London School of Management Science

BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

You are the store manager of a large retail store. You have been approached by your regional
manager to advise you that a senior retail manager role is now available in the regional office and
he would like you to apply for the role.

Task 1. Be able to assess personal and professional skills required to achieve strategic goals.

A/C1 (This section of your assessment requires you to write an essay)

(1.1 and 1.2)

a) Discuss the steps you would undertake to assess your suitability to the role. Explain any tools
or techniques you will use in the process.

Since the position involved is the manager of a retail stores the following are the skills needed in the
process of the personal evaluation;

1. Good communication skills as the position is management based role he / she

should be good at communication and should know the art of getting the things done
from the others. He should communicate the needs
2. Strategic planning it involves the process of planning and effectively using the
resources hence this role should involve good knowledge in the numbers and sound
technical skills relevant to the job.
3. they should also be strong in foreseeing the future using the current conditions in the
business and this can be gained only by the experience. Hence this involves the
proper knowledge of the resources and scheduling most of this are situational
based knowledge more cognitive than the usual bookish knowledge

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

4. He should be good in controlling others and manage the team as a whole. They
should know to influence others, motivate to them in a proper manor and work them
as a functional integrated teams; the main skill needed for this is to have the
command to control others i9n a effective way to get the job done in the right time
5. Time management how good in managing the personal time and an effective
manager should first manage himself then he can manage others well. Thus an
effective manager should be very good in managing the time based resources which
will determine the fate of success of the entire business
6. Decision making this is one of the important skills and they must plan for the
current situations understand the present and then only they can plan in for the
future. Thus the good managers are those who can plan in for the present set the
goals objectives short and long and strategically move towards them.

Thus a good manager must posses all the management skills mainly first he should be good in
managing himself, understanding the problems of others and he should know the art of getting
things done from others.

The main tool tat can be used in the process of judging oneself can be SWOT which is very simple
and this can be used to judge the Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. They can also go
in for a 360degree assessment based process in case they need to do an review based on the external
opinions as the SWOT is mostly done by the individual itself. In the process of the 360 based
assessments all the people around are asked questions about the person and based on this they are
assessed. Thus the review from them can be used as an effective tool because others can judge us
better than doing it our self.

SWOT Analysis on myself:

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

Strength: Weakness:

1. Good in communication 1. I am more of an activist who does all the

2. Ready to adapt to any kind of the work by myself
situations 2. more stressed at times and fail in
3. 5 years Experience in retail sector controlling the emotions

Opportunities: Threat:

1. Good position as senior manager from a
major retail sector
2. opportunity to attend 6 sigma training
1. Very bad in understanding the needs of
others
2. Shot tempered
3. Slow in decision making
4. Fails is time constraints
5. Lags when the pressure comes

b) In order to apply for the role, conduct a skills and competency assessment for yourself and
evaluate your skills relevant to the role

Evaluation of the Skills:

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

1. How good are you in communicating and making others understand the things - EXCELLENT
GOOD POOR
2. Do you have experience in working as manager? 1-5 years 5-10 Years 10 15 years
3. How good are in motivating others? EXCELLENT GOOD POOR
4. Are you good in planning for the personal goals?
5. How effective in the process of time management? EXCELLENT GOOD POOR

If the person doing the assessment posses all the above mentioned Key skills then he is qualified for
the job or else he will have to identify which he lags and will have to rework on building the skill
again

Task 2. Be able to conduct a skills audit to identify learning style

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

A/C2. (This section of your assessment requires you to write an essay)

(2.1)

a) Describe the relevant skills and competences required for effective management and leadership.

Integrity-
It is one of the effective skills for effective management and leadership because this involves ones
belief, value and working towards achieving them. A leader should lead others and he will have to
take others in the right direction and this involves the process of motivation and for this he will
have to strongly believe in some thing and then only he can plan for taking others in the right
direction.
Management involves the process of planning and the main skill needed for this is to have
experience in the process of planning and getting the things done in the SMART way.

Strong Visions set-

He should have the necessary skill to plan for the future Vision with the current present mission
statements. Thus he should posses the skills to go in for the long term things what needs for the
future of the firm and this is possible if he can understand the objectives of the firm because only by
understanding the objectives effectively they can communicate it to others and also plan for the
future growth.

Communication-

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

They must communicate the things to the employees and the people out side the firm because only
when the people understand what is being said they can act accordingly. They will have to be very
clear in the process of the communication which is going to impact on their growth

Building bonds
Because only when there is a good communication a leader can influence others and built in strong
relationship with them which will help in the effective team management and personal bonding
which can be used for the wellness of the growth of the firm. They should strongly believe in some
thing and persuade others also to believe it and make them walk in their direction thus they should
be very strong characters and man of trust and belief

Managers should be very good in the process of planning and the leaders should be good in the
process of making the team walk towards them.

They should see where their teams are in the current situation and only based on it they can plan for
the future. Thus they will have to plan for the identifying if their teams are dis functional if so they
will have to restructure their teams, properly conduct meetings, coordinate them and communicate
with them properly. Thus they will have to be good in integrating every one for the growth of the
firm.

Inspire Motivate and Innovate-

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

They will have to inspire their team members, motivate them and guide them towards the process of
the innovation and new technologies which will take them towards new directions. Because at the
current times at lot a time the employees get de motivated and stressed hence it is the role of the
managers and the leaders to again bring them in to the track and this is possible only by the process
of the motivation and guiding them towards the growth of the firm

b) Evaluate the skills required to perform the role of senior retail manager in the regional office.

Key skills
1. Experience as manager / in retail stores they should have some good experience in the
domain which is the retail business or else they will fail to meet the basic needs of the job
set
2. Understanding the situation situational analysis and cognitive decision making skills as
this will mostly involve the current situation and they will have to make immediate
decisions as retail sector is more competitive compared to the others. If they dont put the
right pricing or the right product at the right time then their entire business will funk
3. Team control they must integrate every one and build strong teams who can get the things
get done
4. Communication
5. Coordinating
6. Commanding / Authority
7. motivation
8. Influencing others
9. Technical knowledge
10. over coming the work pressure

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

(2.2)

c) Explain learning styles and identify your own learning style

Learning is the process of understanding some thing newly by the process of the training or doing
newly or updating the existing skill or through experience learning things newly. Thus this is the
process in which they plan for the personal and the professional development and there are
different ways of learning things called as the styles. Thus by the process of the different
approaches they can learn and understand to do things in different methods.

Some learn only by the process of the experimentation of new things where as some use the theories
while others use the books as their key source; thus only depending on their way which suites them
they can prefer their learning styles.

Based on the Honey and the Mumford model they have classified the learning to 4 different types
namely;
Activist
They should work on the new experience, experiments and they love to o things by new activities
trying for the new things. Thus they are the people who are actively involved in new things and they
know the way to achieve them. They try doing every thing by themselves hence they depend less on
others and concentrate only on themselves

Pragmatist:
More on task, more practical and hence they dont give much importance to the practical values.
Hence they are more involved in the solving of the real time scenarios and work on the solutions

Theorist:

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

They are more bookish, look in for higher perfection, fool proof methods to achieve the things.
They often go more complex in to the issues and as the name suggest they are more in to the
theoretical aspects they never go out of box which is major disadvantage for them

Reflectors:
They are more reflective on the situations, understands the current happenings and work on the
solution based on the practical experience thus they work on the solutions for the problems based on
their experiences alone. Only when they reflect their thoughts they can come in to the solutions of
the problem hence they need to work on the fast decision making. Hence they will have to be fast in
the process of the decision making

My own learning style is activist as I like to do things myself by experimenting and I love to learn
things by experiences alone. Thus I would love to work and work alone my only problem is less
dependency on others and as a result I will have to concentrate on getting the things done from the
others.

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

Task 3. Be able to implement a personal development plan

A/C3 (This section of your assessment requires you to write an essay)

(3.1 and 3.2)

a) Select 3 of your existing skills and 3 competences that you do not currently have but are
required for effective management and leadership. Produced a detailed personal development
plan for these skills and competences in order to be able to apply for the senior retail manager
role next year. The plan should also show the resources needed for personal development and
the timescales. (3.3)

3 Existing Skills:

1. Very good in communication. Have a strong communication and integration skill.

2. Very good in Hard work as I have strong hard working capacity I dont much work on the
SMART work and dependency on others is very less
3. Good in technical skills and good experience in the retail sector

Weakness

1. Have to develop the skill to communicate with others and work in as team. I do thigs mostly
by myself hence I lag technical skills
2. More stressed and I dont work well in pressures
3. Lack time constraints

Feedback received from others:

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

1. Lack the power to get the things from the others

2. lack the communication and the skill to understand others as most of my time is spent on
working out things and the main feed back is that I do it myself where as I lack the skill in
doing from others

Performance indicators

Some times it is reflected in the work log as time constraints are failed and I am not able to
complete things on time as a result the whole team fails. During the days of the heavy loads of work
there are always backlogs which affects the performance

Resources:

Training for time management 3 months

Software called as the Personal planner Cost 400 Pounds
Team building programs and automated software for 700 Pounds / this will also include the games
for improving the communication

For implementation of these it will take at least 5 months for the process of the over all planning,
training and implementation of the software. But on a longer run it will bring a change in the
process of how the things are managed

Conclusion:

1. Attend training program to improve the time management allocate resources like the
scheduling software for time management
2. Go for regular exercise, Gym and try to schedule the work which will eliminate the work
pressure and stress
3. Try spending more time with the team members

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London School of Management Science
BTEC LEVEL 7 (Professional) in Strategic Management And Leadership (QCF)

b) Explain what is meant by SMARTER objectives. Suggest how you will monitor and evaluate
the success of your plan.

The SMARTER objectives helps in you to evaluate if the goals are Specific, measurable, attainable,
Relevant, Time bound, evaluated and reviewed thus it is an extension of the SMART measure.
Hence first the plan should be clearly focused on the issue, very specific and only based on this they
can work on the problem. When it is more specific then understanding and moving towards the
solution is very easier. It should be goal oriented.

It should be measurable as if they can never measure the performance then the level of the success
can never been seen.

And they should be achievable and more realistic hence they should have the necessary resources
and the clear time scales for achieving them. Most of the targets are not focused and they deviate
from the problem hence they are not relevant to the study
Finally they should be easy to review then only they can correct it and improve them for this they
should be properly evaluated.

The success of my plan can be monitored by the process of logs where in the time scales are clearly
maintained and each and every task is recorded. Thus based on the time line they can evaluate the
task and they can also work on the process alterations. Similarly by measuring the success of the
team they can go in for the process of the evaluation of the improvement in the processes done
before and now.

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