Leadership Transitions Are Important and Often Require Similar Skillsets, No Matter What Industry You Are In

Here’s 5 tips we’ve learned from over 30+ years of recruiting top Finance and Accounting professions that can help when moving into a formal leadership role.

1. Get some fans. When it comes to setting you up for leadership transition success, ensure you have people who can not only speak positively to your past contributions, but that believe in you for the future. You want people in your corner, whether internal or external when it comes to making a big leadership move.

2. Have a successful 90-day plan—this will help set those short-term goals and allow you potentially capture short-term wins that can help build trust and momentum as a foundation for success.

3. Network, network, network—not only is it important to have people you know in your corner, but also building relationships with new co-leaders is crucial. You want to understand the broader organizational dynamics of how the puzzle pieces fit together and the role you play, what’s on their plate, how they navigate situations and learn from their vantage point how you can best partner together.

4. Don’t be afraid to take reasonable risks—if you were put in a leadership role, you were trusted to be there. Feel confident in making decisions and evaluate the risks vs. rewards for opportunity areas.

5. Trust others as you have been trusted—many times, inexperienced leaders will jump in and try to make changes to things. Really, your first goal in your first few months should be to learn, build relationships and then assess where you can help with your new role. Team members who have been in place long before you will want to feel valued and appreciated—ensuring that you maintain a positive culture of trust and transparency will be what can help a new leader shine.