Transformational Leadership in Mergers & Acquisitions at E3/Sentinel

In the past year or so, E3 Federal Solutions merged with The Sentinel Company, and from there the combined company acquired three other companies. This summer, E3S decided to completely rebrand the large umbrella that all these companies now fall under as a whole to all become one company instead of five separate but linked companies. Integrating all these companies and aligning them to use the same platforms, systems, and policies is a more detailed and rigorous process than one might think. Currently, I am assisting the Integration Executive with integrating two of the companies, drafting communications and helping switch over employees into our system, all while managing internal talent to assure everyone ends up in the right place. It has been very important throughout this process to be transparent, communicative, and helpful to the employees who are making big changes or transitions to their careers. In terms of the payroll transition that is happening this July, we held many meetings discussing Benefits changes and making sure that no employees lost any money in their salary in the transition. Transformational Leadership is a relevant topic in this pivotal time of change for the company and all its people. The Executive Leadership Team has been working tirelessly to ensure that they are making decisions that will ultimately change the integrated company for the better and in turn positively influence the employees and their careers. It is quite literally a time of huge transformation in this company. Transformational Leadership is typically implemented in leading by example in order to implement positive change on followers. This typically includes idealised influence, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and inspirational motivation, as presented by Bass in 1985. All these elements are clearly present during the merging of these companies into one; the leaders must keep the individual employees in mind and how this affects their personal careers, inspire them to take advantage of the new environment and resources to get them excited about the change, and demonstrate to them why this change is a positive and productive one for the company as a whole. By coming under one name and brand, all the companies will be able to feel more included and identify more with each other, making it easier to work together and therefore make the company as a whole more productive and successful.