But the advantages of being an insider are counterbalanced by two major drawbacks. First, you cannot possibly have the clarity and fresh perspective of an outsider. Longtime habits and perceptions may blind you to inefficient processes or misplaced assumptions. Without even realizing it, you may have fallen into the “that’s not how we do things around here” trap, which cuts off the possibility of doing things differently. By contrast, when you are new to a company or an industry, you have the ability to ask “dumb” questions - questions that ultimately and frequently turn out to be not so dumb after all. Asking these questions can get you unvarnished feedback and provide you the ability to test underlying assumptions in new ways.

His advice to leaders coming into new positions from the inside: “I would take the opportunity to make yourself an outsider. Having an outside facilitator can help with this - he or she can bring in a third-party perspective and independent facts or research that might be different from what you have at the top of your mind or readily at hand.

Let’s face it, no one, regardless of how experienced or talented, is equally adept at every aspect of a job. In any case, as Immelt points out, even if you are above average across the board, no leader has the time to concentrate on every aspect of the job, especially in the earliest days of a new position. Think about where your personal involvement will yield the most leverage and where someone else might do an even better job.

Even though it’s crucial for a new leader to show that he or she fits into the culture and “gets” it, the paradox is that you don’t want to settle in too comfortably if the culture needs modification. But of course, changing a culture is never as simple as ordering it to be so, especially if the organization is very proud of its traditions. And what organization isn’t?

The failure to let go of a past identity manifests itself in a variety of ways, none of them positive. Some leaders bring all the accoutrements of their prior office to their new one, causing people to disdainfully view their new digs as a mausoleum.