“I should have been in your seat if only the management had shown a little more trust in the people who built this company,” one of my direct reportees told me candidly when I assumed a C-suite role for the first time. We didn’t start off well, thanks to that meeting, and parted ways a few months later. This begs the question whether it matters on what footing we set off in our new professional relationships?
Leadership changes are constant across the globe. The US is still coming to terms with the new president and his entourage, Germany has a new leadership, and Canada has a new prime minister. In the enterprise world, Unilever and Nissan promoted their internal candidates as global CEOs. Back home, Diageo, LTIMindtree, Honda Cars, DBS and Standard Chartered Bank have all announced new CEOs.
The first 100 days
I hired a new sales leader, and he hit the road running with customers and brought the sense of urgency required externally. But, internally, he drove colleagues crazy. He’d be late for most meetings; he wouldn’t make notes, and hence become confused over internal product lines. Moreover, he wouldn’t respond to his peers on time. In short, his say-do ratio in the first three months didn’t impress most stakeholders.
In another instance, in my first overseas assignment, I replaced a CEO who was an incumbent for 10-odd years; two senior people resigned in the first week, stating they couldn’t work with anyone else after working with their favourite CEO for so long. I was amused that I wasn’t even given a chance.
Trust factor
Management professor Daniel McAllister published a paper in 1995 in which he postulated that trust has two fundamental dimensions: affective and cognitive. Cognitive trust refers to the focus on the reliability, competence, and dependability of the individual or entity in question. The affective trust dimension emphasises the emotional bond, empathy, and feelings of connection and warmth between parties involved in an interaction.
In all leadership transitions, cognitive trust comes into play. Leaders taking charge must move quickly if it’s a turnaround; and if the mandate is to change the culture, they may start with some not-so-pleasant conversations or shake up the tree with some strange behaviours.
Once, our then Europe head came to India and refused a dinner with the leadership team, which was a sort of tradition till then. “The company is cutting its cost globally, and I can’t fathom how the leadership team can go on a five-star dinner,” was his explanation. He sure was sending a message, but, at the same time, for the leadership team the cognitive trust was getting shaken.
In instances where we see immediate resignations of team members as soon as a new leader takes over, it is because they are unable to make a fresh beginning beyond the ‘affective trust’ they have built with their old boss.
Being self-consummate
It’s quite natural for new leaders and their teammates to be in a self-consummate mode in their first few interactions. For leaders, there is a need to prove their appointment or promotion, whereas their new reportees need to protect their past identity and recognition. Hence, the first few conversations should have components of building cognitive trust, like turning up on time, making notes, not getting distracted by phones, actively listening, and acknowledging the past. However, some leaders are in a rush to show the hammer, and some reportees are desperate to play victim. In these self-serving natural expressions, the opportunity to make new beginnings takes a back seat, and the stormy first impressions become challenging to erase. Is that why they say “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”?
The second chance
In an organisational setting, often we do get opportunities to change first impressions. Despite the lingering scars, most leaders and reportees have a chance to revisit their first act. One of my employers had a unique exercise called ‘assimilation workshop’. After three months of each new leader’s term, the learning and development (L&D) head would take all reportees to an offsite and ask them to list all the good things and non-workable issues they observed during the initial months. Then the new leader would be called in to absorb those questions and respond, with help from the L&D head. The anonymity gave the reportees the power to raise their concerns, while it also served as a collective feedback to leaders on appropriate behaviours and how they could change things.
New beginnings
The first quarter of any calendar year begins with many leaders changing jobs. In January and February, we observed some 148 leaders starting with new employers in the GCCs, IT services and unicorns of India. Most have a mandate to start a new business, expand an existing product line, turn around a unit, expand overseas, or sustain success. In all these contexts, the leaders have the onus to build cognitive trust with their new team, and their team members must make fresh beginnings in their new realities.
However, if they constantly find themselves trying to prove their worth to their new team or boss, they have already forgotten their value.
(Kamal Karanth is co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm)
