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10 Keys to Success in Your New Role

May 4, 2022 By Sherry Dutra Leave a Comment

Congratulations! You decided to make a move in your career. You networked, navigated the lengthy interview process, and were offered the job. The time for celebration is at hand! You might be thinking, “the hard work is over, right”? Well, the first stage of the hard work is over. Now you are faced with the first ninety days in your new role which are critical to your long-term success.

How do you hit the ground running? Not in the way you might imagine. Often, we have the urge to dive in and quickly make a big impact. Yet, slowing your pace a bit and getting the lay of the land before jumping into action yields the best results. A misstep at this point, can earn you a reputation that can take quite some time to turn around.

Keys to Success

Here are 10 key tips to set yourself up for success in a new role.

  1. Be clear on expectations. There are both spoken and unspoken requirements of a role. Gain a clear understanding from your manager of not only the measurable performance expectations but also the intangible ones. What informal rules exist on how to accomplish your job?
  2. Support your manager. What are your manager’s aspirations? How can you support them in a way that helps them achieve their goals? Get a sense of how they prefer to receive communication, i.e., face-to-face, via email, via text, etc. Understand how frequently they want updates from you. What are the things you need to avoid doing when interacting with this person? How can you make life easier for your manager?
  3. Take time to observe and learn. New managers and executives sometimes make the mistake of equating success with making rapid changes. Determine how long you have to observe, learn, and then make well-informed decisions about planned changes. The length of time you have available for this will vary with the situation. The point is that you’ll likely have at least a couple of months to map out a plan forward. Resist the urge to jump in too quickly. Hasty decisions often do not end well.
  4. Create your vision and strategy. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know if you’ve arrived. Identify the key people who should have a voice in establishing a vision for your area of responsibility. Develop a shared vision, determine the strategy to realize it, get buy-in, and communicate the vision and path to get there. Then, ensure you have clear measures of success and hold key players accountable for their contribution to the execution of the vision and strategy.
  5. Evaluate your team. Take the time to get to know the people on your team. What are each person’s strengths, areas for development, aspirations, motivations, and results? Begin to set expectations with each person. Understand what support each individual needs from you and how you can add value to the team. Determine if you have the right mix of people. What adjustments might need to be made to ensure you have the right team to implement the vision and strategy?
  6. Align with the culture. What is the culture like in this new organization? Which behaviors are expected, and which behaviors are not tolerated? What are the values of the organization and how are these lived, or not, in day-to-day operations? How does your style fit with the culture and values of the organization? Where do you already fit in well? Where might you need to modify your style (without compromising your own values)?
  7. Build strategic relationships. There are formal and informal leaders in every organization. Who are the key players in yours? These leaders may be found amongst executives, high potentials, project leaders on key initiatives, and top performers. Which are the most impactful relationships for you to begin building? Building relationships in a strategic way will help to lay the foundation for success.
  8. Understand the political landscape. Stepping into a new role may bring with it potential land mines. Asking questions that will reveal where to tread lightly will go a long way toward your success.
  9. Create a personal development plan. Development never ends. With each new step comes a need to deepen one’s knowledge of the industry, the business, or to expand one’s leadership skills. Learning should be a life-long pursuit. Be sure to create a development plan for yourself within the first 90 days in your new role.
  10. Small wins build momentum. Where are the places where you can begin to make progress without large scale changes? Find some small, impactful, early wins that get the ball rolling while you set the stage to excel in your new role.

Which of these key tips have you successfully used? What others would you like to share?

Adapted with permission by Center for Executive Coaching

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development, Career and Retirement Coach and Facilitator who works with corporate leaders in small to mid-size businesses, across the span of their careers. She helps them to accelerate business outcomes and team performance, navigate their own career path, and transition to retirement with ease using proven methodologies and strategies that get results. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

Filed Under: career, career change, career success, first 90 days, Leadership, leadership mastery, management, manager, performance, results, vision Tagged With: career change, career success, leadership, leadership mastery, management, performance, results, vision

A Blueprint for Leadership Mastery

February 15, 2017 By Sherry Dutra Leave a Comment

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Core Leadership Skills 

Fundamentally, there are a collection of key skills that prepare someone to step into a leadership role. These include things like the ability to:

  • communicate effectively,
  • influence others,
  • be adaptable and flexible,
  • drive for results,
  • build cohesive teams,
  • delegate and empower,
  • make decisions and problem-solve,
  • think strategically and
  • develop talent.

While every leader should have the opportunity to learn and build skill in these areas, skill-building alone is not enough to create leadership mastery.  Have you ever noticed that regardless of your skill level, there are some days you’re “on” and some days you aren’t?  There are some days you are filled with confidence and others where you question your ability? Some days where you crank out the results you want and others where you’re distracted and have difficulty staying focused on a project or goal?

What is Leadership Mastery?

All of the challenges that you face as a leader, no matter how skilled, come down to one thing.  The one thing that changes everything is the understanding of, implications for, and ability to control the energy of performance.  You know as well as I do that your competency level doesn’t shift from day to day. Your energy, however, is fluctuating all the time.  Your energy is what determines how well your skills and competencies are expressed in any situation and what your outcomes will be. Leadership mastery, then, is about:

  • understanding the nature of the energy of performance,
  • utilizing that knowledge to create the conditions for optimal performance, and
  • making any necessary tweaks as any specific situation unfolds.

The energy that a leader presents in any situation is influenced by a number of different elements.

  • Mental ability that allows for clarity and focus
  • Emotions that are experienced throughout each day
  • Social factors that relate to your interactions with others
  • Environmental factors that relate to the conditions in which you are performing
  • Physical factors related to your level of health and wellbeing
  • Spiritual factors that speak to the connection you have with a sense of purpose, meaning and motivation.

When your energy is out of alignment and you’re feeling a bit “off”, you might experience anxiety, fear, worry, lack of confidence, or lack of motivation to name a few.  How often do you actually get the outcomes or results that you want when this is going on?  Likely, not very often.  So how do you turn this around and have your energy work for you rather than against you?

Your Blueprint for Leadership Mastery

There are 5 key components to unleash your full leadership potential. Whether you run your own small business or you are leading a large organization, the foundation of your performance is built on these components. These 5 components make up COR.E Leadership Dynamics.

Component 1: Creating Your Plan
Self-awareness, a clear vision and specific goals are the essence of this component.  Having a complete picture of the performance you want to create is critical.

Component 2: Establishing Your Energy and Performance Foundation
Energy fluctuations create inconsistent results. To sustain consistency and performance excellence, you must learn to manage your energy.  Explore leadership mastery, understand the energy of performance, and identify and address blocks that stand in the way of your potential.

Component 3: Finding and Harnessing Your Performance Influencers
Earlier, I mentioned the 6 elements that influence your performance in any moment. Recognizing and understanding the impact of those influencers in the moment allows you to make immediate adjustments that keep you firing on all cylinders or get you back on track if things are going awry.

Component 4: Mastering the 10 COR.E Disciplines
Successful leaders have developed a personal approach or philosophy that keeps them motivated, resilient and aware of opportunities that present themselves. This component helps you to develop your own philosophy, built on the foundation of the 10 COR.E Disciplines, that will tap into your true leadership potential and performance.

Component 5: Optimizing and Sustaining Your Leadership Success Formula
An important element of this component is to embrace the need to evolve your approach over time.  The world is a rapidly changing place and developing the capacity to be flexible and adaptable in the face of uncertainty is key to success.

My Invitation to You

If you would like to learn more about how COR.E Leadership Dynamics can help you to maximize your energy and optimize your performance to be the best leader you can be, please click here.

About the Author: Sherry Dutra is a Talent Development and Career Coach and Facilitator who helps you create consistent, optimal performance using all your capacity and potential in both your work and life. If you would like to uncover and address hidden challenges that may be sabotaging your success, leverage your strengths, and accelerate your progress toward the results you desire, contact Sherry for a complimentary consultation.

 

Filed Under: energy leadership, Goals, inspiration, Leadership, leadership mastery, motivation, new manager, performance, results, small business Tagged With: goals, leadership, leadership mastery, performance, results, small business, success, vision

Forget Resolutions: Tips to Create the Life You Want in the New Year

December 19, 2016 By Sherry Dutra Leave a Comment

A fresh new year is before us. Sometimes that might feel a little daunting and other times it can be filled with excitement. Which is it for you?  Instead of creating New Year’s Resolutions which, let’s admit it, we often don’t follow through on anyway, how about trying a different twist? One of the most effective ways to kick start the year with enthusiasm, engagement and excitement is to establish a clear vision.  When was the last time you gave yourself the luxury to dream about what you’d like to create in your life?  There’s a saying that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. Not having a vision is like expecting a GPS to get you to a specific destination without entering the address. You might find some interesting sights along the way but you have no idea where you’re going to end up. So get comfortable and follow the tips below to do a little dreaming!

Creating Your Vision

Focus on What You Want
Describe what you want as clearly as possible. Write in the present tense, as if what you want has already occurred.  Describe what it looks like, feels like, sounds like, etc. Catch yourself if you start describing what you don’t want and shift your focus back to what you do want.  Our brains are powerful creators and are programmed to go after what we focus on. What you attract into your life will be in alignment with what you give your attention to.

Think Holistically
You are a multi-faceted human being with many dimensions to your life. As you describe what you want, be sure to consider the following eight dimensions:

  1. Business, Job and Career
  2. Personal and Professional Relationships
  3. Finances
  4. Health and Well-Being
  5. Fun Time and Recreation
  6. Personal Development
  7. Contribution/Community
  8. Spirituality

Establishing Powerful Goals and Actions

Once you have created your vision, the next step is to set specific goals and objectives that will bring that vision into reality.  In each of the eight dimensions, write down what needs to happen and by when, in order to reach your desired destination.

Finally, we must break these goals down into action steps. Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one”.  Determine the specific next action steps required to meet each of your goals.  It can be helpful to think in terms of what steps are necessary to be completed 6 months, 3 months, 1 month and one week from now to get you started.

Following Through on Your Commitment

How do you want to stay true to your commitment to yourself?  Telling someone what you plan to do is a proven method to help you stay on course.  Just putting it out there and sharing your vision and goals with someone else makes it more real. You might consider telling a family member or friend. If something a bit more formal works for you, perhaps you can team up with someone else who is committed to their own vision and schedule brief check-in calls either daily or weekly to help you both stay on course. Working with a coach can provide you with one-on-one support to help you stay on track and develop strategies to navigate any obstacles that might arise.  Whatever method works best for you, be sure to have something in place that will motivate you to accomplish at least one thing per day toward the vision.

To your success!

Filed Under: Goals, inspiration, Leadership, motivation, vision Tagged With: goals, leadership, success, vision

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