Merging challenges 1
TheMerging challenges
Inthe contemporary society, businesses are characterized by theirdynamism nature in order to remain competitive in the market.Consequently, the need for combined effort by two or moreorganizations necessitate a merger. The benefits of the strategynotwithstanding, managements of the two organizations willing tomerge faces numerous challenges especially in an effort tointegrating different cultures to achieve a common goal that can befollowed by every staff of both organizations (Northouse, 2004).Additionally, managerial challenges also characterize these mergerssince it becomes difficult to choose the staffs to hold certainpositions while at the same time avoiding loss of jobs to somestaffs. Notably, these are challenges that cannot be ignored as theyhave great influence in the growth and the success of the newlyformed organization. With this respect, the paper will consider thesituational leadership model to solve the merging problems.
Situationalleadership model
Thesituational leadership model was developed by Paul Hersey and MenBlanchard. Notably, the model is useful in leadership because itpromotes advantages of combining various managerial styles in orderto cater for different people within an organization (Zarghooni,2008). Unlike other traditional leadership styles that requiredmanagers to apply same tactics across the entire organization, withsituational leadership style, the manager will have the capabilitiesof dealing with various range of issues thereby creating a moreemployee-centric and innovative organization. Due to this aspect, itwill be the most appropriate approach to solve the challenges thatarise from a possible merger.
Applicationof situational leadership model
Theleadership style applicability in solving various challenges isjustified by its four main components that include telling, selling,participating, and delegating. The first two components (telling andselling) are helpful in solving issues that arise due to culturaldifferences in the organization. Telling involves creating awarenesson the best practices that the staffs should follow. Both managementsshould draft business values and ethics, which staffs are required tocomply with. However, the ethics should try as much as possible totake care of the religion differences. With this respect, the companyshould be free to accommodate and respect religion of everyindividual. The next component is selling, which involves creatingawareness on the need to work together in order to realize thevisions of the company (Alava, 2008). The management would act as theguidance and give their employees the direction to follow in order toensure they work with harmony despite the cultural differences. Thesituational leadership style will also help in solving any problemthat may arise since situation leaders learn to demonstrate fourimportant concepts such as diagnose, adapt, and manage the situation.
Moreimportantly, incorporating every individual in the organization isusually problematic. However, this can be adequately responded byapplying would be solved by the last two aspects of the modeldelegating and participating. In this case, the management shouldselect the staff members from the two organizations who are competentand who best fits the position. This can only be achieved by passingthe candidates through rigorous interview and consider theirpersonality and their behavior owing to the changes of environmentand culture. This will build sustainment in the company since onlypeople with vision that conform to that of the company will berecruited for that post. (Butler and Reese, 2001)
However,the various steps can help in ensuring the merging is a success.These include involving and engaging the staffs as well as having ashared vision. This will ensure that all staffs are working towards acommon objective. Then analyzing the potential opportunities andtaking action by creating ownership of the process and implementingthe suggested strategies and maintaining by creating the culture ofbeing focused. The last step in the plan is for renewal, which meansthat the company needs to reevaluate and reassesses the operations toensure continuity.
Conclusion
Situationalleadership model will be effective in addressing the challenges thatarise when merging two organizations. Behavioral change is expectedand the situational leadership style would help the managers handlethe different characters as portrayed by the staffs. They will beable to maintain the acute awareness within the organization sincethey will set the skills that are high performance oriented.Additionally, they will be able to conduct high effective coaching asthey understand the behavior of the staffs hence increasing theprobability of the company’s success.
References
Zarghooni,S (2008). Leading for change: Combining Vision with situationalLeadership. Institute of Psychology, University of Osio
Northouse,P. G (2004). Leadership: Theory and Practice (3rded). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Alava,J (2008). Current Issues in Leadership. Jyvaskyla InternationalSummer School in Human Sciences. Jyvaskyla
Butler,J. K & Reese, R.M (2001). Leadership Style and Sales Performance:A test of the situational leadership model. Journalof Personal selling and Management. Vol(2) p 37-46