New leadership role? Choose where to act first.

Your job description sets out responsibilities. Conversations with your manager and stakeholders reveal the expectations behind them.

Those expectations may differ. Your manager may want growth, the team may expect stability, and a peer may need you to resolve a recurring problem between departments.

Ask your manager:

What three outcomes would make you say, six months from now, that I am succeeding?

Then discuss:

• What requires immediate attention?
• What should remain unchanged for now?
• What commitments have already been made?
• Where has the team or function struggled?
• Which relationships are essential?
• What would be an unacceptable failure?
• Which decisions can you make independently?
• Which decisions need agreement or approval?

Ask relevant questions of your direct reports, peers, and other stakeholders. Look for differences in their answers.

For example, if your manager expects expansion but the team believes its main task is reducing costs, resolve that difference before setting priorities.

Record:

1. The outcomes you are expected to deliver.
2. The constraints you need to work within.
3. Your decision-making authority.
4. Expectations that still need clarification.
5. When you will review these agreements with your manager.

Choose your early conversations deliberately. A full calendar does not guarantee that you are hearing from the people who understand the work best.

Speak with:

• Your manager.
• Direct reports.
• Employees close to day-to-day delivery.
• Peers whose teams work closely with yours.
• Internal customers.
• Relevant support functions.
• External customers or partners, where appropriate.

Use a consistent set of questions so that you can compare what you hear:

• What works well and should be preserved?
• Where do we lose time or duplicate effort?
• Which problem keeps returning?
• What do you need from this role?
• What would formal reports fail to explain?
• What should I examine first?

Record specific examples. Distinguish between what someone has observed, their interpretation, and an issue you still need to verify.

If several people say approvals are slow, examine where the delays occur and why. The cause could be unclear authority, missing information, or a process that no longer fits the work.

Explain what you will investigate without promising a solution during every conversation. Return to people when you have reached a conclusion or need more information.

Some outcomes depend on people outside your reporting line. Identify whose knowledge, cooperation, or decisions matter to your work.

Include people who:

• Control resources your team needs.
• Provide information you cannot obtain elsewhere.
• Share responsibility for an outcome.
• Influence decisions affecting your team.
• Will be affected by changes you introduce.

Assess each important relationship:

• Strong: You understand each other’s needs and work together effectively.
• Functional: Cooperation is adequate, but some expectations remain unclear.
• Weak: Recurring difficulties affect the work.
• Unknown: You have not yet established how to work together.

For weak or unknown relationships, define a practical action.

Instead of “Improve the relationship with Finance,” write:

By the end of month one, meet the Finance lead and agree how we will review forecast assumptions and escalate significant changes.

Useful conversations should establish:

1. What each person needs from the other.
2. Where responsibilities overlap.
3. How decisions will be made.
4. How disagreements or delays will be handled.
5. When to review the arrangement.

By the second month, you may have a long list of possible improvements. Sort it before committing the team to action.

Use five categories:

• Protect: Work that is effective and should continue.
• Fix: Problems with enough evidence to justify action.
• Investigate: Concerns whose causes or consequences remain unclear.
• Stop: Activities that no longer justify the time or resources they consume.
• Build: Missing skills, processes, or relationships.

Check the evidence and consequences before deciding which category fits. An activity that appears unnecessary may serve a purpose you have not yet understood.

Then select a small number of priorities for the next quarter. Three may be a useful starting point, depending on the role and circumstances.

For each priority, record:

1. Problem: What needs to improve?
2. Evidence: What shows that action is needed?
3. Outcome: What should be different?
4. Owner: Who is accountable?
5. First action: What happens next?
6. Measure: How will you assess progress?
7. Review date: When will you evaluate the result?

Discuss the proposed priorities with your manager and team. Check that the workload is realistic and make clear what will receive less attention.

Choose early improvements that address a real problem and have manageable consequences.

Before acting, ask:

• Does this matter to employees, customers, or performance?
• Do we understand enough to act?
• Can we observe whether the change helps?
• Could it create problems elsewhere?

Then ask:

Who will experience an improvement, and what will change for them?

For example, clarifying approval authority may reduce delays for a delivery team. Replacing a report is useful if it saves time or improves decisions. Define the expected benefit before making the change.

Alongside these improvements, clarify how the team will work:

• The outcomes it is responsible for.
• The priorities receiving attention.
• Who makes which decisions.
• What needs to be escalated and when.
• How performance will be reviewed.
• The purpose of recurring meetings.
• Expected working behaviours.
• Where people need support or development.

Review the team’s capabilities and responsibilities:

• Where are skills strong?
• Where is ownership unclear?
• Which tasks depend on one person’s knowledge?
• Where would coaching or training help?
• Which problems require a change in process or structure?

Handle urgent issues promptly. For other significant people or structural decisions, gather the evidence needed rather than forcing a conclusion by day 90.

A broader role may require you to change habits that previously helped you succeed.

Ask yourself:

• Am I solving problems that others should own?
• Am I staying too close to familiar technical work?
• Am I giving people enough context and authority?
• Am I avoiding a difficult conversation?
• Am I spending time where my involvement is most useful?

Choose one or two changes to practise. Make them specific.

For example:

In weekly reviews, I will ask the owner for their recommendation before offering my own solution.

At the end of the first 90 days, review:

1. Is the mandate clearer?
2. Have you established the relationships needed to deliver it?
3. Does the team understand its priorities?
4. Are responsibilities and decision-making authority clearer?
5. Have you made observable progress on a worthwhile problem?
6. Which important issue still needs attention?
7. Which assumptions turned out to be wrong?
8. What should the next 90 days focus on?

Finish with this question:

What do I understand now that I misunderstood on day one?

Use the answer to revise your plan. New evidence may justify changing priorities or reconsidering an earlier conclusion.