The onboarding period is a crucial moment in the career of every leader, when all eyes are on you, and the slightest misstep can jeopardize your success or hurt your credibility. Seeking to quickly prove to your manager that you were the right choice by being operational right away can be a big mistake. Not giving yourself the time to become familiar with your new environment, or to reflect on the best possible integration strategy to use can lead to bad decisions or simply generate a poor welcome, illustrating a lack of confidence from your interlocutors.
In this article we present 5 pitfalls to avoid when onboarding, based on observations in the field.
1. Not giving yourself time to learn about the organization.
The first mistake is wanting to make decisions too quickly without knowing the context of your new professional environment.
Give yourself at least one month, ideally two, to really get to know your new company. Learning about its history, your direct reports, your main stakeholders, what your customers and employees think of your company can only contribute to you making a better diagnosis of the situation, on which you will build your own strategy. If necessary, do not hesitate to rely on an external organizational audit.
Listening and learning are the key words in this period. Be visible, speak, listen with your eyes and ears open, have frank discussions with the employees around you …. It’s a sign of openness and they will appreciate it.
Remember that you will never have a second chance to make a good first impression.
2. Cutting and pasting
This is probably the most common scenario. Building on past successes, a new leader arrives with a pre-conceived idea of what works, and the proven processes and tools he or she would like to put in place in their new organization. But, what he/she forgets is that the same methods in different organizational contexts do not give the same results, or at least not as quickly as one would like.
However, if you share your good ideas and methods with your team, giving them room to co-build the new vision with you, there will be less resistance to change. Your team will then feel more engaged and you will be able to rely on a process of transformation that is more effective and better adapted to the context of your organization.
3. Not changing hats
In the case of a promotion to a broader function, for example, from Sales Director to General Manager, from COO to CEO, etc., the tendency is to hold on to what we know. Under the influence of stress, the mistake is to continue to think and act as in the previous function. Instead, one needs to develop one’s knowledge of the unknown domain as quickly as possible. For example, if you take a position of Managing Director coming from Operations, start by going out with the sales force, learning about your customers, the customer service, the other functions of the company and their stakes. Save your time and energy by delegating Operations to your manager. It is by taking an helicopter view that you will develop yourself and gain in credibility with your team and your hierarchy.
4. Manage your team in a star-shaped mode
In order to reduce the complexity that he/she has to face, a frequent risk for a new leader is to work with each team member individually and make decisions in pairs instead of encouraging teamwork. However, at a high level, decisions on a subject often have an impact on almost all the other functions of the company. There are many examples of decisions that have been made by a small committee of 2 or 3 people that have had disastrous financial consequences for the company or have degenerated into conflicts and major dysfunctions.
On the other hand, by encouraging goal sharing and collective decision making, you will develop functional alignment, build a culture of openness, dialogue, accountability and commitment, and you will strengthen yourself in your role of leader.
5. Wanting to do too much and all alone
This is probably the most dangerous trap: wanting to do too much and all alone. The risks of distraction, by wanting to be too quickly present everywhere, to be involved in every project, to want to follow everything can affect your credibility and also your health. How would you be credible by asking others to work in a focused manner if you cannot demonstrate this yourself? Or promise too much when you do not have time to follow up? Remember that an infinite number of tasks can be done during your transition period but only a few are essential. Identify them. Have your goals clear in your head and make them known to those around you. And most importantly, connect with those who will make things happen, do not stay in your ivory tower.