Not Every Leadership Role is the Same. Here’s How to Get Your Start Right

Not all management roles are created equal. Leading a newly formed team requires a different approach from turning around an underperforming one, just as taking over an established team presents different challenges from joining a rapidly growing organization. Understanding those differences is the first step toward determining how to lead effectively.

By considering the implications of how you got the job, the nature of your role, and the broader situation you’re facing, you’ll have a clearer sense of how to set yourself up for success in your initial weeks and months. Even if you’ve already started in your management role, you still can evaluate your circumstances using these lenses to help sharpen your approach.

In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins presents the STARS model for identifying the most common modes your group might be operating in: startup, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success.

• In a start-up, you’re helping to launch a new product, team, or business. Your role is to build it from the ground up, often with limited pre-existing structure and resources.
• In a turnaround, you’re taking over a struggling team or project and working to restore performance. Prioritization, decisiveness, and quick action will be essential.
• In accelerated growth, your organization is expanding fast, and your job is to scale operations efficiently while maintaining quality and focus.
• In a realignment, something isn’t working as it should, and you’re responsible for diagnosing the current state and making the necessary adjustments to get back on track.
• In a success-sustaining situation, your task is to maintain and build momentum, preserving what works and preparing for the future.

The conditions your team or company is facing will also shape your leadership approach.

Defining success 

Once you’ve considered the circumstances of your role, you can turn to preparing for it. This involves defining success and outlining an initial plan to guide you in the early stages.

Start by characterizing your situation, considering what success will require and how it will be measured. You can ask yourself a series of questions to determine what’s working, what’s not working, and what improvements you’ll need to make. For instance:

• Is your primary objective to drive revenue growth? Cost management or reduction? Operational improvement? A specific project? A new product launch?
• Do you need to hire people into your team or exit anyone?
• How must team culture evolve?
• Are key systems and processes in good shape, or do they need attention?
• Which stakeholders are important to your success, and how do you imagine they will view you and your team?

If you’re taking on a role in your current organization, your experience to date should give you a good perspective on what success requires and on these more specific questions. If you’re forming or coming into a new team, or joining a new organization entirely, you may only have a partial understanding of what’s needed, such as from background research or the interviews that got you the job. Supplement whatever you’ve learned with additional data, reports, documentation, and meetings with your boss, peers, direct reports, and other stakeholders. As possible, try to hold at least some of these discussions before you start.

Questions to ask them could include:

• Where do we need to be in a year? What would success look like?
• What should be our key objectives, both quantitative and qualitative?
• What’s your sense of my team’s strengths and development needs?
• What should I know about the culture of the organization that will help me to be effective? What are the must-do’s and must-not-do’s?
• Who, outside my team, will be especially important to our success?
• What do you need from us, and what help should we look to you for?

By enlisting others in this process, you both gain the benefit of their perspectives and make them co-architects of your plan. Doing this from the get-go will benefit you not just in the early weeks, but also when you run into challenges later that require support from these same people. If they feel their perspectives have shaped your plan, they’ll be more likely to help you when you need it.

Outlining your plan 

As you sharpen your definition of success, actively map out your initial time in the job. As is the case in any new role, the first few weeks and months are critical. You’ll want to make a strong start, but you may also be coming into a whirlwind. Take time, ideally before you begin, to have a clear ongoing plan for your early days:

• Who will you want to have introductory meetings with?
• Which decisions will be required immediately, such as on people, projects, or investments? Which others can wait?
• What additional background materials will you want to review?
• What near-term travel will be required?
• What will you want to have achieved at the end of this initial period (such as the first month or quarter)?

Your plan doesn’t need to be perfect, but coming in with a set of activities and objectives for your first few weeks will help you start stronger and move along the learning curve more quickly. Once you’re in the role, you can—and should—refine this plan regularly as you learn more about what’s needed and where your priorities lie. Continue to involve others in shaping it to reduce the risk of developing blind spots and keep them invested in your success. Also, be deliberate about carving out some thinking time each week to process everything you’re learning. Keep up this iterative process of gathering data, forming your views, testing your thinking, and refining accordingly for the first few months. Once you’ve found a rhythm and no longer feel like you’re “drinking from the fire hose,” you can begin shifting to a more business-as-usual mode.

Becoming an executive or manager is shaped by your starting point, your role’s design, and the broader business situation. Each path brings distinct advantages and challenges that affect how easily you can lead. Your role type (frontline supervisor, player-coach, or specialist team lead, etc.) and the context (startup, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, or sustaining success) will dictate how you spend time and where to focus. To set yourself up well, define what success looks like, build a concrete 30-60-90-day plan, and refine it as you go. Assessing your circumstances and preparing for your new role allows you to make the best start possible.

Written by James (J.R.) Lowry. Excerpted With Permission From Be the Boss You Wish You’d Had (Feb. 2, 2027; Page Two).
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