Abstract

A newly appointed regional general manager for a British international home furnishings retail company has been ‘thrown in the deep end’. The company is not doing well financially in a post covid environment, and morale is low with his team. How can he achieve the company’s required turnaround and get ‘buy in’ from the team?

Learning Objectives

After analyzing the case, students will be able to address the following questions:

1.   What is management? What is leadership? How do these two disciplines differ, in your opinion?

2.   How can the general manager most effectively use both management and leadership skills in his role? What combination of the two do you think would work best in his situation?

3.   Are hard skills and knowledge and experience or soft skills and people skills more important in Jackson’s situation?

4.   What steps could be taken to build staff confidence?