• Are you taking over for a leader who has left the organization?
• Are you inheriting someone else’s team?
• Or, are you stepping into a newly created leadership role?

Whichever path you’ve taken to your new role, you need to quickly identify how you’re going to best serve your team. Because, let’s face it, you were put into your new role to get things done. Your job is to get things done in a position that someone else had or that was recently created. Either way, your new position title doesn’t matter. No one cares. In fact, no one respects a manager who’s in love with their own job title. People care about what you do and what you get done. And you need a team to get things done.

No one respects a manager who’s in love with their own job title.

During a recent coaching session with an experienced department manager, we discussed her new role. She’s not new to this organization, leadership, or even to many of her new team. This manager is now leading a different department so she could take over for her predecessor who retired. So even though she’s been a department manager for years, she’s now leading a different team, with a different purpose, and with a different expectation of their manager. How can she best help them and do her job?

To get a clear sense of how her team individually and collectively views their department and their specific roles, I suggested she ask her team members the following questions individually and then collectively:

1. What value does this team provide to its customers (external and internal)? Please provide examples.
2. What value do(es) you/your role bring to this team? Please provide examples.
3. What value do(es) you/your role provide to customers/vendors/etc? Please provide examples.
4. What – specifically – does this team do well? How?
5. What – specifically – does this team need to improve, fix, or stop? Why? How?
6. What – specifically – does this team need from me/my position to do its best work? Why?
7. What – specifically – do you need from me/my position to do your best work? Why?
8. What would the ideal person, in my position, do that would have a tangible, positive impact on this team and what we do now and what we will need to do in the next 1, 2 & 3 years?

Getting a clear picture of how well your ‘new’ team understands what their individual and collective jobs are, will help them and you identify how you can best lead them.

Remember: People care about what you do and what you get done. And you need a team to get things done. What are you going to get done with your team?

Copyright MMXXII – Liz Weber, CMC, CSP – Weber Business Services, LLC – www.WBSLLC.com +1.717.597.8890

Liz supports clients with strategic and succession planning, as well as leadership training and executive coaching. Learn more about Liz on LinkedIn!