Relocation of headquarters and change in leadership style

The report is prepared for assessing the major impact of organizational change on the corporate team of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America that is an international non-profit organization. The headquarter of organization was relocated twice in the last three years and change in leadership styles during the last six years. The corporate team of organization has been influenced by change in CEO and displacement of countless employees since year 2009 (bbbs.org, 2018). In this report, a detailed discussion on change in leadership style has been discussed for analyzing the impact on corporate team. Impact of team performance and leader membership exchange is demonstrated in terms of job performance, trust and leader integrity. Relocation of headquarter of company in the last three years have adversely influenced growth of company. Later part of report provides with effective recommendations for carefully handling the ongoing scenario.

BBBSA (Big Brothers Big Sisters of America) is accepted as the largest and oldest mentoring organizations of youth in the United States. In year 2013, BBBSA relocated it’s headquarter to Irving, Texas from Philadelphia and just two years later, headquarter was again relocated to Tampa. Movement of organization to Tampa was perceived as long-term continuation of leadership. Raising the fund for company was difficult in region of Texas that resulted in shifting to Tampa. The rent-free five-year lease at Tampa helped organization in saving money. Nevertheless, such relocation to Tampa from Philadelphia was done after new CEO was hired.

Relocation of headquarters by an established nonprofit organization is not a frequent activity. When such relocation happens twice in a few years, then it is considered as more unusual. Relocation of nonprofit organization when considered after decade in one region or city is common (thenonprofittimes.com, 2018). Due to changing needs or demographic, over the years nonprofit organization and their constituents evolve. It was ascertained by audit department of company that depicted there was no proper accounting records for federal grants. Concerning such frequent relocation and considerable impact on the performance of company, leadership continuity is viewed by board much important that physical space. Therefore, it can be seen that relocation of headquarters is being done with change in leadership position of organization.

From year 2003-2011, the CEO and president of BBBSA was Pam Iorio who served as mayor of Tampa. Hiring of Iorio was done in the wake of US department of health and human services offices of inspector general. Movement to Irving from Philadelphia came immediately after hiring of new CEO as Charles Pierson in year 2012. Charles worked as CEO of Lone Star Chapters that is one of the largest affiliates of BBBSA. In February 2012, Pierson resigned after audit of office of inspector general came into light. This frequent change in leadership position called for organization to stabilize. After the move was complete to Texas, Tim Midkiff was hired as CEO of BBBSA. This frequent change in CEO of organization resulted in displacement of employees have affected their working procedures and displacement of large number of employees (Breevaart et al., 2015).

Leadership continuity and physical space

Leader Member Exchange theory is exchange between a leader and their subordinate as being construct of leadership between explains the relationship between characteristics and quality. Exchange and relationship between leaders and different subordinates are diversified and are at individual level and such relationship can be divided into low quality and high quality relationship. Career development of employees and working climate of organization is positively influenced by high quality leader subordinate relationship. There have been considerable changes in the working environment of BBBSA due to frequent change in leadership position. Increased lay off employees was witnessed due to frequent relocation and persistent change in style of leadership (Gooty & Yammarino, 2016). When moving to Tampa, there was, lay off and displacement 35 employees. This increased displacement of employees was associated with frequent change in leadership style of BBBSA. The key element of new leader in successful managerial succession is building interpersonal links with employees within organization. New CEO would be able to learn about the work group and organization as a whole by building interpersonal relationships. The success of new leaders in the organization depends on the interpersonal relationship development (Saeed et al., 2014). Therefore, it can be inferred from the evaluation of the case of BBBSA that management of organization should closely monitor the leader and subordinate relationship and such relationship should be developed with characteristics and relationship.

Business operations of organization are affected by changes in senior leadership and can create a shift by providing operations that are more streamlined. However, frequent change in leadership of organization can have detrimental impact on the functioning of organization. It is suggested by some findings that CEO can survive in an organization if they have various behavioral shift. CEO at initial level are required to focus more on strategic and organizational reforms that aimed at both steady and strong growth (Loi et al., 2014). In order to have in depth understanding of change in an organization, it is required by management to look at the present and past performance of leaders. One of the important components of leadership is volunteer ship followers as they can assist in broadening their perception about change that is brought into the organization in a positive way (Swanson & Frederick, 2016). CEO is required to develop the process of relationship development and learning process when they enter into organization with the help of formal development intervention. It has been found that development intervention is positively related to adaption of incoming leaders in a swift way. Hence, leaders entering into BBBSA should try to build interpersonal relationship with employees within the organization.

Effects of frequent change in leadership on the working environment

Leadership integrity is one of the most important attributes that influences the performance of team and relationship between leaders and subordinates as integrity helps in building valuable trust between employees and leaders. Integrity leads to adherence to ethical and moral principle and is the pursuit of undiminished condition. Leaders entering into nonprofit organization such as BBBSA should have strength of character that can be used to seek continual misbehavior and learn from misbehavior (Y?ld?z et al., 2014). Trust building among followers is an important part of leadership that results in increased communication with superiors and helps in building emotional support and trust of superiors. Individual behavior can increase or decrease trust between leader and follower in working relationships (Chernyak & Tziner, 2014). Trust of followers can be regarded as building quality relationship in the predictive of work performance of leader member exchange.

Offering job security to employees within organization helps in eliminating unnecessary job satisfaction. At the initial stage, supervisors should reinforce organizational commitment and job security can facilitate the dynamic process of employee engagement. It is opined by some authors that higher executive levels are neither effective employers nor they are good leaders. Therefore, the perception of employees cannot be dominated by followership. The reason is attributable to the fact that pre occupation of leadership does not make employees recognize realize the follower’s importance (Chang et al., 2015).

From the analysis of the given case of BBBSA, it can be inferred that there are two major issues that are faced by volunteers and employees and adversely affecting the operation of business. For the positions requiring institutional knowledge, management should reach to affiliates of organization and hiring people those are accustomed to such working environment. It is very essential for organization to maintain stability when hiring new CEO. Analysis of the case provide with the recommendation that BBBSA should not opt for such frequent relocation, rather they should expand by opening their branches in different region. It is required by newly hired CEO to build interpersonal relationship with employees in order to under their perception of working and contribute to success of organization. Frequent change in leadership creates a sense of uncertainty among the employees and working environment of organization (Casimir et al., 2014). Therefore, it is essential to align strategic direction with the needs, development and goal of organization.

Conclusion:

Analysis of the given case of BBBSA depicts that the major organizational change by way of frequent relocation of headquarters and change in leadership have unfavorable impact on the corporate team. Moreover, non-profit organization should not opt for such frequent relocation until it has any strategic importance. Therefore, it can be concluded that organizations relocating headquarter in areas where the founder are located are not considered strategic. It is not usual for organization to move and pick up for individual and the shifting of headquarter should be driven by some strategic need of organization.

References

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