Why Embracing Past Legacies is Essential for Leading a New Team

How can new leaders earn trust from day one?

In this episode of Relationships at Work, host and leadership expert Russel Lolacher dives into the importance of honoring past legacies when joining a team. Whether you're stepping into a new role or leading an established group, understanding the history behind their successes and challenges is key to effective leadership. Russel shares practical steps for respecting the past, engaging with the present, and shaping the future.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Relationships At Work – Your guide to building workplace connections and avoiding leadership blinds pots.  I’m your host Russel Lolacher

I’m a communications and leadership expert with a couple of decades of experience and a heap of curiosity on how we can make the workplace better. If you’re a leader trying to understand and improve your impact on work culture and the employee experience, you’re in the right place.

This mini-episode is a quick and valuable bit of information to shift your thinking for the week ahead. 

Inspired by our R@W Note Newsletter, I’m passing on to you… 

Respecting Legacy of Leadership (good or bad)

As leaders, it’s always an interesting challenge to come in and lead a new to you team. They don’t know you. They don’t know how you operate. They don’t know your experience. 

But you don’t know them either. And if we’re truly a good leader, that’s the piece we need to understand and prioritize. 

When we take on a team for the first time, whether that team is newly formed or has been around for a while, it's important to understand there already is a history that we haven't been a part of.

As a team, we aren't starting from zero, as much as we'd like to be, and it's dangerous to think we are.

As new teams, they may be dealing with the disruption a reorg. They may not have wanted to be on the new team and liked their old one just fine. Or an established team that had a relationship with their previous leader. We, the new leader, is the disruption. 

In this situation, we have to respect the history of the team. The good or bad experiences they had as individuals and as a team, because that's what they're measuring their next experience by (aka us). 
 They learned:

• what they had to do to be successful.
• what they had to do to navigate their previous boss.
• what trust looked like and felt like.

And how effort, honesty, transparency, accessibility, respect, communication was all demonstrated before we go there. When we take on this responsibility, we quickly have to learn if we are building on a great foundation or repairing past traumas? And respect their experiences with either. 

So, hello new team. Here’s some ideas on where to start:

·       Acknowledge Previous Achievements and Challenges: Start by recognizing the accomplishments and contributions of the team under the previous leadership. For the accomplishments, this shows we have respect for the work that has been done and the progress made. For the challenges, we're demonstrating our understanding and empathy. Having this balanced approach helps build trust and shows that we value the team’s history and are not looking to dismiss it.

·       Engage in Active Listening and Open Communication: This is so key. Spend time with them individually and collectively to understand their perspectives, experiences, and expectations. Really lean into our active listening skills, where we give full attention to what team members are saying, reflect back their thoughts to ensure we hear and understand, and ask insightful questions. Be curious. This approach helps us identify what team members valued in the past leadership and what they hope to see going forward. 

·       Build on the Existing Foundation While Guiding Our Vision for the Team: Keep in mind, that just because we're respecting the past, it's important to show we're not avoiding change. We're building upon the existing foundation... thoughtfully. Make sure the team knows those previous successes and challenges serve as stepping stones for future goals. Introduce our new ideas or changes as evolutions rather than replacements. It's about improvement and growth. Teams will respect not being stagnant if we have a vision forward to follow.

·       Not so Secret Weapon:empathic communication – As we change processes, or don’t. Realign responsibilities, or don’t. We must communicate the why. And tie it to the vision of what we’re trying to do. Even if the team doesn’t see the benefit yet or agree with the decisions, they’ll at least understand there is intent and compassion through the change. 

Taking this approach, acknowledges the past, engages the present, and thoughtfully plans for the future.

Treating this role like a blank slate is disrespectful to hard won successes and in surviving difficult challenges. To start on the best path forward, respect the road our new team has already been on while being a compassionate and collaborative navigator in where we’re trying to take them.