And while some of the specific doâs and don'ts for CEOs are unique to their role, most essential things like setting expectations, developing a vision, establishing a management process, creating priorities, building your management team, and doing an exceptional job on your earliest projects apply equally to anyone in a new leadership role.
When Ron Daniel was the managing partner of McKinsey & Company from 1976 to 1988, he sent a memo to new recruits when they started, entitled, âOn Becoming an Associate.â His advice is still memorable all these years later: âRecognize the necessity of getting off to a good start in the firm. Your first few engagements are critical. During these studies, you can establish an internal clientele for yourself - that is, by performing in an outstanding way, your reputation will be quickly established in your office and even the firm.â (Weâve incorporated Ronâs memo in the Appendix of the book.)
This is especially important because whenever you assume a new role, youâre in what Max DePree, former CEO of furniture company Herman Miller and author of Leadership Is an Art, calls âa temporary state of incompetence.â Even if you think you know a company - or a department or a division - before you take over its leadership, think again. As GEâs Immelt reminisces, âI worked for this place for twenty-one years before I got the CEO job and there were still things that shocked me when I took over.â
The knowledge gap is even wider for outsiders. âAnyone coming into a new situation is faced with the fact that they often have to do the most at a point they know the least. You may have previous experience and you may be smart and have insight into how things work, but you know the least about the actual company youâre engaged in at the same time you have to set things in motion,â says AOL chairman and CEO Jonathan F. Miller, himself recruited into the company from the outside.