Starting Off Right Leading a New Team
Have you landed the big promotion? Taken on a new role? Changed companies, or just taken over a new area in your company? If you have, chances are, you’ll want to make a great impression on your new team and demonstrate visible leadership to them and to your leadership. Taking over a new team can be a tricky minefield to navigate, particularly if they’ve been in place for a while. The impressions you create, precedents you set, and decisions you make early on will likely determine your success, at least in the short term.
In nearly 30 years of coaching senior executives, there are a few patterns I’ve seen that can help you get it right the first time with just a bit of forethought.
1. Get To Know Your Team
This may seem obvious, but it never ceases to amaze me how many leaders don’t do this. The best new leader integrations happen when the leader prioritizes meeting with every employee. Even if the meetings are short and the people are several levels below you, schedule time with them to listen. Have a short agenda and be intentional about how the time, but plan to listen during three-quarters of it. Seek to find some common ground…where did they go to school? Do they have children? What are their hobbies? Spend time really getting to know them and share a bit about yourself personally. The goodwill you build will pay back in spades. Have a few strategic questions to ask. Get their opinion on how things are going and what frustrates them. What new ideas do they have? What have they tried and struggled with? Ask how you can help. You can learn a tremendous amount by listening to employees and this is the perfect time to do it. You are setting a precedent that you are interested in them, their ideas, and their challenges, and that you want to help. Use a minimal amount of time to share key messages or expectations, but think of this as a listening tour. Your goal is to understand who they are, how they think, and what is important to them. Take notes to refer back to later.
2. Be Vulnerable And Ask For Help
As you get to know your team, you will also want to create loyalty and quickly get them to support you. This might be counterintuitive, but the more you share about your weaknesses (within reason) and where you need help, the more they will begin to see how they can support you. Don’t hesitate to share what you need to learn and ask them for guidance on how to best get up to speed. Be open about your own development and you will set a precedent that they can also be open about theirs. There is tremendous power (and time savings) in leading a team where people can be open and honest about what they need to learn. This creates a space where they can safely learn from each other.
Perhaps the most effective team that worked for me was the learning team at Bank of America Merchant Services. One of their roles was to teach salespeople how to price products. I knew little about pricing and didn’t have time to learn the details and was open about that. We talked about what they needed and how I could get up to speed enough to help, but we also quickly identified a pricing expert on the team. I made him our point person for pricing and propped him up with help he needed. Everyone deferred to him on pricing questions and before long, the whole business viewed him as the ‘go to’ guy for pricing. This saved me a ton of time, and we didn’t have to worry about screwing things up. It also gave a great employee a career boost. By admitting a weakness, we found a way to overcome it that made all of us look good.Â
3. Be Overly Mindful of The Precedents You Set
When leading a new team, it is critical to consider how you will run things and set clear expectations. It may be early to think about changes, but it is not too early to think about how people interact with you. For example, I like to set a precedent that I expect pushback. If people don’t agree, I want to hear it and understand why. When someone has a strange look on their face, I’m going to ask what they’re thinking. If someone disagrees, I’m going to ask why and expect them to share their rationale. I may push back, but I will never cut off dialog that drives learning. The sooner my team understands that the better we will work together and the more they will share without being asked. This has saved me many times when a team member felt safe enough to point out where there was something I wasn’t seeing. This is particularly important if you were brought in to change something quickly. The point is to think strategically and be intentional about the precedents you set. Don’t leave these to chance.