New Leaders: This is Your First Deliverable

It might not be what you expect

The entrance to leadership is accompanied by the highest of highs. We have more responsibility and a title to go with it. Now we can have the impact we’ve always wanted. We can create the kind of org we long to be a part of. It’s all so wonderful, dream-like — the pinnacle of what we’ve been working towards.

We find a few bite-size problems to solve. This makes us feel good. We search for more. Soon, too soon we’re out of easy problems to solve. The problems become more thorny, embedded in the company, in the culture. The enormity of the role sinks in. We feel like we don’t know what we’re doing. Our inner monologue begins to run, pestering us with questions.

“What if they made a mistake? What if I’m not good enough? Do I deserve this role? How do I show my value? Do I have any value?” 

We look for something tangible we can deliver. Anything. We probably can’t change company goals — we don’t have relationships with other leaders yet. We do have control over our team. We reach for the most tangible thing we can find: org structures. We reason that this will resolve some problems and tangibly show our value. 

I get the impulse. 

We’re used to being valued for getting results and delivering something of value. This is how we prove our worth to the company and others. We lean on tangible things others can see. In the leadership world, we often think a new org chart is a key deliverable for our first 90 days as leaders.

Reader, this is rarely true.

The first task of any new leader isn't to build a shiny new org chart. It’s a trap. Org charts come with change and oodles of disruption. This takes energy. It also takes trust, which as a new leader we haven't acquired enough of yet.

Another popular choice is introducing new tools like Jira. While an enticing tangible deliverable, it’s also a change for the team who are already acclimating to a new leader.

Our first deliverable doesn't look like one at all. Our first milestone — deliverable if you will — is to understand what's going on.

That’s right. Our first job as a leader is to understand the landscape. The people, the goals, the culture, the pain points, the way it says it operates, how it really operates. By the way, this isn’t just for leaders who come from the outside, it applies to those promoted from within. While we may know a good deal about the org, we’re sitting in a different seat now with a whole different context. Those old teammates also now see you in a new light. While we’re not starting completely from scratch, there’s more to learn than we may think.

So how do we get context?

Begin by connecting, asking questions, along with heaps of listening and observation. This may feel odd. We think we’re supposed to do something. Talking with others doesn’t feel like taking action. Paradoxically, it’s the most critical thing a new leader can do.

It's tempting to go directly to our area and start dictating changes. Resist the urge, it leads right to a potentially ill-advised or premature re-org. We should begin immediately talking with folks in our area. The emphasis is on understanding what they see. What are their biggest frustrations? Their biggest worry? What’s the biggest obstacle they think the area and the business face? At the same time need build relationships, the seed of trust. Who are they? How do they best work? What do they care about? What do they long for?

At the same time, we need to begin mapping the business. What are the major initiatives? What headwinds is the business facing? Where are the opportunities? What role does your area of responsibility play in the overall business success?

Talk with peers across the business. This will give a sense of how the organization operates. Get to know their areas, their challenges, and what keeps them up at night. Understand where your work intersects with theirs. Discover where work flows well and more importantly, places of friction. Get a grasp of their main goals, and how their team is rewarded. This is critical. Often goals are misaligned at an organizational level. Unless this gets resolved, no amount of optimization in our area will solve org challenges. As a leader solving org challenges is why we're here.

While talking with others, we may want to share our opinions. We want to show off what we know, right? This is natural. However, need to hold off until we understand the landscape and have developed relationships. Demonstrating that we can listen well and synthesize information build a trust bank you can withdraw from later when you need it. It’s so much more valuable than anything you deliver in the first 90 days.

Listen and observe. Repeat again. And again.

That’s the mantra of the early days of leadership. This isn't just a "listening tour" around the organization. There's a specific purpose -- to understand the landscape. We gain a full picture when we listen at three layers: area, organization, and business. This surfaces burning problems — those already burning and the embers that will likely turn into roaring fires.

The burning fires often aren’t solved with a new org structure. The problems are more likely a lack of communication at the right levels, misalignment at the leadership layer, an infrastructure with so much technical debt engineers can no longer ship new features, or the like.

I’m not saying you should do nothing in those first 90 days. It’s that the actions you take should be small rather than large. Sometimes a reorg is essential, it’s just too easy to default to it.

We need to be intentional, and look for other levers rather than defaulting to introducing new tools or reteaming that change the way people work early in our tenure. Doing this introduces extra change at a time that’s already fraught. We don’t have the trust and strong relationships needed which means we rely on the weakest of all authority — one granted from our title. If it goes horribly wrong we risk damaging our fledging reputation as a leader. We fail to build the strong relationships necessary for the cross-functional work of leadership.

I’ve seen too many leaders struggle because they fall prey to the “adding value” trap. Some lose influence, others fail out in less than six months. Some are even let go before they reach a full quarter. Yes, delivering results is important and, you can’t do that effectively if you don’t have the full context at multiple layers and strong partnerships across the organization.

One more thing.

A contributing factor to this problem is a lack of support for new leaders. Often they’re left floundering about on their own, especially at startups and scale-ups where the pace is brisk and everyone is underwater. I have some ideas on how to fix this — more on this later.

If this piece resonated with you, please let me know and give the heart button below a tap.