New bosses are fantastic. Or not. Having a new leader is always stressful because of the inherent unknowns for someone you may not know who significantly contributes to your current career success.
Having a new leader come into your part of the organization, whether your direct leader or your “boss’s boss,” will create large and small changes. All changes will impact you somehow, and believing the new boss’s goal in any change is to improve things is vital. You may not be positively affected in the short term, but your mindset needs to be humble and positive.
Consider a new leader as an opportunity to learn and grow. Companies cannot guarantee your leader will stay the same forever, and it’s not true that the leader owns your career development. You now have a potential new leader from who you can learn new methods or skills. You have a person in your career journey who can advocate for you. You have a new person who can provide excellent work toward your purpose.
You should take several steps from your first interaction to ensure a great start to the relationship with your new boss. But it all starts with the mindset that you own your career. While it is tempting to think your boss controls your outcomes, only one person can truly own your career – the business of your life – YOU. Ensure you have an updated career plan that includes your professional inventory of work to date, professional & personal goals, values, purpose statement, and vision of success. We recommend you create a narrative of your work in a process we call “The Story of You.”
Now let’s look at how you can leverage your plan to gain alignment and set great expectations with your new leader.
- During Your First Interaction:
- Introduce yourself and tell them you are excited to work with them. This interaction may happen during a few minutes at the coffee machine or in a short introduction as the new leader unpacks their boxes.
- Provide a strong feeling of welcome and authenticity as to how you look forward to sharing insights on the team and spending time on your role and purpose related to your work together at the company.
- During Your First Real Meeting:
- Gain alignment and set expectations for the relationship and outcomes. Whether you call the meeting or the new leader does, make sure that within the first couple of weeks, you have at least 30 minutes to share the important facts about who you are, what you currently do, and your career plan.
- Be ready to share your values, purpose statement, and essential elements of your accomplishments and learnings from losses. Any story you tell should be in the STAR method to provide depth and understanding of the situation, task, action, and results.
- Discuss your professional goals and development plans to meet those goals, whether new technical skills, leadership skills, promotions, or stretch assignments.
- Discuss your personal goals – financial rewards, use of time, etc. – and how you manage your work-life flow.
- Inform your new leader of your board of advisors and others you connect with to help you grow. You may mention that the prior leader was or was not part of your development team or advisors. You may also suggest your desire for them to catalyze your development or be an advisor beyond just the boss-employee relationship.
- Ask for alignment to your plan and/or continuous feedback on how you may adjust. All feedback is good feedback, whether it changes your plans or not. Request consistent and ad hoc feedback to ensure you both understand and can trust your working relationship.
- Your Ongoing Development and the Development of the Business.
- Be patient, humble, and agile.
- The new leader will assimilate into the new role and team as time passes. Remember, they were hired to provide a positive outcome or potentially a significant change of plans.
- Through the first few months, ask for a meeting to discuss how it is going for them and how you can help them.
- Update the new leader on your career plan, goals, and developmental action plans. Request their input and feedback on how to improve beyond your current project. You want the reality – CareerTruth. All feedback is good feedback.
Your new leader is under palpable stress through this change, also. Like you, they want to succeed and develop their own way ultimately. The first interaction to welcome the leader and the meeting to gain alignment with expectations should set a stage of trust and understanding for you both.
You are unique and must own your career. The new leader is there to help you in the common work you both need to accomplish for your shared success. Be authentic to the needs of the new leader, and the new leader should respond in kind.