The first 90 days in a new leadership role are crucial. If you start off strong you don’t just build momentum in that role, you make yourself a solid bet for future opportunities and promotions too. Start off slow and it can be hard to regain lost ground.
There’s a lot that goes into making the best possible start, from the initial preparation through to the way you conduct yourself in those all important first meetings and the quick wins you’ll hopefully deliver.
There’s a real skill to being able to successfully transition yourself into a more senior role and the earlier in your career you master this skill the better
The Importance & Significance of the First 90 Days
The thing with transitions is they can be a bit like snakes and ladders. There can be quick wins and you can be flavour of the month. But there can also be times when you feel wobbly. You have to establish new relationships, operate differently and you may or may not know your team and what they are capable of
In the middle of all of this, you’ve got all eyes on you as you try and find your way. And it’s very easy for that pressure to translate to making avoidable mistakes or denting your confidence. Or both.
So why are the first three months in a new leadership role so crucial? Firstly, there’s the element of setting the tone. Perceptions are being created and judgements are being made. Which might feel unfair, but it’s also unavoidable.
How you conduct yourself, how you communicate, and how you approach challenges will all shape the perceptions of you as a leader.
Secondly, the first three months are a critical time for building relationships. That’s the case whether your promotion was internal or whether you’ve moved organisations to make the step up. Establishing trust and rapport quickly with your team members, colleagues, and with wider stakeholders is what lays the groundwork for longer term relationships to be built. It’s also what can make or break your chances of people cutting you some slack when you do make a mistake or two.
The early days are also when you have the chance to assess the strengths and weaknesses and dynamics of your team and identify what’s working and what will need improvement. (Spoiler alert - it’s highly likely you’ll find gaps that need work).
Understanding the true picture sooner rather than later is vital because at a leadership level you are going to be doing less of the actual work. Instead your focus is more on enabling your team to deliver.
Preparing Before Day One: A Strategic Approach
It’s easy to wait until day one in the new role to start making your plans. If you’re moving to a new business you might (rightfully) expect to be given a reasonably structured induction and onboarding plan. But that’s not always forthcoming, and leaving your success in the hands of others when you could take ownership for creating it yourself is missing a trick.
So before you start, take some time to reflect and create your own plans. In an ideal world, take some time (even a few days) between ending one role and starting the next. On a practical level there are a few things you can do ahead of time to be better prepared for your first day.
Do Your Homework: If you’re moving to a new business, take the time to research the company culture and values. Think about what industry trends will be having an impact. Ask for details of the organisation structure and details of your team including their background, roles, and current priorities.
If you’re being promoted internally, Reflect on what’s different in your new role and level, and identify the new relationships you’ll need to build and deepen.
Set Clear Goals: Before stepping into your new role, clarify as much as you can about both short-term and long-term objectives. What is your boss or the business expecting you to deliver in the first few months and over the first year?
Knowing what’s expected from others allows you to start setting goals for yourself more quickly. That gives you direction and focus, enabling you to prioritise tasks and allocate resources effectively.
And knowing where you have an expectation or goal but lack clarity (about current progress or how to approach hitting the goal) shapes the questions you need to ask in the first few weeks.
Build Relationships: It’s easy to think that building relationships happens after you start the role, but there’s often an opportunity to start this informally before your start date. If you’re moving internally you can ask to schedule informal meetings or coffee chats
If you’re moving business you might be more selective about meeting up but you can still connect with people via LinkedIn, introducing yourself informally that way
Building Strong Relationships in Leadership
Most people logically know that building strong relationships should be a key focus in the early stages of a new role. But knowing how to go about that, and how to do it quickly is another matter.
And it’s also easy to start with a focus on relationships but very quickly get nudged towards focusing on tasks. As the scope of the role becomes clearer and you find things that need fixing or changing, there can be a temptation to dive in. If the role you’re moving into has been vacant for a while then things may well have been piling high waiting for you to arrive.
So how can you get off on the right foot when it comes to building strong relationships?
Arrange 1:1s with your team members: As soon as you practically can, arrange 1:1 time with each team member to get to know each other. Use a structured approach, asking questions about their strengths, frustrations, challenges and preferences. Seek their views on team dynamics and performance, and take time to understand their career background and aspirations.
Be willing to share some of your own story too - people need to know you’re a human leader, not just a new boss.
Listen more than feels comfortable: Pretty much from day one you’re going to spot things that don’t seem to make sense, don’t work properly or where there are opportunities for improvement. It can be tempting to give your opinions and ideas. But there’s nothing worse than a new job know-it-all.
Focusing on listening gives you two advantages when it comes to building relationships - you get to learn when you listen. Sometimes you’ll find out there’s logic to things that don’t make sense at first glance. Sometimes you’ll learn about how people interact with each other. Sometimes you’ll get a sense for what motivates and drives different stakeholders
All of this stuff has the potential to help you influence more successfully in the longer term
Look for connection & common ground: The other advantage to listening is that you get to understand where there’s common ground between you and others. It could be passion for a particular project, a shared hobby, or a common professional objective or career trajectory.
As humans we tend to like (and listen to) people more when we think they’re like us. So consciously looking for connection and common ground with other people is a great way to build a relationship more quickly whilst staying authentic
Understanding and Aligning with Organisational Culture
Before you start a new role the company culture is probably important to you in terms of deciding whether you want to join the business. But there’s only so much you can learn from a distance. If you’re going to be accepted and respected quickly (and avoid making cultural mistakes), you need to build your understanding of what’s the norm and what’s not as soon as you can.
How to do that?
Observe: What happens in this business that doesn’t happen in others? What doesn’t happen here that would be the norm somewhere else? How consistent are different functions and levels in terms of the way they interact? What are the quirks that you notice? Are things like the company vision, mission and values shared and reinforced?
Ask questions: Observing is all well and good, but asking questions builds on that foundation. It can be helpful to have some questions you can ask of a range of stakeholders during initial conversations with them. Try some of these as conversation starters; they can make for some great conversations and position you as someone who’s open, interested and curious
How are decisions made and communicated within this business?
How are conflicts or disagreements typically resolved?
What leadership styles are valued and encouraged?
How do people here generally feel about change?
Are there processes in place for implementing new ideas or initiatives?
What’s in place to support continuous learning and development?
Setting Clear Goals and Expectations
One of the most challenging aspects of being in a new leadership role is that creating clarity for others as part of your responsibility, but it takes time to create clarity for yourself first. The preparation you did before starting will always need supplementing with more context as you get under the skin of the role and building relationships
The process starts with listening and learning in your first weeks on the job. Have open conversations to understand objectives and priorities from your own manager's perspective. Rather than ask for direction about what they expect you to deliver, seek to understand what it is they need to deliver. What are the things the business is expecting from them?
Bring your team together to map out a shared view of what success looks like in the short and longer term. What ongoing responsibilities and projects do you need to drive? What new initiatives could elevate performance? This gives you insight on feasibility and capabilities.
Capture the key priority areas and goals that emerge from these discussions. Whether you use a slide deck or document, share it with relevant stakeholders to get alignment and buy-in.
Overcoming Common Challenges in the First 90 Days
Let’s face it, those first 90 days are invariably tougher than you expect them to be. Even with great preparation, there will still be challenges that crop up along the way that have the potential to derail progress. Being aware of common pitfalls and having strategies to address them will help you maintain resilience.
A major challenge for new leaders is pushback or resistance from existing team members. Some might not want to change their ways of working. Others might be sceptical of your ideas for improvement or be wary of you and not want to open up. If they loved their previous boss, you might have big shoes to fill
Where possible, involve team members early on in shaping new plans so they feel ownership. Take time to understand underlying worries and provide support - get to know people on a human level, not just as their boss.
You might also feel overwhelmed by just how much you’ve taken on. It’s easy at the start to say yes to every request or to wonder how to tackle the massive to-do list that seems to have been stored up awaiting your arrival.
But very quickly you can land yourself with unrealistic workloads that ratchet up the pressure. Don’t be afraid to push back on requests and prioritise ruthlessly. Schedule thinking and reflection time into your calendar to give you some much needed headspace. And ask for help if you need to reset expectations.
Confidence wobbles are normal and pretty much unavoidable when you make a step up or move to a new business. That feeling of not being quite ready or qualified enough for such a big step up is extremely common. Notice negative self talk and challenge unhelpful thinking patterns. Focus on your hard won capabilities rather than any skill gaps - identify mentors who can help you continue to progress.
On a practical level, errors or process issues resulting from moving organisations or taking on unfamiliar responsibilities are also par for the course. Mistakes don’t make you a failure but you do need to be willing to acknowledge them, address the root causes and learn from them. Admitting when the solutions are not yet obvious is actually a strength.
Navigating tricky challenges or setbacks comes with the leadership territory, especially in bigger transitions like the first 90 days. How you respond speaks volumes, so stay pragmatic, share the load where possible, and keep perspective on the long game rather than getting lost in the blips.
Seeking Feedback: A Leadership Best Practice
When everything around you is new, getting regular feedback is crucial for knowing what's working and what's not. But when you’re feeling insecure or doubting yourself, the thought of inviting criticism and judgement is hard. So how do you balance it and get the feedback you need without crushing your confidence?
Start by thinking of feedback as a continual process - not just something done in formal reviews or when problems hit crisis point. The earlier and more often you get feedback, the easier it will be to ‘course correct’ any problems. And to consciously use the good stuff more often.
As a new leader, create the opportunity for your direct reports, peers and key stakeholders to give you inputs on your leadership style and approach. You can do this by asking simple but specific questions like
What could I do more of that would support you better in your role?
What advice could you give me to help me do a better job?
How well am I connecting my expectations around goals/priorities to the team's motivations and concerns? How could I improve?
What adjustments would you suggest I make to my communication style or meeting facilitation approach?
From your perspective dealing with me so far, do you think I have a solid grasp of the most important priorities? Is there anything significant I'm overlooking?
You won't always enjoy or agree with the perspectives shared, but try to stay curious rather than defensive. If you don’t understand or if the feedback is general, ask for clarification or examples. And most importantly, be willing to consider and act on the feedback that’s shared.
Feedback used in this way builds self awareness to accelerate your progress in the role at a time when your reputation is still forming and other peoples’ views and opinions can be changed
It’s also helpful to compare external observations with your own self assessments - are there gaps between how you see your impact versus how others experience you? What new insights emerge?
You might be desperately wanting reassurance that you're doing a great job, but what you need most is to be pointed to how to do a better job. The more you seek feedback, the more people see you as genuinely committed to professional growth and excellence. That inspires engagement and connection at a point when new leaders need it most.
Reflection and Adjustment: A Continuous Learning Approach
The clarity that comes with hindsight is an invaluable gift. But in the rush of your first 90 days it can be overlooked. That’s why consciously building in reflection time to review your experiences so far is vital.
Schedule monthly check-ins with yourself to analyse what’s working well and where there may be gaps between your intentions and the reality on the ground. If you’ve got a first 90 days plan, use this as the basis for review and reflection - are you on track to achieve what you’ve committed to or are you being drawn off course?
Review the feedback you’ve gathered from others and look for potential themes you may have missed or dismissed.
The key is to then use these reflections to adjust strategies and plans where needed. Demonstrate responsiveness to feedback by testing new approaches. Stay flexible to redirect energy towards what now seems most important based on your deeper understanding.
Course correcting is not a sign of failure, but of growth. It prevents small disconnects becoming major issues down the line. And it builds trust in you as a leader who listens and leads.
Conclusion and Key Takeaways
The first 90 days in any new leadership role represent a pivotal moment. How you navigate this time sets the tone for your leadership approach and determines how much momentum you’ll enjoy for driving change further down the line.
By approaching these first few months with commitment to lay the right foundations, remain adaptable to feedback, and lead with authenticity, you give yourself the very best shot at accelerating through the learning curve successfully.
The strategies shared in this guide are designed to help you transition effectively into leadership, even when it feels uncomfortable or daunting. Stay curious, self-aware and connected to your purpose. The rest will follow.
Now you understand both the significance of these early days and have practical tips to set you up for success, why not download our Reflection Questions for New Leaders?
A set of prompts to support you as you build and execute your 90 day plan and reflect at the end of each month. Be the leader who lasts the distance by starting as you mean to go on!