Your new manager doesn't want to fire you
How to onboard a new manager, the right way
One of my clients is about to meet her 6th boss in 2 years (at the same company).
“Tessa” is the Director of Member Growth at a large subscription business that’s been through a lot of changes.
An acquisition
A restructuring
Hiring new execs
Changes in strategy
Multiple rounds of layoffs
And every time the company goes through another big shift, she gets a new manager.
She’s understandably exhausted. Every new manager means a new beginning. Someone new to clarify her responsibilities with, build trust with, get some W’s on the board with.
That process takes a few months.
Which means right when she’s hitting a groove, her manager changes and she starts over. But she likes the energy of early-stage companies. So this probably won’t be the last time she has to do this.
On a recent call, she mentioned wanting a system to onboard a new manager.
Something repeatable she could do every time this happens instead of waiting and hoping it goes well. We built one together.
This post is that system.
And before we walk through it, it’s worth sharing how I know this plan solves the right problems. Because for the past 6 months, I’ve also been coaching someone in her bosses position.
I’ve been supporting her new manager too
Not Tessa’s actual boss.
Someone different, but in a similar situation to her boss. “Jamie” is an SVP of Marketing who was hired to replace a previous team lead.
She walked in as the new leader and inherited a large team of direct reports. Her CEO wanted asked to evaluate everyone and decide who stayed. The unspoken expectation was half might go as she reworked her strategy and operating system.
From the outside looking in, it’s easy to look at a new executive like Jamie and think, “this person wants to fire everyone and bring in their own people.”
But the truth is she wanted to keep as many people as possible.
In fact, she showed up planning to win them over. Because she needed to show results fairly quickly to the board and her CEO. And it takes a long time to let people go, to scope out new roles, to hire and onboard great people. Those are all things that limit your ability to get quick wins on the board today.
The best option was to increase the impact with the team that she inherited.
Then 4 months in, her CEO turned up the heat.
Leads were still down. Her CEO called a meeting and said, “this is my biggest problem, so it’s your biggest problem.” She called it the most tense leadership conversation of her career.
She told me she was worried she was failing.
That maybe she’d get cut.
Your new manager is also someone who’s being evaluated by someone above them.
I share all this to illustrate the context that a “new boss” usually doesn’t share with their direct reports. They’re not walking in looking for people to fire. They’re looking for people who make their job easier.
It’s understandable to be worried about losing your job.
Stanford research found that when the new leader comes from outside the company, the odds a senior manager ends up leaving roughly double. Sometimes you might not be a fit for their future, and other times you might not like the future.
But your boss wants a reason to keep you.
Managing people out takes time. Hiring is slow. And ramping someone new is slower. and all of this stuff is time spent not making progress on your goals
Here’s how you give them one.
The system: 4 conversations for your first 30 days
Each one makes you easier to manage and makes it easier for your new boss to see how you fit into what they’re building. The last one plants a win that plays out over the next couple of months, but the conversations start now.
1. Clarify and verify your role and responsibilities
Don’t open the relationship by asking how they see you fitting into their future (they don’t know yet). Tell them what you’ve owned.
“Historically, here’s the business result I’ve been accountable for. And here’s the surface area I’ve been focused on.”
Most new managers can’t fill this in for you.
They know your title. They might have a rough idea of what you do. They don’t know why you do it, what your role means at this company, or how much rides on it. So fill it in for them, before they guess.
Here’s the risk if you skip this.
A manager who can’t explain what you do or why it matters can’t go to bat for you when it counts.
Jamie saw this on the team she inherited. They’d been told what to do every minute of every day by the old leader, so when the instructions stopped, most of them couldn’t tell her what they actually owned.
They knew their tasks. But they couldn’t explain their impact on the business or why it mattered.
She couldn’t go to bat for them.
2. Walk them through your strategy and how it ladders up
Once you’ve clarified your role, show them what you’re working on and why.
Two things have to come through.
You have an actual strategy, not a task list.
It ladders straight up to the business outcomes (and surface area) you just clarified.
Talk through the assumptions you used to build it, and what you’d change if their priorities shift.
That does the boss’s job for them.
And if they do decide to re-scope your role, they’re doing it knowing how thoughtfully you approach the current one.
If you need some support, here’s the strategy guide I use with clients.
Here’s the risk if you skip this.
When your boss asks what you’re working on and you hand them a task list, you’ve told them you’re a doer.
When Jamie asked her team what the growth plan was, she got to-do lists. Plenty of activity. Almost no case for why the activity was the right activity, or how it laddered to the number their team was accountable for.
Hand your boss a real strategy instead, and you’ve told them you’re someone worth keeping.
3. Get explicit on decision rights
Ask which decisions your boss wants a say in, and which ones they’d rather you just run with.
You’re doing this for 2 reasons.
It shows you’re easy to manage.
Their answer tells you what’s on their mind right now and where you can start collaborating.
When they flag the decisions they want in on, they’re handing you their focus areas without meaning to.
Here’s the risk if you skip this.
Either you move too fast on something they wanted involvement in. Or you ask permission for something they expected you to handle, and it reads as someone who needs their hand held.
Either one chips away at the trust you’re trying to build.
4. Find their early win(s), and help them get it
Most of the time, you won’t know your new boss’s priorities yet.
They’ll tell you they’re in listening mode for their first couple of months while they figure things out behind the scenes.
Part of what they’re figuring out is whether you’re part of the future they’re building. They’re hoping you are. Your job is to get them talking sooner. The faster you understand what a quick win looks like to them, the faster you can start having an impact in their new world.
So ask.
“What are you hoping to show progress on in the next 60 to 90 days?”
Then whatever they share, help them.
New leaders are under more pressure to show progress fast than you’d guess, often from a boss or a board they haven’t fully won over yet either.
Nothing builds trust faster than helping them get some early wins.
These 4 moves are really you taking ownership
Every one of these conversations is you deciding to own the transition instead of waiting for someone else to manage it.
You showed up with answers before they had to go looking. You made yourself easy to manage instead of something to figure out. All of this is part of managing up.
Tessa meets her next boss next week.
This time she’ll start with a plan to run the transition, instead of waiting and hoping it goes well.
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And if you’re interested in getting some support navigating situations like these:
I help senior growth leaders navigate new bosses, new mandates, and the shift from operator to leader.
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