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.

With his approach, there was a constructive, always-moving-forward element to this discussion, with no looking back. So the headset was, we had to figure this out, we had to go forward, and it didn’t matter who had put the plan before.” - Jim McNerney.

I got a lot of resistance initially,” Pressler recalls. “People asked, ‘How am I to be held accountable for something I don’t control?’” Pressler’s response: “You do. We’re a team, sharing responsibility and accountability for what’s best for our brands and for our company. We will set our agenda and determine our priorities together.” The result: “We still had to learn how to work effectively as a team, but this helped us begin to change our thinking and our actions.

[Carly] Fiorina, who in fact had done such an in-depth study of the company and the situation that she had many of the answers, probably meant to reassure people by her knowledge. But by not asking questions and by not failing to have some answers, she scared many of the employees. Fortunately, when this feedback was delivered and received, Fiorina adapted her active listening and allowed her natural gift for communication to flourish. This increased her credibility and at the same time deepened her insights into the company, its challenges, and its opportunities.