Succeeding at the Top

Chapter 4

The Transition and Early Stages

Once you begin your tenure, you will need to attend to several issues: introducing yourself to your team, deciding who is on your team and whom you can depend on for support, and sizing up the organization. Though presented as occurring in sequence, in fact they would be best considered simultaneously.

Getting to Know You

A very important step in a successful transition is how you introduce and present yourself to your staff. Going down the line and shaking hands may be a necessity in some environments (e.g., in some foreign-based companies), but that really doesn’t tell people who you are and what you are about. Setting up symbolic markers (e.g., never closing your office door to illustrate your “open-door” ...