You’ve just secured your first executive role, and celebrations are in order.
You’ve been told you were selected above other candidates because you identified the looming disruptions in your industry, communicated how they’d impact your organization, and, most important, you articulated a plan for leading the required transformation.
It’s now Monday morning, you’ve arrived early for day one, and it’s go time. It’s time to start the transformation you waxed lyrical about during the interview process.
Obviously, you’re no rookie—you’ve been around a while, and you know that in corporate life you’ll succeed or fail based on the quality of the team around you. Your laptop is open, with steaming coffee beside it. Now what?
Recognize that not everyone will be delighted you got the job
First, you must recognize that every time someone gets a new job, there are winners and losers. As the successful candidate, you’re happy—but understand that there’s probably someone else in your direct team or wider organization who was unsuccessful because of you.
They may feel a short-term sting of disappointment that they can successfully get over, in which case great. Or, the feelings may fester into long-term resentment that prevents them moving forward and supporting you and the transformation.
As the new leader, you must evaluate the situation with maturity and pragmatism. Keep an open mind, resist jumping at shadows, but be realistic.
Understand what you’re trying to achieve
You won the job by talking about what you’d do to transform your team or organization. Now you need to get specific.
- What will the looming disruption mean for your team?
- What corporate strategy should you develop in response?
- How are you planning on taking action to implement the changes needed?
You need to develop a high-level narrative that you can initially share while you then continue to build it out as you learn more and make decisions. A useful communication template to use is: “Because of the effects of A, B, and C [insert external disruptive forces], we are going to do X, Y, and Z [insert actions you’ll take.]”
You don’t need a PowerPoint deck, just clear thinking.
Be clear on what skills you need
Your narrative should also shine a light on the current state of your team. With regard the business-as-usual aspects of your team:
- What skills do you have now?
- What skills will you need to deliver against the future demands on the team?
- What project management, transformation, process, technology, and stakeholder management skills will you need to implement the strategy that’s starting to develop in your mind?
Start making a rough list of the skills you need to move your team and organization forward.
Evaluate the team using a simple 6-box model
As you come into your new role, it might be tempting to make snap emotional decisions about the people who now report to you. However, you must remember that even senior people you meet may be nervous or off their game when meeting you for the first time. Not everyone is extroverted and/or confident in expressing themselves to their new boss.
Instead, it’s important to collect actual empirical evidence of how they think, what they deliver, and how they behave. An easy way to perform this evaluation is to take a sheet of paper for each of your direct reports and draw six boxes on it. In each box, write these headings:
- Pride and ambition for the company? (observations)
- Professional substance and competence? (observations)
- Gets things done? (facts and evidence)
- Works well/good behaviors with their colleagues? (observations)
- Easy to work with and open to development? (gut feel and instinct)
- Enjoys the confidence of the board/top executive? (facts and evidence)
Keep this table close and write in it every time you see each executive in action. Watch how they respond to ambiguity, or how they treat their colleagues or guests who visit your team. Evaluate what they’ve achieved for the company using objective empirical data.
You’ll be surprised at the level of insight you can gather in a very short time.
Have the hard conversations
Once you’ve evaluated your team against the skills you need in the future, and the six-box model, it’ll probably be apparent to you what the team should look like.
Keep the superstars. Easy. However, if someone doesn’t measure up, you must consider whether they’re coachable and can improve within the time you have available. The clock is running, so if they can’t (or won’t) change within a reasonable timeframe, then its best for them and for the transformation that they’re moved on.
This might mean a different role for them in the wider organisation (great) or that they’ll be leaving the company (unfortunate but necessary). Either way, you must have these hard conversations. Don’t delay; get it done as quickly as possible and be as fair, transparent, and generous as you can.
Set clear expectations
Once you’ve got your team set, and you’re clear about what you want to achieve, share your professional and personal expectations with the team. Write them down.
Too many people forget that you must first have an expectations discussion before a performance discussion. Make time to share your specific expectations with your team regarding what you value, what you won’t accept, and how they must treat each other. Give them some space to share their expectations of you, and you’ll have a simple documented set of behaviors that provides the foundation for how you will all work together.
Hold yourself accountable for the standards
With a clear set of expectations in place, it’s your job as the leader to both live up to them and enforce them. This requires pragmatic judgement and commitment to high levels of personal integrity.
A good definition of team culture is: “What happens when the boss is not in the room?”
The equivalent question for you as the leader is: “How do you behave when no one is watching?”
Setting standards and holding yourself to them is Leadership 101.
The more senior you get, the more you’ll have to rely on others to achieve leverage and get big things done. Developing effective and positive teams therefore needs to become one of your core competencies, and following a simple seven-step plan can help you do this quickly and confidently.
