverse effects of threat. In this leadership model, the leader is looked upon as
someone with the abilities and traits of an entrepreneur for key decision-making. It is highlighted
by (Selvaraja and Akmaliah Lope Pihie, 2017) that, a leader with adapting an Entrepreneurial
leadership style will direct their focus primarily on seeking and making best of opportunities
rather than actually attempting to change their employees, subordinates’ minds. Main traits
include, innovative, risk-taking, strategic and efficient (Bagheri and Pihie, 2011) and are highly
important during highly turbulent times as the COVID-9 crisis (Bagheri and Pihie, 2011). The
following traits of this leadership style may enable leaders to effectively combat a crisis
situation.

 Such leaders look for the entrepreneurial behaviour in their people and hope to develop
this trait, not just the trait in themselves.
 They seek opportunities and transform these opportunities to strategic objectives of the
organization making maximum use of the opportunities presented to them.
 Generally, innovation, that is known to impose change is looked as a threat by employees
in an organization. A successful leader with entrepreneurial leadership may find ways to
inform their employees of the benefits this innovation may bring to the individual and
organization as a whole if careful contribution and cooperation were given by them.
 Make sure the organization is following a balanced and successful busines model that
may allow the organization to seek new opportunities to create value.
 Keep reviewing the strategic goals of the organization to ensure they are on track.

6
Situational leadership Style
With this style, in comparison with the Entrepreneurial leadership model, this goes way back and
is a commonly used style by many organizations. This theory of leadership appeared in 1977 by
Hersey and Blanchard in their Training and Development journal (Graeff, 1997).

In this leadership style there are two strikes to consider; the task/activity/situation and the
relationship behaviour (BLANK, GREEN and WEITZEL, 1990). To elaborate, it considers
taking the most appropriate mode of leadership based on the given situation. It also looks at
maturity the base for relationship between the leader and the subordinate, to match the situation.
Maturity in this scenario is not the natural term that is generally used. Here, maturity is also
further categorized as psychological maturity and job maturity. Maturity is the key drive that
determines the said situation in this style of leadership and is how willing and able employees are
to take accountability for decisions taken to influence their behaviour (BLANK, GREEN and
WEITZEL, 1990).

Psychological maturity is the employees’ willingness and motivation whereas job maturity is the
willingness and ability to complete a given task (BLANK, GREEN and WEITZEL, 1990).

Applying the Leadership Styles to Keells Supermarket

Entrepreneurial Leadership
This Leadership style can be highly applicable among the leaders in John Keels Holdings Group,
most specifically those leaders who focused on transforming their model to combat the COVID-
19 crisis and transform this threat to a major opportunity for Keells Supermarket. The CEO of
Keells supermarket, Mr. Charitha Subasinghe has made it clear many different instances, that his
leadership style is focused on similar characteristics observed in Entrepreneurial leadership.

According to an article by (Lanka Business News, 2021), Keells Supermarket, has been
highlighted to be an inspiration to every other retail business to rethink how retail needs to be
done in Sri Lanka to fit in with the new turbulent times of COVID-19. As Entrepreneurial
leaders always seek opportunities in the market and also are on the lookout for threat so that best
decisions could be taken to optimize the benefits of the opportunities and overcome threats, it
was mentioned in this article that the leaders of Keells Supermarket have adapted a spearhead

7
program, called the CXO Disrupt initiative which focuses on enabling their leaders to remain
agile, being ever-ready for change and rethink, reimagine and reinvent their busines models to
match the current pandemic situation. This implies, they are not only focusing on the
entrepreneurial trait in themselves but others in the organization. Moreover, they talk about
reinventing, which is basically initiating innovation within the organization to respond to
COVID-19. The CEO of JKIT, Mr, Ramesh Shanmuganathan, brings innovation into the topic
by mentioning that leaders need to look how these retail products need to be sold, not necessarily
what. This indicates proactivity and going into the core of the situation to innovate. The CEO of
Keells Supermarket states that reviewing and changing the business model to a more digitalized
one is also necessary to keep up with the changes brought forward by the global pandemic and
share a positive outlook on this, where benefits can be obtained.

Situational Leadership
With regards to this style of leadership, although no constant reference has been made, it can be
concluded that Keells Supermarket has decided to choose a leadership style, most appropriate to
the current crisis situation. That is, the entrepreneurial model where agility, innovation,
productivity and considering risk has been significantly applied. Moreover, since a large number
of employees were concerned for their health (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020), steps were
taken swiftly by the chief officers to function physical outlets under strict compliance with
COVID-19 guidelines and was the first retailer to be awarded SLS Covid-19 Safety Management
Certification (Daily news, 2020).

8
 CULTURE PATCH
Culture is defined as to how things are done within an organization and considered to be
acceptable and appropriate including its values and norms that bring its people together as one
(Watkins, 2013; Doherty and Stephens, 2019). Culture is supposedly a set of shared assumptions
on what is right and wrong in getting things done and then passed on to new members of the
organization (Doherty and Stephens, 2019).

Web of Culture
Out of the many theories and concepts developed in the late nineties, the cultural web, developed
by Johnson in 1988 was the most common, going way back. This concept is a combination of all
other theories on culture giving an integrated version of all the other concepts. It incorporates all
the key ideas into one framework. It can be considered as a slightly tweaked concept adapted
from Schein’s artefacts defining a particular culture as these elements are present in the factors
presented in the cultural web. There are six main dimensions of culture according to the cultural
web that presents the different attributes of an organization’s culture based on the behavioral,
physical and symbolic characteristics of the organization’s culture. These include stories,
symbols, organizational structures, power structures, control systems and rituals and routines
(Doherty and Stephens, 2019).

The following diagram represents the elements of each of the above aspects of organizational
culture according to Johnson’s cultural web.

9
Figure 1: Johnson's cultural web (cited from Doherty and Stephens, 2019

This framework of culture will be applied with regards to John Keels Holdings as it is the parent
company and certain important factors like culture is passed centrally within the organization
and shared across the group, with minor adaptations to fit with the specific company.

Application of Cultural Web to Keells Supermarket

Rituals and routines - The norms and values of John Keells Holdings as a whole group expects
its employees to perpetuate the highest integrity levels within the organization, and honesty and
ethical behavior is considered highly important in handling business and operations within the

10
organization. Furthermore, John Keells Holdings always expects to provide a service that may
effectively and efficiently exceed shareholder and customer expectations by providing
excellency in service and always taking care of the environment and initiating plans to benefit
the environment (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020). Moreover, an important routine aspect in
application to JHK is the high endorsement and encouragement of employees by the corporate
leaders on a culture of continuous learning and development where employees are expected to
actively learn and seek new ways of identifying solutions to problems. Moreover, events like the
“Home Grown” and “Open Mic,” have been fun events organized to bring together employees
within the group to encourage the learning culture by learning from each other through their
personal experiences (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020, p. 52).

Symbols – It can be concluded that the main language encouraged to be spoken within the
organization is English, with the “EnglishBolo” a project initiated with the intent of providing
virtual classroom session, conducted for 100 days to improve the English Language of their
employees (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020, p. 52).

Furthermore, Keells supermarkets have their own brand logo and uniforms for each level of
employee such as uniforms for the staff at the cashier’s counters are provided with uniforms.

In terms of technology, John Keells holdings is an organization that highly focuses on

technology and innovation and has a culture of high technology, with disruptive digitalization
where the entire organization specially the retail sector, Keells super has been highly innovative
with their delivery systems and inventory management system where innovation and digital
culture has been the main focal point of the organization.

Organizational Structure – Keells has a very tall structure with the various levels in the
organization starting from CEO of the subsidiary, the senior managers, managers, executives to
the lowest level of cashiers (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020).

Power structure – There three main leaders that will be highlighted as the main pockets of power,
especially with regards, to Keells supermarket. They are the chairman, Mr. Krishan Balendra, the
CEO of Keells Super Market, Mr. Charitha Subasinghe and the CEO of JKIT, Mr. Ramesh
Shanmuganathan. All these three leaders have one thing in common and that is an innovative
mindset. Being at the core of decision-making for Keells Supermarkets, Mr. Subasinghe strongly

11
believes in making the best out of tough times, by turning the pandemic into an opportunity.
Moreover, Mr. Shanmuganathan believes that taking proactive decisions is crucial for sustained
growth and business continuation, especially in the case of COVID-19, where he suggests a
practical and sustainable solution is necessary to move forward successfully (Lanka Business
News, 2021). These leaders have innovation incorporated into their mindsets that they
incorporate among their subordinates and employees (Keells, 2021b).

Control Systems – the culture at JKH is such that it rewards its employees based on performance,
where performance-related pays plus meals and transportation allowances are provided for the
extra effort by employees (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020). The basic remuneration packages
and benefits are highly competitive derived from results of market survey results, expert opinions
(John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020).

Employees are highly motivated with an open culture with ample career progression
opportunities and special awards to employees like Champion of the Year, Employee of the
Year, BRAVO Award, Long Service Awards, CSR Volunteers Recognition, Innovation Initiative
Participants

Additionally, the organizational culture also needs to be given reference to. The organizational
climate is how employees perceive the environment the work in and the relationship between
employees and their superiors. This can be a psychological factor (HEFLO BPM,
2021).Applying this to Keells Super, according to their annual report (John Keells Holdings
PLC, 2020), every action necessary has been taken to make employees feel safe, heard and
understood with their events and meetings organized where employees at a lower level are given
the chance to meet with their top superiors. Moreover, the culture of continuous learning and
development proves the encouraging nature within the organization.

12
 CHANGE PATCH
Change in the organizational change may not necessarily refer to change itself, yet, the process
of introducing change within an organization. Organizational change is the process of shifting
away from the present or original state, known as the status quo and into a new state, referred to
as the new status quo (Gill, 2003; Ozdemir et al, 2016) and is essential due to the high paced
changes in the external business environment, in this case, the threat of COVID-19 Pandemic
across the globe and how organizations need to adapt to this external threat by successfully
introducing innovation within the organization which is the change an organization may go
through (Cao, Clarke and Lehaney, 2004). Over the past years, many theories and concepts have
been introduced by change management scholars. In this report, Kurt Lewin’s change model may
be used to apply with the current COVID-19 crisis to Keells Supermarket and the process of how
the actual necessary change was introduced via innovative ways to the retail chain to effectively
respond to the crisis situation.

Kurt Lewin’s Change Model

This change model basically breaks down change into the stages of unfreeze,
change/transformation and refreeze. Based on the learning of Lewin, change implied the process
where an organization moved from its original present status to an unknown, nevertheless, much
desired and expected state in future. In the first stage of the Lewin’s change mode, the external
and internal factors are looked into and considered to see if there are any changes in the external
environment the organization needs to be in pace with. These could be opportunities and threats.
New opportunities mean the organization needs to create ways of maximizing benefits from
potential opportunities or in the case of threats, come up with new innovative ways to overcome
these threats and continue business smoothly. For instance, technology changes and
advancements, wars, pandemics, natural disasters, trends and more. Hence, in this stage of
change, there is high resistance by employees as they are uncertain about its results and due to
fear of losing their jobs and more. This is assumed to be a negative and pessimistic behaviour
towards change and if not overcome effectively, this may slow down the change process. It is
rather caused by the uncertainties presented in this process. In the next stage, the process is
actually carried out and implemented where effective techniques are used to involve employees

13
in the change process and all the groundwork are executed. Here, training could be provided and
the actual changes are made and ongoing until completely implemented. Once it is implemented,
the firm may refreeze and is at the new status quo where once again business is carried out as
usual, with the new changes introduced, smoothly. In this stage, the benefits of change are
enjoyed by the organization and its stakeholders (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2015).

Figure 2: Kurt Lewin's Change process (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2015)

Application to John Keells Holdings

This section will apply the Kurt Lewin business model into the Keels Supermarkets and how
they adapted innovation successful in response to the crisis situation created by the COVID-19
pandemic. The latest business transformation undergone by JKH is their digital transformation
process, where they have successfully implemented this.

According to the report by (Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2020), it is the CEO of Keells super,
states that as mentioned above, the organization overall has been moving towards digitalization.
Nevertheless, the prevailing situation has always got the best of them.

As explained in the model, the first stage is where the external conditions are screened to see if
any innovations or changes are necessary. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many changes
to the way in which retail businesses were carried out changed. Customers are highly demanding
for digitalized shopping options that may include one day deliveries and more efficient than to
how deliveries and online shopping were originally carried out. Hence, as commented by CEO,
Keells supermarkets, these trends were first looked into, and as the first retail busines awarded
with the best COVID-19 managed retailer, they have carefully looked into the market and
decided on the changes necessary. If these considerations were not taken into account, they
might have lost customers and eventually gone bankrupt in the industry and lost market share.
Moreover, internal issues were also looked into, where the originally adapted processes were
outdated and required changes. Customers couldn’t reach out to stores possibly due to curfew

14
and mostly when they were able to there were long queues that resulted in less efficiencies and
COVID-19 regulations violated (Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2020).

Next, in the transformation process, they made these decisions and took actions to overcome this
crisis. The solution was to change the self-service model into a delivery model overnight. This is
an incremental change done to the business model or an omni-channel option (Price Waterhouse
Coopers, 2020). It organized meetings to inform the staff of this need and designed and seminars
and webinars to inform and incorporate into their employees minds to create the mindset to adapt
this change as that was the only way to go forward with the situation. Employees grievances
were also given an ear to so that they would me more motivated to give their best cooperation
and their ideas were also welcome during discussions (John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020).

Finally, now, Keells Super has frozen their status quo, at this level of transformation and well-
adapted to smoothly running with their new model.

15
 CONCLUSION
In this section, the three different patches of Leadership, culture and change will be stitched
together to explain how each of these patches contribute to effective contribution of innovation
within Keells Supermarkets.

(Herrera, 2015 cited in Herrera, 2016, p.1725) highlights that innovation is usually a technique of
creating new market spaces. It is not simply an idea, rather implementing this mere idea and
gaining benefits from it. Simply, new ideas incorporated into an organization’s products,
services, processes and more (Souto, 2015).

Usually, if an organization is to innovate, change is key. With innovation change must come into
play with the newness and new additions and changes in how things are done. Hence, in this case
of crisis driven innovation, change is key and central.

Moving, on change may not just be implemented within an organization, just overnight to
successfully function smoothly the following day. A key element of leadership needs to involve
for this implementation to done successfully. According to (McFadzean, O'Loughlin and Shaw,
2005), leadership is a main element underpinning or causing innovation within the organization.
It is looked into as a key driver to successful implementation of innovation in an organizational
context. Hence, without effective leadership, innovation is less likely to take place.

Finally, through leaders and how they incorporate values within an organization may affect the
organizational culture. It is the leader’s responsibility to determine the type of culture laid out.
Culture needs to be taught and passed onto the rest of the organization. Hence, effective
leadership may always be central to the influence of culture within the organization. With the
combination of these three, and intervention of these three successfully, innovation is possible
and could be made successful.

16
 RECOMMENDATIONS
It is noticeable that the structure of the organization is very tall and has a large hierarchy starting
from the board of directors to the lowest level of employment. This can make change relatively
difficult due to poor communication flow and other barriers that may exist as a result of a taller
hierarchical structure. Hence, it is recommended to make the structure rather decentralized to
make the necessary within the organization successfully (Graeff, 1997).

Also, another point lacking within Keells supermarket is that, not enough employee involvement
has been encouraged as the changes were importantly planned overnight by the corporate
management members of JKH. Therefore, to be more effective with the innovation proper team
meetings virtually, so that they stick to strict covid regulations are highly encouraged for
employees to gain better understanding of the situation and the required solution involving
change (Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2020).

Furthermore, employees need to be provided with proper training to use and adapt to the new
systems and processes and new ways of doing things to align with the COVID-19 principles.
Proper training to use the systems and also train them to be pleasant towards customers when
using the omni-channel option, where with longer queues, patience is required and with
deliveries, is important the delivery reaches the customer on time. Hence, specific training is
important and it is important to keep the customer informed. The change is not complete when
the service is not delivered upto expected standards. Therefore, meetings centered on customer
satisfaction, customer service, how to use the new online queue system, knowledge on COVID-
19 safety precautions such as wearing on masks and face shields. Usage of sanitizer and more are
required to be well-informed with clarity (Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2020).

Hence, John Keells group has been sufficiently effective in transforming their business model to
be innovative to face the threats imposed by COVID-19 and turn this threat into an opportunity.
Yet, if these recommendations were followed, this implementation may have been smooth. Its
results of a growth in market share and sales revenue proves this effectiveness.

17
 REFERENCES
Bagheri, A. and Pihie, Z., 2011. Entrepreneurial leadership: towards a model for learning and
development. Human Resource Development International, 14(4), pp.447-463.
BLANK, W., GREEN, S. and WEITZEL, J., 1990. A TEST OF THE SITUATIONAL
LEADERSHIP THEORY. Personnel Psychology, 43(3), pp.579-597.
Cao, G., Clarke, S. and Lehaney, B. (2004) The Need for a Systemic Approach to Change
Management—A Case Study. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 17(2), pp.103-126.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. & Brown, K. (2015). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking
Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human Relations, (), pp. 1-29.
Daily news, 2020. Keells first Supermarket chain and retailer Awarded SLS Covid-19 Safety
Management Certification. Daily News, [online] Available at:
<http://www.dailynews.lk/2020/08/20/finance/226363/keells-first-supermarket-chain-and-
retailer> [Accessed 18 May 2021].
Doherty, O. and Stephens, S., 2019. The cultural web, higher education and work-based
learning. Industry and Higher Education, 34(5), pp.330-341.
Esmer, Y. and Dayi, F., 2016. ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP: A THEORETICAL
RESEARCH. In: 25th International Academic Conference. Paris: OECD.
Gill, R. (2003) Change Management- or Change Leadership?. Journal of Change Management. 3
(4), pp. 307-318.
Graeff, C., 1997. Evolution of situational leadership theory: A critical review. The Leadership
Quarterly, 8(2), pp.153-170.
HEFLO BPM, 2021. Organizational climate definition: Everything you need to know. [online]
HEFLO BPM. Available at: <https://www.heflo.com/blog/hr/organizational-climate-
definition/#:~:text=The%20organizational%20climate%20is%20a,productivity%2C
%20motivation%20and%20employee%20behavior.> [Accessed 20 May 2021].
Herrera, M. (2016) Innovation for impact: Business innovation for inclusive growth. Journal of
Business Research [Online]. 69 (5), pp. 1725-1730.
John Keells Holdings PLC, 2020. Annual Report 2019/2020. [online] Colombo: Softwave
Printing and Publishing (Pvt) Ltd. Available at: <https://keells.com/resource/annual-
report/John_Keells_Holdings_PLC_AR_2019_20_CSE.pdf> [Accessed 18 May 2021].
Keells, 2021a. Retail | John Keells Holdings PLC, Sri Lanka. [online] Keells.com. Available at:
<https://keells.com/retail> [Accessed 18 May 2021].

18
Keells, 2021b. [online] Keells.com. Available at: <https://www.keells.com/news-
readmore/1017/corporate-captains-the-next-generation-lmd-magazines-cover-story-john-keells-
holdings-plc-executive-directors-krishan-balendra-and-gihan-cooray> [Accessed 19 May 2021].
Lanka Business News, 2021. John Keells IT CXO Disrupt: Helping Reimagine Retail in Sri
Lanka. [online] Available at: <https://www.lankabusinessnews.com/john-keells-it-cxo-disrupt-
helping-reimagine-retail-in-sri-lanka/> [Accessed 18 May 2021].
McFadzean, E., O'Loughlin, A. and Shaw, E., 2005. Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation
part 1: the missing link. European Journal of Innovation Management, 8(3), pp.350-372.
Ozdemir, T. Y., Karakose, T., Uygun, H., and Yirci, R. (2016) Educational Employees’
Perceptions Regarding Changes in Educational Organizations. Revista de cercetare si intervenie
socialâ. 53 (53), pp. 288-303.
Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2020. Covid-19: Retail and Consumer - Reshaping Consumer
Behavior. [ebook] Colombo: Price Waterhouse Coopers. Available at:
<https://www.pwc.com/lk/en/assets/covid19/PwC-COVID19-Retail-and-Consumer-
26May2020.pdf> [Accessed 19 May 2021].
Selvaraja, K. and Akmaliah Lope Pihie, Z., 2017. Conceptualization of Entrepreneurial
Leadership Models and its Suitability towards Educational Settings. International Journal of
Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, 4(11).
Souto, J. (2015). Business model innovation and business concept innovation as the context of
incremental innovation and radical innovation. Tourism Management [Online]. 51, pp. 142-155.
Watkins, M. T. (2013). What Is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care? Harvard
Business Review.

19
20