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Wal-Mart Management and Leadership Paper

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Select an organization with which you are familiar. Prepare a response in which you address the following as it relates to that organization:

- Examine the roles and responsibilities of leaders in creating and maintaining a healthy organizational culture
- Differentiate between management and leadership.
- Describe the roles that organizational managers and leaders play in creating and maintaining a healthy organizational culture.
- Explain how the four functions of management support the creation and maintenance of a healthy organizational culture.
- Recommend at least two strategies that organizational managers and leaders can use to create and maintain a healthy organizational culture. Support your recommendations with the concepts discussed in class and in the text, as well as your personal experiences.

Be sure to cite at least two sources.

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Solution Summary

The solution is at least 1,750 words, examines the roles and responsibilities of leaders in creating and maintaining a healthy organizational culture, differentiates management and leadership, roles that managers play in a healthy culture and the four functions of management support maintenance of a healthy organizational culture. References included.

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A Research Paper on
Wal-Mart Management, Leadership
and Organizational Culture

I. Differentiate Between Management and Leadership

At Wal-Mart, management is a mixture of controls and standards with a certain degree of freedom for everyone to be able to test on new things and continue to innovate for improvement. The company has excellent controls and they make the company good. Management strategy is built on teams and the leaders go through the process of working with their team members. Leaders go with the group and after every major operation, they all sit down together to analyze the strengths and improve on the weaknesses of the endeavor. Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, introduced some of the basic concepts of management which were popular with employees until the present. He offered stock options and store discounts to his employees. Walton believed that teams will always do better than individuals hence; he has always tried his best to make his employees happy since happy employees make happy customers and more sales. Another reason is that he believes that the employees would care about the company more when they are a part of it and their success is dependent on the company's success. At Wal-Mart, management encourages their employees to be open to talk and air out their concerns and problems. This is what they call the "open door policy" management style.

"Leadership is an organizational role involving establishing a clear vision, communicating the vision with others so that others will follow willingly, providing information, knowledge, and methods to realize that vision, and coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members or stakeholders" (Business dictionary, 2009). Leadership at Wal-Mart is shown with the way their leaders keep people focused on the goals and mission of the company and motivating them and being with them to overcome the obstacles. Members are called associates and leaders are very active in implementing the organization's plans. Walton used the charismatic style of leadership which creates wonderful morale to the staff by giving all the kinds of support for the whole team in accomplishing its goal. Walton also uses a leadership that involves any person at any level in the organization to become a leader and this leader tries his best to meet the needs of the team. This is called the servant leadership style. And it is manifested in the way the teams in the organization get together and help each other with the goals of improving team performance. Leaders also encourage their team members to be open with any concern that they have. To differentiate the two terms, Management is the planning and organizing of the company's vision and mission which shapes their organizational culture while Leadership is the way their leaders implement their management plans. The management and leadership styles at Wal-Mart contribute so much to the success of the organization.

II. The Roles and Responsibilities of Organizational Leaders in Organizational Culture.

Sam Walton developed the principles for which Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. are going to carry out every day in order to create a unique corporate culture which is the key to Wal-Mart's competitive advantage. Management believes that ...

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