His advice to leaders coming into new positions from the inside: âI 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.
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The first thing you ought to do if youâre the new person in charge is nothing,â says Schacht. âI have learned this over and over again. Resist the temptation to âhit the ground running.â It is absolutely almost certain to be wrong.â He stresses this is even true in a crisis situation.
Letâs 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.
Leadership can be a tough and lonely position, even in the best of times, but itâs especially isolated when you want to make changes. You canât and shouldnât try to do it all yourself.
You need someone trustworthy with whom you can brainstorm, discuss sensitive personnel decisions, test the waters, and gather opinions in situations when people might not be completely honest and forthcoming with the CEO. You need someone discreet whom you can turn to during the âwhat do I do now?â moments that hit everyone at some point. Call it partner or confidant, the position can be second in importance only to you.
Even though itâs crucial for a new leader to show that he or she fits into the culture and âgetsâ it, the paradox is that you donât 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 isnât?
If your people donât know what the direction is, they wonât know where to go. The result: Energy dissipates, momentum slows, morale plummets, and the company drifts. Itâs not a pretty picture. Making sure everyone sees the same picture and then understands what that picture means, Parson says, requires âmore contact with people, more opportunities to meet them, and more communication.