Summary: The first 30 days of a new leadership role are about defining your repurpose, building resilience and prioritising wellbeing. These crucial foundations will enable you to set yourself up for success.
Stepping into a new leadership role can bring pressure to make an immediate impact. But the strongest starts are not always about delivering quick wins. The early days are an opportunity to establish your leadership purpose, build resilience and set a clear direction for the road ahead.
Define your leadership purpose
Many new leaders focus on proving themselves through quick wins, but lasting influence comes from leaders knowing what they stand for, says Tim Castle, Negotiation expert and performance coach at The Negotiator’s Edge.
“Effective leadership in the first 90 days starts with getting ‘crystal clear’ on what meaningful impact means to you. Take the time to learn who you are at your core, what you want to be known for and how you operate,” he states.
For Castle, meaningful impact mixes integrity, passion and commitment. It helps leaders make tough decisions, giving them an edge.
“If you don’t establish what you stand for from the offset, the world will tell you,” he continues. “Without direction, the risk is that new leaders drift, accept mediocrity and make decisions from a place of fear rather than aligned with strategy.
“While everyone else is rushing around, playing someone else’s game, those leaders focusing on staying true to their own values and purpose are playing a bigger game. This is what gets them into bigger rooms and a seat at the table,” Castle summarises.
Build emotional resilience
Taking on a new leadership role brings inevitable uncertainty, pressure and setbacks. This makes emotional resilience an important capability from the outset. Executive coach, mentor and transformation specialist Dr Claire Handby argues that resilience is often misunderstood as toughness or stoicism.
“Real resilience is more nuanced than that. It is the quiet, steady belief that no matter what happens, there is a way through and I will find it,” she explains. At its heart is a powerful mindset shift of determination, and a ‘I can handle this’ attitude.
“Those four words carry enormous strength. This belief and attitude can help leaders respond to challenges without allowing setbacks to erode confidence or judgement. The mindset says: I’ve handled hard things before. I always find a way. And emotional growth followed as a result.”
Handby sees the early stages of leadership, at any level, as an opportunity to develop this capacity: “Every stretch and every discomfort also provides an element of training. New muscles are built, not just of skill but of self-trust”.
She concludes that for new leaders, building that resilience from the outset can provide the confidence and self-trust needed to navigate the challenges of the role and grow into the leader they want to become. “Remember: If you are feeling uncomfortable, that is where growth sits, so lean into it, not out!.”
Effective leadership in the first 90 days starts with getting ‘crystal clear’ on what meaningful impact means to you – Tim Castle
Prioritise wellbeing from day one
According to Lesley Cooper, Founder of consultancy WorkingWell, it’s easy for new leaders to lose sight of their own wellbeing when they become responsible for setting the tone for their teams. Yet looking after oneself is essential to sustaining high performance in the long run.
“Much like putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others, it means recognising the importance of self-care before attempting to support those around you,” she notes.
Her advice is to actively prioritise regular recovery. “It can feel as though there simply isn’t time to step back, with so many demands competing for your attention in the first few weeks. But scheduling time for self-care and staying mindful of your body’s basic needs puts you in a much stronger position to manage those demands,” she says.
“Some healthy habits include intentionally recovering energy every 90-120 minutes, incorporating exercise and movement, ensuring you eat nutritious foods and stay hydrated, and maintaining regular sleep patterns.”
She adds that visibly prioritising your own wellbeing helps foster a culture that recognises the relationship between wellbeing and performance. “Leadership is as much about what you permit others to do as what you do yourself, so modelling these behaviours sets the standard for your team,” she concludes.
Lead with vision, deliver with action
“One of the greatest challenges for new leaders is balancing two very different roles: visionary and operator,” points out leadership mentor Steve Muscat Azzopardi. The visionary sets the long-term direction for the business and its people. The operator, meanwhile, stays close to the day-to-day realities of running it. For new leaders, being effective means balancing both and knowing when to look ahead, and when to get closer to the action.
The visionary role is about creating a clear destination. Rather than relying on a vague mission statement framed on the wall, Muscat Azzopardi recommends using a “Postcard from the Future” to make the vision tangible. “Imagine your business three years from now. Who are your clients? What are you known for? What do you no longer do?,” he posits.
But vision only becomes meaningful when it informs what happens day to day. As an operator, leaders need to remain connected to the daily running of the business, understanding the challenges their teams face and being prepared to step in when needed. “Effective leadership is about holding both perspectives at once: keeping sight of long-term ambition while understanding what is required to move the business forward day to day,” Muscat Azzopardi states.
That means being deliberate about the choices along the way: “As a new leader, you need to be clinical in recognising which turns will move you up the mountain and which will instead send you off a cliff,” he states.
Visibly prioritising your own wellbeing helps foster a culture that recognises the relationship between wellbeing and performance – Lesley Cooper
Actionable insights
- Get “crystal clear” on your leadership purpose. Define what you stand for, what you want to be known for and what meaningful impact means to you. You can then make decisions from a place of alignment rather than fear.
- Build your emotional resilience. Develop an “I can handle this” mindset and lean into discomfort. Use setbacks and challenges to build self-trust and the confidence to navigate uncertainty.
- Prioritise your wellbeing from day one. Schedule regular recovery, movement, nutritious food, hydration and sleep. Looking after yourself puts you in a stronger position to support others.
- Make your vision tangible and connect it to action. Use a “Postcard from the Future” to define your long-term destination. Stay connected to the day-to-day realities required to move the business forward.
- Hold the visionary and operator perspectives at once. Keep sight of long-term ambition while understanding what is required day to day. Be deliberate about which choices will “move you up the mountain” rather than send you “off the cliff”.
If you enjoyed this article, read: The fragmented leader is finished: A new path to whole leadership
