Many leadership transitions are made more turbulent than necessary because of misconstrued or misaligned expectations. We can’t stress enough how crucial aligning expectations is to getting off to the right start. Making sure everyone agrees on the important issues and priorities is literally the foundation to building the first hundred days pyramid - and your future success.

Two, take the time to listen before you do anything else. You will set the tone; it will be very difficult to reset it. If you start off by imposing your views on people, you’re not going to have what you most need when you most need it - namely, the commitment of the people you need to get the work done. Even if you’re right and you end up in exactly the same place as you thought you were going to end up, the experience of stopping and doing nothing but being a very good listener for as long as you can stand it is the most important thing to do. The whole act of talking to the top people is the first step towards gaining their commitment and understanding, which you must have if you don’t get it the first time. Until you get a consensus, that everyone agrees on - these are our priorities, and here’s who’s going to work on them, and here’s how our midcourse correction is going to be if we’re not right, and here are the things we can’t put off - take as long as you can stand to get that front end clear, committed, understood, communicated, massaged, and changed.” - Henry Schacht

Most likely you have more time than you think to develop your strategic agenda. While people expect fresh perspective from a new leader, a new style, and probably a new energy level, most do not expect a wholesale new direction, at least early on.

There’s a lot to be said for effective listening and for not sharing plans prematurely. Not only does it tamp down the amount of potential distraction within the organization, it also nips public scrutiny and second-guessing in the bud. The last thing a new leader needs, especially in a crisis situation, is to have the media and industry pundits questioning, analyzing, and deconstructing your plans even more than they already will be doing. Big pronouncements, especially early in your tenure, make big impressions that can come back to haunt you. “If you’re going to make big calls, you better be right,” counsels Steve Bennett. “Because if you come in early and you make big calls and you’re wrong, the whole organization is going to lose a lot of confidence in you.”

Vision for vision’s sake is counterproductive. Determining a course for the organization is a process that usually requires more time than most people foresee. It should be iterative, building off your strategic agenda, sharpening and clarifying the path based in experimentation and feedback.

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?

Just remember that too much change can break the culture - or more likely destroy the change-maker. You have to pace yourself and continually assess the tolerance of the organization.