New leaders are busy working towards the goals and proving themselves. In the process, they become unaware of the image they project to the team and to the senior management.
When things don’t move the way they planned, they can end up projecting one or more of the following images –
a. Lack of confidence – New leaders’ confidence goes down when things are not going well and that gets easily noticed by their direct reports
b. Arrogance – Some leaders (the ones who see themselves as experts) tend to get annoyed with their team members quickly and end up projecting arrogance
c. Not collaborative – Extending on the above point, a new leader can be seen as not collaborative by the team as well as cross-functional stakeholders.
d. Pessimistic – When leaders see that they are not succeeding in the new role, they end up becoming pessimistic which is again easily noticed by the people around them
The result?
1. The leader starts losing the trust of his/her own team
2. The team unconsciously starts showing the negative traits of the leader
3. The team’s performance goes down
4. The management starts developing a poor opinion about the leader.
At this time, only the leader’s boss can come to the rescue.
What should the leader’s boss do?
1. Hear out the new leader’s frustrations and empathize with his/her situation
2. Do skip level discussions with the leader’s team members, collect 360-degree feedback, and share them with him/her
3. Coach the leader on emotional intelligence & help him/her prioritize his/her time and energy in a way they can succeed in the new role.
How can people around help new leaders? Let us know in the comments.
