Small Business Transition Paper

“Just as moral principles tend to guide an individual’s decision-making, those same values and directives can help a business set a code of behavior for its leaders and employees.” (…) When operating a small business with just a hand full of employees, implementing a set code of behavior isn’t as challenging as doing such within a large corporation with hundreds to thousands of employees and leaders from all walks of life. What may prove to be even more challenging though, is a small business transitioning into a corporation following an acquisition. This is the case for my current company. A pharmaceutical company that was owned and operated by a business oriented man and 2 other individuals, his friend of many years and his nanny also of

Prior to the acquisition all decisions made regarding business operations were participative. “Often called the democratic leadership style, participative leadership values the input of team members and peers, but the responsibility of making the final decision rests with the participative leader.” (…)Because there was so few of us, any changes being considered would be brought before us all for our input on rather or not we thought it would be beneficial. I believe our boss sis this because each of us plays a different role so he would want to ensure that our roles could handle or wouldn’t be affected by the change. However now that we are transitioning under new management as a whole we are now being governed in a more autocratic manner. The autocratic leadership style allows the leader to make a decision without the input of others (…). With us making this transition and now falling under a larger entity all decision are made between my boss and his bosses and we are simply told what and how things will

It not so much as he himself has transitioned between two types of power but that he has lost power. “French and Raven identified five sources of power that can be grouped into two categories: organizational power (legitimate, reward, coercive) and personal power (expert and referent).” (…) My boss used to practice personal power. He is an expert in our field and his loyalty, respect and admiration proved to be referent. No that he no longer has all power we have fallen under corporate power which surprisingly cares little about expertise or making connection. They have chosen to practice an organizational type of power specifically legitimate power which is the ability to influence others based on position verses expertise (…). However although we are now all under a legitimate type of power including my boss himself, my boss has yet to let it greatly affect his influence amongst us here in the office. He continues to have great influence as he makes small efforts to ensure with all feel valued and appreciated during this time of stress. The influence he exercises is still that of personal power. Although he maintains the same influence there have definitely been shifts in his