Therefore it should come as no surprise that these questions also form the backbone of how you introduce yourself when you start a new top job:
- Who am I?
- Where do I come from?
- Why am I here?
- What do I plan to accomplish?
- How do I hope to do it?
Related Quotes
Eckert adds, “As the new guy, I realized that every first encounter with a Mattel employee had the potential to be fraught with tension, and I felt it was my responsibility to do everything possible to reduce it. Surprisingly, I found that in each situation, recognizing my own lack of knowledge about the company’s people and culture - in effect, allowing the employees to be the ‘boss’ in certain situations - actually helped me lead.
In fact, how you treat your predecessor is so important and so easy to mishandle, we have determined that it is one of the top traps for new leaders and have therefore elaborated on the dynamic in Chapter 8.
The first thing you ought to do if you’re the new person in charge is nothing,” says Schacht. “I have learned this over and over again. Resist the temptation to ‘hit the ground running.’ It is absolutely almost certain to be wrong.” He stresses this is even true in a crisis situation.
High-performing professional thrive on this kind of information and context so that they can understand how their own responsibilities fit into the border progress of the organization. It also creates a productive way to solicit feedback from your team.
So often I’m called in to help lead conversations about mission, value, and purpose. When, really, the only questions that matter are those that tell us who we are and wish to be.
- How would our organization respond were we to hear all the things that are being said, regardless if they are being said with words or deeds?
- What does it mean to be a leader at our organization?
- What does it mean to be grown, a fully actualized adult?
- How would we feel if our children were to work for the company we’ve created or the team we lead?
- How has the unsorted baggage of what has happened to us shaped who we are as leaders?
- When our employees and colleagues leave our sides and our company, what do we want them to say about our time together?
- What do we believe to be true about the world?
- What do we, as a community of people working toward a common goal, believe the world needs?