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Mergers and Acquisition

M&A: Is Leadership Transparency the Key to Success? – 6 Tips!

August 16, 2017 By Tip of the Spear

The Point: Transparency is the buzzword of leadership gurus du jour… But rather than being just another of the leadership programs of the month, I challenged a client to think of the benefits that leadership transparency brings to the leader/their organization. After all, the success of the company is greatly dependent on the commitment and motivation levels therein. This is especially true in organizations going through Mergers and Acquisitions. So in this post, we’ll attempt to answer “Is Leadership Transparency the Key to Success?” along with 6 Tips… Enjoy!

M&A: Is Leadership Transparency the Key to Success? – 6 Tips!

Leadership Transparency

The leadership transparency could be defined succinctly as communicating, mobilizing, sharing and delegating.

Consider that leaders have clients within the company: their collaborators on one-side and their co-leaders on the other.

  • To their hierarchical superiors/peers, they deliver performance.
  • To their collaborators, they provide strategic vision and support to achieve their goals.
  • To maximize the motivation of the clients, it is necessary to optimize the leadership transparency.

From the Mergers and Acquisition Leader’s perspective, these transparency moments almost entirely involve the leading/managing of people. Having great ideas and a strategic vision will not take you very far if your employees are not willing to follow you. I’ve often said that if no one is following you, are you really a leader?

Here then are 6 Tips presented as basic factors for leadership transparency success:

Tip #6 – Strategic Vision

Passion and a great business idea are not enough to succeed in business, especially during mergers and acquisitions. Your business needs a leadership strategy. Plan where you want to get it in five years and how you will do it.

Tip #5 – Identify and Retain Top Talent

The success of your business reflects the people who work there. The great leaders who have created successful businesses have in common the fact that they have surrounded themselves with talented, courageous and loyal employees. After recruiting them, invest in their development by providing them with training and coaching. Leadership transparency is seen as a service that builds a successful business.

Tip #4 – Delegation

Leaders in Mergers and Acquisitions, by nature, have a thought pattern when it comes to their business that they are convinced that no one can do better than them. Those who succeed are those who recognize leadership transparency moments, in that they are unable to fulfill the duties of President and/or C-Suite Leader by themselves. They share, delegate and reinforce the autonomy of their teams.

Tip #3 – Leading by Example

Be honest and ethical in everything. Have strong values. Set the tone. By all means lead the way by example!

Tip #2 – Ask for advice

Even if you know your industry well, mergers and acquisitions challenges change transformations in business so fast that even the most skilled leaders get bogged down in the details. Develop the leadership transparency to know the best transparent result, which sometimes comes from others through asking for their input/perspective. Unfortunately, most leaders during M&A are afraid to ask!?!

Tip #1 – Develop Tomorrows Leaders Today!

Leadership transparency should start at the top of the business, but leaders do not necessarily come from positions of power/title. Leadership mentality come from all levels of an organization. M&A activity almost forces leaders to Identify those future leaders and help them develop their leadership skills through training/coaching/mentoring/etc.

SUMMARY

In this post, we’ve explored the Mergers and Acquisition topic of “Is Leadership Transparency the Key to Success?” along with providing 6 Tips! If leadership transparency could be identified as the root cause of M&A success and/or failure, then a transparent leadership strategy could make for a successful path forward.

Sam Palazzolo

PS – If you or your organization are challenged as a result of M&A activity, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and request future post titles! Here are a few of the other M&A titles previously published/in the works:

– Will Your M&A be a Success of Failure?

– The Importance of a M&A Strategic Plan – 3 Tips!

– Mergers & Acquisitions – Six Diversification Questions

– How to Successfully Survive Mergers & Acquisitions

– M&A: Creating Shareholder Value

– M&A: Should You Go For Stock or Cash?

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Leadership strategy, Leadership transparency, Mergers and Acquisition, sam palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Will Your M&A be a Success or Failure? 3 Tips!

July 24, 2017 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: Recent research by Harvard Business Review reported that the rate of failure in most mergers and acquisitions is around 70% to 90%. So what made this possible? This is simple anyway – a company that focus mostly on what to get from an acquisition is less likely to succeed than a company that focus majorly on what it has to give it (Think of this as a play-off of the “In order to get, you have to give” principle). This truth was also echoed from Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take” – stating that people who are keen to giving rather than on taking, especially within the interpersonal/business realm often later do better than those that concentrate more on increasing their own position. In this post we’ll discuss how mergers and acquisitions can be among those deemed successful… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Will Your M&A be a Success or Failure? 3 Tips!

Value Creation: The Secret to M&A Success?

Being successful with mergers &acquisition has long been proven to be challenging, yet there have been records of serial acquirers who are more successful with M&A than other companies who occasionally make an acquisition. The major secret behind this success is value creation.

Creating value is regarded as the real essence of any business – it can be easy to forget about this important concept when trying to merge and acquire a new company. Value should be concrete/real, and creating this should always have a positive effect on any business. Most products of true value are embedded with definite way(s) of serving consumers – through a service, for instance, value is being created.

The basic premise of any merger should be that merging parties create greater value together rather than in pre-merger (or while separate entities). Value creation is supposed to be executed by all mergers, yet about 80% of mergers fail to follow this fundamental leadership principle.

Other than making a compulsory effort for creating value, there are also other things that will determine the success or failure of mergers & acquisitions. Below are 3 tips that can help an acquirer improve its competitiveness and increase the chance of succeeding.

3 Tips for Any Acquirer to Improve its Competitiveness

Tip #1: Develop a Clear Strategy

There must be a clear strategy coupled with an open communication channel between stakeholders. Failure to identify a strategy and communicate will hinder the merger or acquisition in delivering desired results. There should be transparency in the process, likewise, it must be realistic and every area of management should be involved for success.

Tip #2: Allow a Wide Range Engagement

When the purpose of mergers & acquisitions are well defined and regularly communicated to stakeholders, market share and growth will allow a natural process to be managed and make goals more realistic. There would be some challenges along the way for sure. However, your strategy must assess any potential risks and challenges that may surface during the process.

By carefully utilizing some employee engagement programs with other strategies built around communication, M&As can operate successfully – it should be at the center of their overarching strategy.

Tip #3: Use a Board and Specialists from Outside

It is a smart approach to build an advisory board regardless of M&A stage – this should include heads of departments, major stakeholders, some internal staff and specialists from outside the organizations to assist with the process.

With the help from an independent source, great business decisions can be validated, claims can be challenged and leadership has a better ability to stay on track toward set goals. A specialist from outside will ensure that employees acquire needed support via a merger or acquisition (See the previous comments on transparent communication and employee engagement surveys).

Summary

In this post titled “The Leadership Challenge: Will Your M&A be a Success or Failure?” we have discussed how not all mergers & acquisitions will succeed (In fact, a high percentage often fail!) To succeed, mergers and acquisitions could run smoother (i.e., achieve better results in less time) by applying the 3 Tips discussed above.

 

Sam Palazzolo

PS – If you or your organization are challenged as a result of M&A activity, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and request future post titles!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: creating value, employee engagement, leadership, M&A, Mergers and Acquisition, sam palazzolo, transparent

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