Stepping into a new leadership role at work offers a wealth of opportunities. Regardless of whether you’ve been promoted, moved across teams or joined a new company altogether, you now have the chance not just to connect, inspire, and bring out the best in your team - but to lay the foundations for success in performance, output, retention and satisfaction, alongside a host of other factors that will directly reflect your career trajectory. 

If your new role evokes both excitement and trepidation about setting the right tone from day one, you’re not alone. 83% of leaders globally feel unprepared when stepping into a new role. Most have the same questions: How do you transition smoothly from ‘new face’ to ‘trusted leader’? How do you build a cohesive, supportive and reliable team? How do you get the best from your team while balancing values, company goals and KPIs?

With the past five years being completely transformative for the modern workplace, employees now prioritise meaningful work in an environment with trust, respect and open communication channels, helping each team member feel heard and valued. With evolving work priorities comes a prevailing leadership approach that you must actively strive towards if you want to succeed: one that creates a people-first culture that embraces empathy, transparency, and trust. Here are the exact steps you should take to achieve it.

Your First 90 Days: Take Note

Regardless of the skills that have landed you this role, your early impressions and actions will leave a lasting impact. Successfully navigating your entry transition can lead to 15% higher employee commitment, 5% more revenue, and a 13% reduction in attrition. And with over half of new leaders struggling to meet expectations within their first two years, the stakes are high. 

To set yourself up for success, start by committing to connect with your team and focus on three core priorities: trust, respect and communication.

Your First Core Priority: Trust

Trust isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s the foundation of successful teams. According to Harvard Business School, employees at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 50% higher productivity, and 29% greater job satisfaction. Despite these benefits, only 23% of U.S. employees feel they fully trust their organisation’s leadership. As a new leader, building trust starts with showing your team who you are with intentional actions, not just telling them.

Three proven ways to start building trust:

• Share your journey. Reflecting on your career experiences, challenges, and growth isn’t a sign of weakness—it shows authenticity. Leverage relevant personal stories and experiences to help bridge the gap between “manager” and “collaborative mentor.”
• Start with one-on-ones early. Schedule time to sit down, listen and connect with each team member individually. Ask about their goals, frustrations, and ideas to help make their work lives easier, and optimise their output and satisfaction. They’ll be a powerhouse of inside information about how things have worked in the team. Employees who feel genuinely listened to are also 4.6 times more likely to perform at their best.
• Trust your remote team members. With many employees working remotely, showing equal trust, respect, and recognition is critical. Establish fair, consistent policies to include remote workers in team wins, decision-making, and personal development opportunities.

Your Second Core Priority: Respect

Respect is consistently ranked as the most important leadership quality by employees worldwide. It has a wide sphere of influence, from job satisfaction to retention and far beyond. When leaders model respect, employees are three times more likely to report high levels of engagement and twice as likely to stay with the organisation.

Respect isn’t just about saying the right words; it’s about actions that prove you value each team member. Start by:

• Going out of your way to involve your team. Having your team feel you respect their experience and input enough to involve them in decision-making or brainstorming goes a long way in breaking down the walls of change resistance. Even if their ideas cannot be actioned, you can still acknowledge and address them, showing your team they are valued.
• Demonstrating fairness. The most loyal employees focus on the fairness of processes, particularly during a period of change such as your transition and actions as the new leader. You want to ensure fairness in the four key realms: distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational. We’ve detailed what each of these means and how you demonstrate fairness in our complete guide here.
• Recognising past achievements. Your team has many years of hard work, going above and beyond, and overtime to their names. Naturally, starting over to ‘prove’ themselves to a new manager will feel daunting and frustrating. Learn and acknowledge each team member's past contributions and wins, and recognise them by reciting their achievements during your one-on-one. Remember that employees at organisations where recognition is frequent, meaningful and embedded in the culture are ten times more likely to trust their organisation, nine times more likely to believe that their organisation cares about their employees, and five times more likely to plan to stay in their role for at least three more years.

Your Third Core Priority: Communication

Good communication is the key to a connected, high-performing team. Well-connected teams are up to 25% more effective and report 72% higher productivity when communication strategies are transparent and inclusive. Conversely, miscommunication can cost medium-sized companies up to $450,000 annually due to lost time and mistakes.

Set the right communication tone by focusing on these principles:

• Communicate early. This means being quick to clarify expectations, communicating changes within a project and the company, outlining roles and goals within new projects, and the like. Information that is accurate, relevant and delivered in a timely manner helps employees feel less vulnerable, less guarded and more trusting. And with only 50% of employees saying they feel confident of what’s expected of them at work (leading to inefficiency and frustration), the early communication gesture goes a long way.
• Communicate beyond words. Up to 70% of what you communicate is through body language, deduced from your stance, facial expressions, gestures, head position, tone of voice, and how you use your voice or hold your body when speaking. Here’s the 7-38-55 rule to remember: 7% of the message you’re trying to say is communicated through spoken words, 38% through tone of voice, and 55% through your body language. So don’t hesitate to smile, hold eye contact, use hand gestures, perfect a strong handshake and leverage your non-verbal communication.
• Foster an open, transparent, problem-solving culture. 53% of employees feel forced to push through challenges without complaint, which leads to a 125% higher likelihood of burnout. Encourage openness and clarify that problems can be discussed without fear of judgement. This openness helps teams solve issues faster and cultivates psychological safety, a critical component for innovation and high morale.

A listening tour is also highly recommended in the first week of your new leadership role. It helps you experience positive outcomes in areas including employee job performance, relationship quality, employee attitudes, job clarity, and well-being. You’ll even be rated a better leader. We’ve detailed the listening tour as well as the seven C’s of exceptional managerial communication in our full free 2024 Extraordinary Leaders Guide.

Leading with Empathy

Another key attribute of an effective leader is empathy. That means listening, understanding, and acting with genuine care. Mutual empathy between a leader and an employee leads to increased efficiency (88%), creativity (87%), job satisfaction (87%), idea sharing (86%), innovation (85%) and even company revenue (83%). Plus, employees who feel supported by empathetic leaders are 695% more likely to feel a strong sense of belonging and 513% more connected to their organisation. Business leaders agree, with 80% of CEOs naming empathy as a key to success in the workplace.

Leading with empathy starts with acknowledging personal challenges and showing genuine concern for an employee’s well-being. Your employees value their mental and physical health - and mirroring these values is key to an empathetic leadership style. An easy way to show this is by encouraging your team to take advantage of the existing health benefits offered by your company proactively rather than reactively. A good example is encouraging your team to use their Extraordinary health and wellness allowance to proactively take steps toward their wellness goals instead of only being covered reactively when already unwell.

Strong Leadership Starts With Small Steps of Big Impact

Becoming an effective leader isn’t about dramatic entrances or enacting big changes immediately. Instead, it is about steady, consistent growth. Each conversation, each acknowledgement of a team member’s strengths, and each decision to lead with empathy compounds over time, creating the kind of environment where teams thrive.

We’ve gone into extensive detail about everything outlined in this article and many additional strategies not mentioned here, including the data, benefits and an array of actionable steps to give you the strongest start in our full new leader’s guide.