Stepping into a new leadership role means you’re faced with the following challenges:

1. You want results.
2. You know you need the people on your team to help you do that (although you haven’t even met them yet).
3. You have to get them onboard.

Where do you start? What should you focus on in the first months of your new job?

Having a clear direction about whom you should set up meetings with during the first few weeks of your assignment is essential.

The biggest mistake I see leaders make when starting a new role is to focus on the what: the strategies and plans that will take you from what you need to do to get from where you are, to where you want to be.

For people to understand you and your vision and buy into your ideas, they must first trust you. Building trust with people is the foundation that underpins everything else you do.

The reality when you start is that your team doesn’t know who you are; there is no trust yet. For people to gain trust, you need to show you have credibility and are reliable, which takes time. All your team sees is this stranger who is the new boss.

What I see successful leaders do at the start of their assignment is focus their time on who: Who are the people on my team, and how can I build trust with them right from day 1? They do that very effectively and quickly through what I call “professional intimacy.” Creating professional intimacy is showing sincere interest in the human being behind the team member. Before you meet the team in a group, first have conversations with every individual in the team in a way that makes people think: “You’re a kind person, you’re really paying attention to me and my ideas, and you seem to care.” It’s creating an atmosphere where people open up.

THREE STEPS TO BUILDING TRUST IN THE FIRST CONVERSATION

During the first few weeks, when you’re going through a period of one-on-one discussions, go into listening mode. The purpose of these conversations is threefold and forms the agenda of these meetings.

You focus on getting to know the other person.

Here are some conversation starts that always work.

• Tell me about your background and career so far.
• What’s your journey been like up to this point?
• What’s important to you in your life and your work?

You want to understand what they need help with.

Example questions for step 2 are:

• What are some of the opportunities and challenges you’ve seen since you’ve worked here?
• If you were in my shoes, what would you change?
• What three things would you focus on in the next six months?

Share your backstory and help them understand the opportunities, challenges, or pain points they can help you with.

This is where you share your backstory and tell them about your vision, the project’s mission, and why this project is essential to you. You can ask about specific knowledge and skills they have and who they know would be necessary to involve in the project.

The trust you build through professional intimacy allows you to get to the core of what is happening in the team and organization much faster.

With all the information you’ve gathered in these initial meetings, take some time to consolidate the information so you will understand what the common issues are, what challenges the team has, what matters to them most, and what you can help change or improve for them.

CREATE A NEW TEAM IDENTITY WITH AN ALREADY ESTABLISHED TEAM

Having a unique identity as a group helps the team be engaged, set and achieve goals, take ownership, and improve collaboration.

As you meet your team for the first time, present what you heard during your first individual conversations and the observations you’ve made. The most important thing you can do during your presentation is to emphasize to your team members the common themes you heard. There will almost certainly be differences at play, but focusing instead on what unites them in the beginning, is critical if you want to build or enhance trust among team members.

Building a new team identity revolves around collectively finding answers to the following two questions:

Who do we want to be as a team?

Explore who your team is as a group. This involves having conversations focused on creating a sense of identity around whom they’ll need to be as a team to be successful. To have them create a Team Purpose, you can use these questions to start the conversation.

• Who do we want to be as a team to achieve our goals?
• What is it about this team that makes us unique so we can deliver what our stakeholders need?
• What can we do uniquely that no other part of the organization can do?
• What can we do uniquely together that we cannot achieve when working in silos or parallel to one another?
• What do we want as a team that we can only do through collaboration?

What does a winning team look like?

• What are the benefits for all of us, based on our collaboration and interdependence?
• What strengths would we need as a team to be able to respond rapidly and positively?
• What do we want to be known for?
• What’s the reputation we want to build?

There will almost certainly be differences among your team, some of which they’ll already be aware of. They’ll have different backgrounds, experiences, opinions, and perspectives. Some of these differences can actually be a core strength of the team, as diversity of thought can bring rise to innovative ideas. When possible, look at differences among your team members as an advantage.

By finding out what aligns your team and helping them create a shared purpose, vision, and common goals, you’ll help unite them in ways that go beyond culture, background, and possible differences they may have had in the past. When you invite them to contribute to forming this new collective identity, you give them clear concepts they can take pride in as a group. They’ll be inspired to come to work thinking, “This is who we are, and I’m excited to be involved.”