Part A: Need for coaching and leadership development in Tesco

Introduction

Coaching and leadership development within an organisation is considered to be highly important as it reflects an essential tool to deeper organisational development and maintenance sustainability within the market. The current essay will be focused on the importance and needs of coaching and development within the domain of Tesco. In consideration to this, challenges and benefits of coaching and leadership development within the domain of Tesco will also be highlighted.

Thesis statement of the essay indicates that the coaching and leadership development program is likely to create a positive impact on the operational instances of Tesco.

Discussion 

Importance of coaching and leadership development program within an organisation

Leadership development and coaching programs are important for business organisations as it helps in boosting organisational productivity by developing organisation skills to execute targeted goals. According to Hastings and Kane (2018), coaching and leadership development is considered to be a program for the developing professionals within an organisation to shape themselves as better managers. This is considered to be enhancing personal drive of professionals for achieving desired success level based on targeted goals of the organisation. Similarly, supported by Yarborough (2018), proper leadership within an organisation domain helps in shaping a better workforce that improves human relationship within the domain alongside taking responsibility for acquiring success in the organisation.

However, as argued by Gavin (2018), development of leadership is considered to be a persisting issue that is being faced by organisations in the current scenario. It is because; leaders often fail to guide the employees in the proper way that leads to inefficiency among employees to meet organisation demand. From the current survey, it can be analysed that 99% of the employees have been effective to achieve success based on proper communication, implementation of changes, alongside self-awareness guided by their leader (CCL 2021). For instance, Tesco in the current scenario deals largely with innovative values that further increase the significance of leadership development and coaching to bring improvements accordingly (Emerald Insight, 2020). In this respect, it can be evaluated that coaching and leadership development pose significant importance within an organisation as it helps in attracting employees and developing employees, retaining talent that drives proper execution of strategy and increases the chance of success.

Challenges and benefits of coaching and development within an organisation

Coaching and leadership development as observed from the section seems to be posing significant importance within an organisational domain leading to its improvement. Coaching within an organisation helps in increasing employee retention alongside acquisition of proper talent, satisfaction of customers that increases the profitability of the organisation within the market (Reynolds, 2021). This seems to be the benefits of coaching that can be earned by an organisation for improving its workforce. However, challenges related to coaching include finding capable coaches to train the employees alongside proper strategy to maintain the coaching system and others. Apart from that, coaching also creates high challenges of time, cost, lack of accountability and others that create high disturbances among employees (Copper, 2021).

On the other hand, leadership development also possesses the challenges of ignoring company culture alongside low tracking of real life results, high reflection with fewer applications and others (EURAC, 2021). Most of the leadership development programmes are not considered to be scalable creating the issue of generic content of the program. In contrast to this, as indicated by many scholars, leadership development is considered to be beneficial for organisations as it helps in decreasing the turnover rate of employees while increasing work productivity and implementing proper leadership strategies that can enhance the working style within an organisation (IMD, 2021). It also helps in developing skills of communication and connecting people that creates a suitable workplace for accomplishing organisational goals. Henceforth, leadership development and coaching programs in Tesco can lead to the stated challenges and benefits.

Need and impact of coaching and development program at Tesco

Tesco is general merchandise and grocery shop headquartered in the UK and is considered to be the third largest retailer in the global scenario (Tesco Plc, 2021). The company seems to be largely dealing with innovative values within its products and services to satisfy its customers and gain a high competitive edge within the market. As per the UK government, Leadership training and development is considered to be a critical component within a business that leads to its success (PWD Group, 2021). In addition to this, several companies within the market have been observed to be investing in the aspects of training and development in order to accomplish organisational goals. In consideration to this, Tesco seems to be investing a large amount in leadership development within the organisational domain. The investment of the company in developing its leaders seems to be increasing in the current scenario as investment in people is a strategy adopted by Tesco to maintain its business operations within the market (Emerald Insight, 2020).

For instance, the company has been noticed to be investing £3 million or more than that in order to develop its leaders within the domain (Emerald Insight, 2020). In addition to this, as the company seems to be largely dealing with innovative notions therefore, investment in leadership or development of leadership reflects high priority for Tesco. It is because, as opined by Turner et al. (2018), proper leadership development builds high capability among leaders to manage employees and operations within the organisation. It also supports organisational productivity and helps to maintain proper position within the market. For instance, the company is ambitious to find and evaluate new ideas that can be effective in serving the people with innovative concepts (Tesco Plc, 2021). Moreover, the company is also observed to be launching innovative products such as Red Door, cashless payment, digitalise shopping at physical stores and many others (Tesco Plc, 2020).

In order to maintain its innovative nature the company needs to coach or train its employees as per the values of the organisation. This will help the company to gain a talented workforce that will be capable of meeting the expectations of the organisations and its customers. Henceforth, it can be stated that the operational notion of Tesco requires the need of implementing coaching and leadership development within the domain. Besides, the implementation of the coaching and leadership development program at Tesco also seems to be affecting positively by increasing its revenue, sales and customer margin within the market. As of 2019 and 2020, the revenue of the company reflected £51643 and £52898 respectively that further reflects higher margin than the previous year’s dispute pandemic situation (Bedford, 2022) [Refer to Appendix 1]. This reflects the positive impact of coaching and leadership development within Tesco by improving employee capability and increasing revenue margin despite crisis situations.

Conclusion

From the current essay, it can be concluded that coaching and leadership development is important as it helps in improving talent acquisition within an organisation and maintaining a proper workforce further providing the benefits of employee retention, proper productivity and others. Besides, high cost, time, lack of accountability and others are posing high challenges to coaching and leadership development within an organisation. Considering the case of Tesco, the company deals with innovative production services that create a high need for coaching and leadership development. Meanwhile, the company also seems to be investing £3 million for leadership development in order to maintain its innovative nature and competitive edge within the market. This father impacts positively on the revenue margin of the company as it seems to be increasing despite the pandemic situation. Henceforth, the thesis statement of the essay indicating the coaching and leadership development program is likely to create a positive impact on the operational instances of Tesco is highly justified.

Part 2: Reflective journal 

Introduction

Reflective journal is considered to be highly important as it helps in reflecting on one’s own flaws and strengths and creates a future scope of improvement. As a result of reflective journals, self improvement and development within professional careers can be analysed to execute current and future goals effectively. The current study will be using Gibbs Reflective cycle in order to analyse my academic and professional skills and reflect on my future scope of personal development. Gibbs Reflective cycle is a framework for self reflection and consists of six stages including description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, Conclusion and action plan (Adeani et al. 2020) [Refer to Appendix 2]. Through the different stages of the reflective framework, my professional and academic reflection will be provided below.

Gibbs reflective cycle 

Description 

The journey of my current module has been a rollercoaster ride for me where I have been successful in different areas and at the same time and gained a lot of disappointment in different areas. In the first week of this module, we have been provided with a detailed overview regarding the leadership development and coaching while the second, third, fourth, and consecutive weeks have been dealt with evaluation of the need of coaching and leadership development within an organisation. Similar to these, challenges and benefits related to coaching and leadership development within an organisation have also been evaluated. Last week our professors were engaged in evaluating the impact of implementing coaching and leadership development within an organisational domain that helped me to evaluate the impact of Tesco upon implementing coaching and leadership development programmes within its domain. In addition to this, the knowledge gained from the module has also helped me to analyse possible coaching and leadership development impact on business organisation that provided me with the idea of evaluating revenue margin of Tesco for depicting the impact of coaching and leadership development programme.

Feelings 

Throughout the module, I felt quite satisfied, as I was able to gain different knowledge regarding coaching and leadership development within an organisation. However, issues faced by me in executing certain tasks have provided me with the feeling of high disappointment while the areas of success have provided the feeling of ultimate joy, as I was able to bring justice towards my professor teaching.

Evaluation 

The detailed analysis provided in this module was the best part as it contributed highly towards my understanding and future development. In addition to this, our team members had ample opportunity to communicate with each other that also contributed to the good part of my experience and it also helped in implementing proper collaboration among each other and created a proper place for learning and development. On the other hand, we were also having conflict issues among each other as some of the members did not agree to the overall decision that resulted in high conflicts. Similar to this, I also lack the aspect of problem solving because in a situation where our team was facing issues regarding schedule I was not able to contribute proper skills of problem solving and developed proper solutions to the issues faced. Henceforth, these are the good and best parts of my experience in the current scenario.

Analysis 

From my current experience, it can be analysed that proposed skills of communication and collaboration can be effective for me in my future development. It is because, as per Bhagra and Sharma (2018), proper collaborative and communication skills helps in creating better understanding and relationships among members and contributes to better workforce. In addition to this, lack of problem solving skills also relates to lack of negotiation skills that can be effective in creating height discrepancies in my future development. As opined by Akben (2020), lack of problem solving skill depicts low ability to understand a situation and act accordingly and related to lack of negotiation. It is because proper negotiation skills can enable an individual to provide a proper solution. Henceforth, lack of stated skills can create high discrepancies in my future development.

Conclusion 

From the reflective journal above it can be concluded that my experience in the current module has been a balance of good and bad situations where I was effective in contributing to my team through proper collaboration and communication skills but lacking in the aspects of problem solving. Besides, the knowledge that has been gained by me in this module have led to my better understanding and can also be effective for my future development and action plan regarding my professional development has been provided below.

Action plan 

Table 1: Action plan

Reference list

Adeani, I.S., Febriani, R.B. and Syafryadin, S., 2020. USING GIBBS’REFLECTIVE CYCLE IN MAKING REFLECTIONS OF LITERARY ANALYSIS. Indonesian EFL Journal, 6(2), pp.139-148.

Akben, N., 2020. Effects of the problem-posing approach on students’ problem solving skills and metacognitive awareness in science education. Research in Science Education, 50(3), pp.1143-1165.

Bedford, E., 2022. Tesco group revenue in the United Kingdom (UK) 2015-2021, Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/490931/tesco-group-finance-revenue-united-kingdom-uk/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Bhagra, A. and Sharma, D.K., 2018. Changing paradigm of employability skills in the global business world: A review. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 12(2), pp.7-24.

CCL, 2021. 4 Reasons to Invest in Leadership Development, CCL. Available at: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/why-leadership-development-is-important-4-reasons-to-invest/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Copper, B., 2021. Blog Post: The 5 Most Common Challenges in Coaching, CAM. Available at: https://coachapproachministries.org/the-5-most-common-challenges-in-coaching/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Emerald Insight, 2020. Coaching delivers improvements for Tesco, Emerald Insight. Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ict.2010.03742gab.002/full/html [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Emerald Insight, 2020. Tesco boosts investment in leadership development, Emerald Insight.  Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ict.2010.03742bab.003/full/html [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

EURAC, 2021. Global Leadership Magazine, EURAC. Available at: https://eurac.com/the-5-challenges-of-leadership-development-programs-and-how-to-solve-them/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Gavin, C., 2018. The impact of leadership development using coaching. Journal of Practical Consulting, 6(1), pp.137-147.

Hastings, L.J. and Kane, C., 2018. Distinguishing mentoring, coaching, and advising for leadership development. New directions for student leadership, 2018(158), pp.9-22.

IMD, 2021. Why a Leadership skills training program is key to your career, IMD. Available at: https://www.imd.org/imd-reflections/reflection-page/leadership-skills-training/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

PWD Group, 2021. Leadership Training & Development, UK Government. Available at: https://www.pdwgroup.co.uk/business-training-courses/leadership-development-training/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Reynolds, J., 2021. The 3 Most Important Benefits and Downfalls to Know About Coaching at Work, unboxedtechnology. Available at: https://www.unboxedtechnology.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-coaching-training-method/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Tesco Plc, 2020. Tesco launches the ‘Tesco Red Door’; invites innovators to share ideas, Tesco Plc. Available at: https://www.tescoplc.com/news/2020/tesco-launches-the-tesco-red-door-invites-innovators-to-share-ideas/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Tesco Plc, 2021. About Us, Tesco Plc. Available at: https://www.tescoplc.com/about/ [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Tesco Plc, 2021. Innovation, Tesco Plc. Available at: https://www.tescoplc.com/innovation [Accessed on 15 April 2022]

Turner, J.R., Baker, R., Schroeder, J., Johnson, K.R. and Chung, C.H., 2018. Leadership development techniques: Mapping leadership development techniques with leadership capacities using a typology of development. European Journal of Training and Development. 1(8), pp.49-61.

Yarborough, J.P., 2018. The role of coaching in leadership development. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2018(158), pp.49-61.

Appendices 

Appendix 1: Revenue of Tesco

(Source: Bedford, 2022)

Appendix 2: Gibbs Reflective cycle 

(Source: Adeani et al. 2020)