The typical frustrated entrepreneur wants to fill every role as soon as possible. However, unless you have sufficient capital to cover the losses until sales catch up with salaries, this is a deadly move. Taking it slow is especially critical when adding highly paid senior leaders to the team. Add one key role at a time. Get profitable with that executive before you add the next one or add support personnel.

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.

Streamlining the operating process yields immediate benefits. Similarly, the sale of a nonperforming division or hiring a crucial member of your team also sends a signal that progress is being made. Look for these quick wins and leverage them. “If you can find a few things that were serious flaws in the organization and fix them quickly, you can establish your credibility as a leader very fast,” says Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

Don’t be a perfectionist. Not everyone has to be convinced of the advantages of your agenda. Achieving the buy-in of key influencers will provide the leverage you need. You don’t even have to make the right decisions nearly all the time. The key is to make decisions and create an environment where you can see how things work out and make course corrections as necessary. Confront your own fallibility and keep moving forward. Success is as much about taking action and recognizing your mistakes and addressing them quickly as about striving for the ideal.