If you’ve just been promoted into a senior leadership role — congratulations. It’s worth stopping and recognising that significant professional advancement should be celebrated before it’s stressful. But when the reality hits, know that you’re hardly alone: a wave of promotions typically hit at the start of the year. As you begin to map out your next steps, remember a new role isn’t about the old boss. You aren’t trying to mimic or blow up the old reality. And it’s also not about a complete overhaul of yourself.
Why the first 100 days of new leadership are about the leader, not the team
This is about defining who you are as a leader now, and doing the personal work to align your leadership identity with the challenges ahead. And I’ve worked with enough clients to see that the first 100 days are as much about the leader’s understanding of themselves, as any team-based initiatives.
Identity work: learning how you’ll lead. The foundational phase of a new role is really more about work on yourself. How you manage and evolve the team dynamic (which I’ll write about next time) comes later. It’s easy to jump to what is outward facing. When you’re in a leadership role, the instinct is to assess all the people on your team and go from there.
But I like to think of each stage as pillars in a successor integration architecture. And the identity work is a bit like putting on your own mask on the plane first. If you aren’t sure of how you lead and what your goals are, you won’t be able to effectively manage those who will help you accomplish those objectives.
Your leadership brand. Your leadership brand really just means what is your leadership style, how do you approach organisational challenges? Do you start with the talent and how people function? Do you look at processes for efficiencies?
It’s fine if you don’t have a pat answer. It’s a good time to start figuring it out. Understanding your own style, strengths and weaknesses, is key to knowing how to lead in a way that leverages who you are and how you achieve. What you’re aiming for is a leadership identity that’s aligned with your values and with the direction of the business — because when you have that, it shows. People with purpose are more productive. Teams with aligned purpose communicate better.
Establish authority through identity. Now that you are establishing your identity, then you can begin to assert your authority. A lot of new leaders fall into one of two traps: they either mimic the predecessor, or try to make a clean break. Both are reactive — and both keep you anchored to someone else’s playbook.
But it isn’t a binary approach. You don’t have to fall in line or burn down the house. But you do need to lead in a way that’s authentic and aligned with the moment. That means owning your leadership story, not trying to borrow someone else’s.
Map the history. Then shift the model. No one walks into a blank slate. Every team has its own unwritten rules, attachment patterns and loyalty pledges. You’re not going to get that in the onboarding deck but they shape everything. From trust dynamics in communication to definitions of strong performance.
Stop and figure out what you’ve inherited. Map out the recent world history. Who was loyal to the last leader? Where did or do the power sources live? What is the conversation about the transition you are part of?
That last question is the first part of the real work. You move from the past, to the present (the transition), to the future (the vision you are forming). This is difficult. I don’t want to bet against anyone but expect to “fail” at this before you succeed.
Most importantly, this is why identity work must come first. Your team will be unable not to compare you because there is now ‘before’ and ‘after’. Your certainty in who you are is what makes your view ‘present’ and ‘future’.
Next-era thinking is about identifying the leadership that’s needed now, not trying to replicate what came before. That means letting go of ‘how did they do it?’ and replacing it with, ‘what does this team need from me now?’.
The first 100 days are all about you. It might sound dangerously self-serving to spend a committed amount of time to a you-centric lens. But in fact the long term returns on that investment is a team that has a leader who doesn’t allow the past to be prologue. That leader knows what is ghosts of the past as opposed to forward-thinking insight.
We all know that building the plane while flying the plane is chaotic. And any new leader taking over another’s role is already in midair. But that doesn’t mean you can’t study the map and become well-versed in how you will drive. Then, you can change the destination.
Read next: Leading new teams—establishing influence, taking decision, and navigating politics in the first six months.
