5 ways to succeed in a new leadership role

Congratulations on landing a bigger role with a new organization! It’s an exciting time, yet for most people, it comes with a side of pressure. Stepping into an unfamiliar work culture—especially in a leadership role—can be overwhelming. The first few months of your tenure can be a determining factor in your future success; studies have shown that 46% of newly-hired employees will fail within the first 18 months.

It can feel like a minefield, but an increased awareness can keep you out of the danger zone. You’ve been hired by this company for your expertise, yet it is essential to identify which actions and beliefs will best serve you, and which will sabotage you—even if they’ve worked for you in the past.

In his book, The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins says, “Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected.” I can’t think of a better metaphor. Here's how you can stay out of your own way, make a positive impact, and ensure a smooth transition.

Leave your baggage at the door

Our past makes us who we are, and it’s natural for you to bring what you learned from previous positions with you. However, there’s a difference between experience and baggage. If you’re bringing too much of your old role to your new team, you may inadvertently sabotage yourself—especially if you had a bad experience at your last organization. Mass layoffs are more frequent than ever, and 40% of Americans have been laid off at least once. If you weren’t let go, you may have left due to a toxic workplace culture, found by a recent MIT study to be the number one reason people quit their jobs. Familiar situations may inadvertently trigger a less-than-ideal response, and can adversely affect how we interact with others.

Be careful not to idealize your last company and what worked there. Subconsciously or intentionally, bringing the same playbook to your new job (“This is how we did it at XYZ company”) can alienate you from your new team, and it’s not likely to be effective. Making the assumption that what worked then will work now is dangerous. The same goes for the culture as a whole. No two places are the same, and you’ll almost certainly need to adjust your approach with your new colleagues.

Ask yourself: What can I learn from my past roles? What can I let go of? How do I want to be perceived in my new capacity? What behaviors do I need to embody to achieve this?

Ensure your key stakeholders are ready for change

Companies make an outside hire for a variety of reasons, and your fresh perspective is extremely valuable. However, the organization may not be ready (yet) for your new ideas. It’s important to meet your colleagues where they’re at, especially early on, and to find a middle ground. Consider this example.

My client, Daniel, recently started as Chief Technology Officer of a midsize non-profit, and was eager to help his new organization get to the next level to better serve its community - everything that he had discussed with the CEO during his interviews. Daniel felt pressure to “fix” the issues he was seeing, which created anxiety and sleepless nights. These feelings were amplified as he and his C-Suite counterparts planned an upcoming leadership offsite. He didn’t want to overstep as a new team member yet also didn’t want to lose sight of what he came to the organization to achieve. He felt he only had two options: to take full responsibility for the event, or as he described, “...to sit in the passenger seat while the truck careened off a cliff.”

Daniel and I worked together to uncover how he could be most impactful in that moment — which for him meant seizing opportunities when in smaller groups to create a strong foundation for future collaboration by understanding his counterpart’s priorities, what’s getting in the way and how they could best work together. While the solution wasn’t entirely satisfying for him, it was a compromise that allowed him to feel like he was contributing to making the event a success long after it concluded.

Ask yourself: What are realistic goals at this moment? What actions can you take to gain advocacy amongst your peers by aligning incentives?

Get your team on your side

Most of us are cautious when leading a new team, but they are probably just as unsettled as you are. As a leader, it’s your job to qualm these fears and make the connections. To make that process run smoothly, a New Leader Assimilation (NLA) can help. Run by a third party, NLA is a structured process designed to introduce and integrate a leader into the organization’s culture and to build relationships with their new team.

NLA takes team-building up to warp speed, accelerating the time it normally takes to build rapport and trust between you and your direct reports. An impartial outsider puts everyone on a more even playing ground, making everyone feel more comfortable, and this facilitation allows important issues and concerns to be brought to the surface more quickly. Because you are all sharing, learning, and participating in the exercises together, NLA also helps to establish a positive foundation of transparency and communication. You can build on this foundation by increasing your awareness of your employees’ behavior. As you continue to form relationships with each individual, this will allow you to proactively address bumps in the road before they become problems.

Ask yourself: What opportunities can I create to develop a strong working relationship with my team? Which would make the most widely-felt impact?

Flip the script on your limiting beliefs

High-achieving people are especially hard on themselves, but there’s a difference between having elevated expectations for oneself and judgment. A client I work with, Carrie, a Vice President of HR, was having “trouble” at work. She’s two months into a new job, and while she acknowledged that she was still in the learning phase, she still felt she had to deliver. Her head was filled with “not good enough” thoughts, and Carrie assumed her boss was thinking the same thing.

When those thoughts occur, a shift in perspective can change everything. Take time to reflect on what you accomplished in your last position. What challenges did you overcome? What positive impacts did you make on the organization? On your team? Our false beliefs about ourselves are usually rooted in our emotions, so replace them with facts. Odds are that the stories you told yourself — “I can’t keep up, what if everyone finds out I don’t know what I’m doing,” etc.— don’t reflect reality.

Later in my conversation with Carrie, I noticed that she described something at work as “an opportunity.” I observed a change in her whole demeanor; it was a complete 180 degree difference from when she was talking about having to demonstrate her abilities. What could she accomplish if she continued to replace “I need to prove myself,” with “I have an opportunity to do this?”

Ask yourself: What would shift if you spoke to yourself as if you were your biggest advocate rather than your harshest critic?

Stepping into a new leadership role can feel like a whirlwind, but don’t forget the goals that brought you to this position in the first place. No matter what experiences led to you being here, you have a powerful opportunity to effect positive change on your team and your organization.

What did your best job transition look like? What made it the best transition? What positive behaviors/mindsets can you pull from that experience to make this transition easier? Let me know your answers in the comments!