I’ve stepped into leading existing teams several times – both in a re-org and when joining a new company. Seeing a newcomer, especially from outside of the company, can create anxiety in the team around the leadership change. Let’s look at how to build trust with the team quickly and get started on the right foot without causing disruptions…

Managing change expectations: First day in, set expectations with leadership and the team to maintain the status quo while getting acclimated and start building trust. Learn existing team norms and take on regular manager duties such as standups, scrum planning, and 1:1’s. If you are lucky, there won’t be any pressing fires so you could pace yourself. If you are new to the company, there will be a lot to learn. If not, you’ll need to ramp quickly and start putting out fires from the get-go.

Get to know each other: During the first few 1:1’s, spend time getting to know everyone on the direct team better. Tried not to talk about work, focusing on creating a trusted space. Really just listened to them to see what they were working on and what their career aspirations/frustrations were. After getting to a comfortable space, I started asking about the team: what’s going well and what could be improved. This started to give me a picture of an individual and team dynamics.

Scoring some “early wins”: In those 1:1’s, several opportunities for improvement will arise. From there organizing a team retrospective to collectively discuss and making a few small process changes e.g improving user support ticket rotations with training and scheduling fun time for team building. Quickly addressing a few pain points raised by the team, enables you to build trust with the team as a leader as someone who will listen to the team and take action. Doing it as a team also empowers everyone to actively participate in developing new team processes and norms.

Clarifing the team’s direction: After spending time with users, stakeholders, and partner teams, you may eventually have to set a new direction for the team. Most common in the situations I’ve encountered are where the team is doing way too much and not focusing on the right areas. Despite the trust your quick actions may have earned, spend even more time explaining the reasoning behind the decisions and kept my door open to listen to any feedback. It may take many iterations but it’s important the team is part of the decision-making so they can buy in and be ready to move forward.

Trust is earned not given. Take the time to get to know folks and to let them get to know you. This will allow the team to get candid about the type of work that inspires them and enable you to chart a new direction successfully. Being able to deliver on that quickly also will earn trust with leadership and lead to more responsibilities. Here are some principles to remember,

Do:

  • Be an active listener – go talk with team members, leadership and stakeholders to get a whole picture of what’s going well and what can be improved.
  • Look for roadblocks or grievances you can fix quickly – it will earn you capital and inspire the team.

Don’t:

  • Jump into trying to fix “all of the problems” without building relationships with the team.
  • Assume that your new team understands how you work – take the time to explain expectations and what you stand for. Sharing a manager readme can be a good way to get a head start.
  • Be afraid to spend more time with the team early on – you can always pull back when the team is working well. You may not want to “get in the way” if the team is busy executing but taking the time to talk early on will build more trust and save miscommunications later.