Quotes About Leadership

Secure early wins. Early wins build your credibility and create momentum.

Once people perceive that change is going to happen, the game often shifts from outright opposition to a competition to influence what sort of change will occur.

If it is humanly possible, you should plan to have one or more in-person meetings with your boss early on. It is essential to make face-to-face connections early on to begin to establish a basis of confidence and trust (the same is true if you're leading a virtual team). So if this means you need to fight for the resources and fly halfway around the world, you should do it.

Take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work. This is the flip side of "Don't stay away." Don't expect your boss to reach out or to offer you the time and support you need. It's best to begin by assuming that it's on your shoulders to make the relationship work.

Don't surprise your boss. It's no fun bringing your boss bad news. However, most bosses consider it a far greater sin not to report emerging problems early enough.

Don't stay away. If you have a boss who doesn't reach out to you, or with whom you have uncomfortable interactions, you will have to reach out yourself.

Don't run down your checklist. There is a tendency, even for senior leaders, to use meetings with a boss as an opportunity to run through your checklist of what you've been doing. Sometimes this is appropriate, but it is rarely what your boss needs or wants to hear. You should assume she wants to focus on the most important things you're trying to do and how she can help.

Build your team. If you are inheriting a team, you need to evaluate, align, and mobilize its members. You likely also need to restructure it to better meet the demands of the situation. Your willingness to make tough early personnel calls and your capacity to select the right people for the right positions are among the most important drivers of success during your transition and beyond.

YOU'VE GOT BIG IDEAS AND AMBITIONS IN YOUR CAREER, and you've done well ... so far. But are you ready for your next move? Because your path to the top will be built step-by-step through a series of major career moves. And each time you make a change, you have the opportunity to shine or to stumble. Shine and you will be positioned for still greater things. Stumble and you may never recover.

The most important decisions you make in your first 90 days will probably be about people.

look for early wins based solely on your boss's priorities.

Decision making becomes more political - less about authority and more about influence. That isn't good or bad; it's simply inevitable.

Effective leaders strike the right balance between doing (making things happen) and being (observing and reflecting).

To do this, you'll need to focus on three critical tasks very early in your tenure: adapting to the culture, making political connections, and aligning expectations.

Para asumir un cargo con éxito, tienes que tener un conocimiento claro de la situación a la que te estás enfrentando y de lo que tienes que hacer y cómo lo tienes que hacer. Los

Accelerate everyone. Finally, you need to help all those in your organization—direct reports, bosses, and peers—accelerate their own transitions. The fact that you're in transition means they are too.

What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face in the near future)? Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges? What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth? What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities? If you were me, what would you focus attention on?

Negotiating success means proactively engaging with your new boss to shape the game so that you have a fighting chance of achieving desired goals. Many new leaders just play the game, reactively taking their situation as given—and failing as a result. The alternative is to shape the game by negotiating with your boss to establish realistic expectations, reach consensus, and secure sufficient resources. By negotiating effectively with Vaughan, Michael laid the foundation for his success.

How will you make it your own?

Studies have found that more than 40 to 50 percent of senior outside hires fail to achieve desired results.

start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success. The STARS model

Each year about a quarter of the managers in a typical Fortune 500 company changes jobs.3

Prepare yourself. This means making a mental break from your old job and preparing to take charge in the new one. Perhaps

It is a sure sign of success when people begin to echo your themes without knowing they're doing so.