MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY OF KENYA

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

BACHELOR OF PROCUREMENT AND LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

SUPPLY CHAIN PERFROMANCE

BPL 2415

COURSE LECTURER: DR. OKANDA

TASK: GROUP ASSIGNMENT 4

1. Appropriate leadership styles in supply chain

GROUP 4 MEMBERS
BUS-245-026/2018 DAISY CHANGALWA NAFULA
BUS-245-027/2018 TABITHA MALUNI MUTINDI
BUS-245-048/2018 KARIUKI REBECCA WANGUI
BUS-245-050/2018 KARIUKI ALEX MUTHAMI
BUS-245-057/2018 VINCENT IVY KEMUNTO
BUS-245-090/2018 BRAMWEL MATANO GIFT
BUS-245-086/2018 JIMMY JAMES WAMWEA
BUS-245-093/2018 ABERI MICHAEL MWANGI
 Appropriate leadership styles in supply chain

Introduction

Successful supply chain rely on strong leaders who can spur top performance from those

around them. Leaders contribute their own talents, interests, styles and goals to help their

organizations reach their full potential. Supply chain leaders need to understand the different

functional areas within their organizations along with how their partners, suppliers and

customers operate. Better yet, these leaders need to have the necessary skills and knowhow to

handle the human resource that has been handed to them in order to effectively and

efficiently accomplish the set goals of the supply chain sector that they work in. Leaders in

the supply chain use different styles of management to get their job done and usually stem

from one of the following or can decide to use a combination of the sorts:

1. Command and control

This is a type of leadership that makes use of standards, procedures, and output

statistics and is mainly goal oriented to the requirements of the leaders in order to

regulate the supply chain process. In this leadership style, leaders work with a defined

order where everything is well structured and arranged. It is authoritative in nature

and uses a top-down approach which fits well in bureaucratic organizations but fails

in a complex organization where innovation is important. There is a clear distinction

between executives and workers in this leadership style. With this type of leadership,

leaders can effectively manage every team on the supply chain like the manufacturers,

contractors, vendors, and suppliers.

Example: Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). The company is the second-largest fast

food chain in the world. The leaders who lead the branches of KFC exhibit high
 degree of loyalty and there is a clear distinction between the executives and managers.

This explains the company’s recent saga in Kenya. The CEO of KFC in Kenya

admitted the fast food chain was unable to offer French fries because of lack of

potatoes which they imported from Egypt.

2. Consensus

This type of leadership is the process whereby team members work as a group to

develop a solution and agree to support whatever decision is made in the best interests

of the whole supply chain. This is done by holding a consensus meeting where the

relevant staff members concerned are empowered to voice their support and concerns.

This type of supply chain leadership creates space for innovation and idea transfer

that helps come up with new ways to carry on and improve the supply chain process.

This type of leadership, however, does not seem to do so well where speed is of

paramount importance due to the different work speed in the teams and lengthy

decision making process.

Example: W.L. Gore &Associates is a material science company. It has 9000

employees though keeps its offices small with no more than 150 people in each office.

It works without supervisors and work is accepted by the employees rather than been

assigned to them. The company uses its employees’ collective knowledge of people to

develop ideas and workflow. They make products such as microwave cables, Ethernet

cables, and electrochemical device and fuel cell components such as flow batteries.

3. Collaborative

This style of leadership is more suitable when diverse teams come together to solve a

problem. For a supply chain leader, the ability to manage effectively different
departments across an organization also require a collaborative leadership structure.

This type of leadership works excellently well when leaders have to deal with a large

number of teams across different sections in a company. Although difficult a good

leader should be able to manage the teams to create better alignment and make the

teams more committed to the work at hand.

Example; International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). It is a leading

American computer manufacturer. It produces and sells computer hardware,

middleware and software and provide hosting and consulting services in areas ranging

from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. The introduction of ACE app in 2015

that allowed the staff to give and receive feedback anywhere and anytime. The aim of

the app was to foster a culture of open, honest and continuous feedback.

Conclusion

Leadership styles in supply chain are diverse hence it depends on the company one

works for and the goal of the company. The three leadership styles: command and

control, consensus and collaborative have unique characteristics and can be

implemented in various companies as we have stated above. However most supply

chain companies operate using command and control leadership style since it is more

effective in managing teams and the organization in general.

 References

Ashley DiFranza, October 16, (2019). Collaborative leadership: what it is and why it is

important. Retrieved from https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/collaborative-

leadership/#:~:text=Search%20for%20companies%20that%20notoriously,this%20method

%20to%20their%20workplace.

Richard Wilding, May 10, (2019). 9C’s of Supply Chain Leadership that you should master.

Retrieved from https://www.scmdojo.com/supply-chain-leadership-master/#:~:text=With

%20that%20said%2C%20there%20are,best%20in%20the%20different%20modes.

Marisa Sanfilippo, December 01, (2021). Shared leadership: how modern businesses run

themselves. Retrieved from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/135-shared-leadership-

social-media-fuel-business-growth.html