Ten Signs The New Boss Wont Keep You

So a new boss has just taken over your company or organization and things are about to change. Deciding who to retain on one’s leadership team and whom no longer fits is not as arbitrary as many people think. In fact, you have more control over the decision than you might think.

I have been involved in many acquisitions, have been charged with turning around struggling organizations and businesses, and have had to step in and establish my strategy within the first 90 days. The 90 days rule of thumb is typically used as a benchmark for the amount of time that a new leader will be given to decide on the new direction he/she will take the organization/company and make the difficult decision of who is to stay and who will be terminated. I have also been in senior leadership roles when a new President or CEO’s replaced my departing bosses and witnessed the eventual termination of colleagues. What the above three scenarios have in common is the need for the new leaders to make the difficult decision of assessing who no longer fits with the new strategic direction of the company.

Here are ten important and crucial things that any manager or leader should keep in mind when a new boss is being appointed with a mandate to establish a new strategic direction for the group, execute a business turnaround, or to reengineer the organization. These ten behaviours will play a major role in deciding if the next 90 days will be your last at your company.

1. Not demonstrating a sense of urgency. If your boss in on the 90-day train, you better be demonstrating that you understand how much pressure he/she is under to deliver a plan and demonstrate that it can be executed effectively. Demonstrate your sense of urgency by being on time with every assignment and by being pro-active on providing insights into what can be improved or fixed.

2. Not “getting it”. If your new leader has explained what his/her mandate is and why it is important to the growth or survival of your organization, you better “get it” fast. If you are having difficulty doing so, speak to someone who does. Your head of finance, strategic business development, or HR can be a great source of information to help you “get it” fast.

3. Thinking small, when big strategic or operational shifts were needed. If your new business leader has been mandated to make big changes, do not come back with small ideas. It just shows that you cannot be trusted to step up to the challenge.

4. Not understanding what has been decided versus what is still up for debate. I have seen many managers and executives debate or bring back issues that were clearly not up for debate. As the old saying goes, know which trains have already left the station and don’t revisit issues that have been taken off the table by the new boss.

5. Using anecdotal information to defend a position instead of anchoring ideas on objective facts and data. Do yourself a favour and back up your claims with objective facts and data. The 90-day timeline goes by quickly and your new boss has not time to validate your theories. Come prepared with the right metrics to back up your ideas.

6. Defending the old ways of doing things when the business has been in trouble for some time. There is nothing more frustrating for a new leader than to hear from his/her newly inherited management team that he/she should consider continuing with business as usual despite clear indicators that the organization is in trouble.

7. Refusing to believe the metrics of performance being shown. An effective new leader will prepare to ensure he/she can substantiate the need for change using validated facts and data. Debating what that data means and the reasons why the data behaves the way it does is healthy. Conversely, debating the actual data and justifying why things were done the old way is not.

8. Staying quiet and non-committal. I have seen many managers and leaders stay quiet when a new boss has arrived. This is often a survival strategy to remain under the radar. This is a very dangerous strategy to take because it can often result in being assessed as non supportive and not demonstrating a sense of urgency or commitment to the new direction.

9. Not providing suggestions and ideas on how to improve the business. If you are in an organization that has been in trouble – enough so to warrant a leadership change - it is probably because there is a need for fresh new ideas. Those leaders who are retained are often the ones that demonstrate that they have given the problem some thought and have come up with good suggestions on how to improve things.

10. Defending the last boss’s track record and strategy. As loyal as you might be to the outgoing leader, do not defend their recent track record if in fact the organization has been struggling. You can certainly demonstrate your loyalty to your past boss by not denigrating the individual or speaking ill of their character, loyalty, and dedication to the company, but separate that from feeling the need to defend business decisions that have obviously gotten the organization in trouble.

How will you know if you are effectively demonstrating that you are worth keeping or if you might be on your way out? Your new leader will likely be interacting increasingly more with those that he/she has increasingly more confidence in and be distancing himself/herself from those who are seen as not providing any value to the new task at hand.