Taking on a new leadership role can be daunting whether you are a seasoned leader or new to leadership. From the moment you start people will be looking to you to lead your team, to fix problems and to deliver results. The combined weight of their expectations and your own can result in pressure to compress the time it takes to transition into your new role. As you choose where to put your focus, you may find yourself concerned about missing something important that will cause difficulty down the track.
Don’t worry. You’re not alone. This is a common feeling during leadership transition. Having felt it myself in the past, and discussed it with other leaders, I now have a tried and true process that I go through when I take on a new leadership role. This process sets me up for success as I take the lead and begin delivering outcomes for my team, my stakeholders and my employers. I am confident that the tools and techniques that I use will do the same for you. To get you started and help you set yourself up for early success, here are my top six things to action in your first thirty days in a new role.
1. Get to know key people
Make time to establish the foundations of a positive and collaborative working relationship with these key people:
- Your manager – Your manager (or boss) has a vested interest in your success. No engaged and committed boss who is paying you for your leadership skills wants you to fail because if you fail then so do they. Knowing what your boss needs from you is key to meeting their expectations.
- Your team – Your team, however large or small, is made up of the people you will primarily lead. Get to know them and find out how they feel about the work and their performance in doing it. Talk to them and ask them what they feel works, what doesn’t work, and what advice they have for you. If you aren’t in tune with your team, they can’t be in tune with you.
- Your stakeholders - Your stakeholders, be they business partners, other teams you are linked to by process, or even your clients, are as important to get to know as your team. When you meet them, confirm their view of what they do for you, what you do for them and what you each need from the other. Understanding this means any improvement ideas you have will be less of a shot in the dark.
2. Understand what you are accountable for
You can’t lead if you don’t know what you are accountable for. This understanding will start with a duty statement and/or role statement.
Understand where you get your inputs from, where your outputs go, and what the processes your team follows are.
3. Understand the current state
Understanding the current state starts with where you and your team fit in to delivering your organisation or company strategic goals and outcomes. This includes:
- Understanding what your boss has to deliver towards those corporate level goals.
- The current performance reports of your team against the performance measurement metrics the team – and you – are judged against.
- Complaints directly attributed to your area of accountability.
4. Don’t move too quickly
Resist making snap judgements and implementing changes until you understand the business and the current state of play, including the needs and issues of your key people. Be cautious about implementing what worked for you in another team. A one size fits all approach doesn’t work for all teams. A tailored approach may serve your and your new team better.
5. Don’t criticise the previous leader or team’s performance
The job you now have would have become vacant or was created for any number of reasons. You will struggle to develop a genuine and trusting relationship with your team if you are critical of the previous leader or the team performance under that leader. Graciously acknowledge the good things the team has done and flag that you intend to take the team to another level of performance.
6. Don’t be unrealistic about the current situation
Being unrealistic about the current state or what you can change immediately can set you up to over promise and under deliver. Incremental steps for change will be more tangible and visible if you are open, collaborative and build partnerships with the stakeholders your changes will directly impact outside your team scope.
The list above is just a taste of the many considerations you need to juggle and work through day to day as a leader.
I hope you find it useful for you and best of luck in your new leadership role.
If you like the photo you’ll find more from Mimi Thian on Unsplash
