Getting a head start, taking control of the message and building or transforming the team are important in any new job situation. They are that much more important when a new leader is making a hot landing – coming into a particularly tricky situation as the results of a merger, acquisition, restructuring, turnaround or opportunity for rapid acceleration of the business. This is true whether the new leader is joining from the outside or moving from within the existing organization.
There’s lots more about this in our book The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan
Get a head start before the start. Preparation breeds confidence. Pausing to think through an onboarding plan and a contingency plan can make a huge difference in the new leader’s ability to lead once they hit the ground. Starting to implement some of that plan even before the official start is often a critical way to jump-start learning and relationships.
Control the message. Everything communicates. Everything a new leader says and does and doesn’t say and doesn’t do sends a message whether they mean to or not. Given that, the new leader is going to be far better off if they think through their going-in message and control it with what they say, what they ask and what they do.
Build or transform the team. If the team doesn’t exist, the new leader has to build it. If the team does exist and it’s a hot landing, almost by definition the new leader needs to transform the team. Either way, the new leader is relatively useless on their own as an individual. They are only valuable as the leader fo the team. The most complex situations are ones in which the new leader must assimilate into the team and transform it at the same time. These are the situations where the new leader can benefit most from some extra help – either from internal HR or OD people or outside experts.
