At Protagion, we regularly work with executives who are taking on new roles, and are eager to add value quickly - which is why they approach our professional mentors and coaches for external guidance. Stepping up involves stretching ourselves, so support as we do this is invaluable. In this article, we share suggestions for those of you taking on new roles, including areas to focus on during the first three months as you get to know the environment, build relationships, set a vision, and develop your roadmap. We also discuss shifting into execution for the rest of your first year, plus iterating and evolving thereafter. 

This article has a financial and/or risk slant, but the lessons generalise to other functions too, whether you’re stepping up into the C-Suite, leading a function, managing a team, or have ambitions to broaden your organisational influence in future. A lot is about mindset i.e. seeing yourself as a strategist who helps craft the future direction of your team, function and/or organisation, and focusing on sustained impact through your collaborative performance. 

Read more to dive into detail on the key aspects to concentrate on when taking on a new role, so that you can hit the ground running and have a meaningful impact in your first 90 days and beyond… 

Much of the writing on leadership (mine included!) concentrates on the positive stories and helpful hints, partly because it’s human nature to prefer the optimism. However, it’s also valuable to be aware of our blindspots and the traits we have that could potentially derail us in our leadership journeys. Career derailment typically occurs when an executive’s career is going well and should be progressing but it unintentionally fails. I’ve heard that roughly half of executives derail at least once in our careers (!) but given its nature, derailing isn’t widely publicised (unless high profile). 

It’s helpful for leaders to be sensitive to potential derailment of those around us too, especially in our own teams, so that we can offer support. There is some connection to burnout, although that is often caused by external factors wearing us down rather than inherent personality-based behavioural traits we have. The first step in dealing with our derailers is to recognise that we are fallible. And that imperfect human beings can still be amazing leaders. Acknowledging this frees us to learn to manage our derailers. 

Understanding derailers helps us better understand why talented leaders make poor decisions, overlook opportunities, alienate key people, and miss obvious trends, even when we genuinely want to do the right thing. Read more to see how our strengths and derailers are related, explore potential causes of stress, and unpack 11 behavioural traits that can cause leaders to fail. As you read, please reflect on yours, and their triggers, and do reach out to us if you’d like support in managing them on your own leadership journey. 

One of our corporate clients has been working on building their teams to be high(er)-performing, which is a worthy goal irrespective of whether you’re the function’s manager, a specific team’s leader, or a member of that team. Who wouldn’t want to be part of an awesome team?! Given the universal appeal of this goal, I thought it would be helpful to share some general tips on boosting team performance.

You’ve probably heard of the forming-storming-norming-performing-adjourning model of the stages a new team goes through. It’s also known as the FSNPA model and is built on Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 theory on the stages of group development. It highlights that conflict and tension arise as the team evolves. While that model is simple, I find teams (and their leaders) need more detail in order to diagnose the state of their team, and more direction in order to improve it. I therefore prefer another model, developed by Alan Drexler and David Sibbet, naturally called the “Drexler-Sibbet Team Performance Model”. 

Please be aware that shaping a high-performance team takes time, even with the conceptual support of a model, and willing participation of everyone involved. Developing humans (with all our brilliance, insecurities and quirks) is not as straightforward as a series of if-then processes. In fact, the stages in the Drexler-Sibbet approach don’t have to be linear – teams can move back and forth, repeating loops as needed. However, don’t be tempted to skip steps to speed up – you need to fully immerse the team in each one to ensure long-term success. Every group goes through every stage (even if they seem obvious or minor in your specific circumstances).

Read more to dive deeper into the stages of the Drexler-Sibbet model, which can help your team to discuss their purpose, build higher levels of trust and commitment, and reach their goals successfully (through disciplined execution).