Follow First to Lead Well: A Counterintuitive Start to Leadership Success

You’re ready for your new leadership role – but is your new role ready for you?

You stepped into your new job eager to contribute and drive impact. But the organization wasn’t quite ready for you.

People have:

• Established ways of working shaped by their previous leader

• Working styles that don’t align with yours

• Practices you’d like to change

Yes, you were hired to lead – but often, you first need to follow.

By following first, you can observe norms and working practices without imposing judgment, triggering resistance, or withholding engagement. It shows your willingness to understand and appreciate the existing dynamics.

Through this understanding, you’ll learn what works, what doesn’t, where there’s energy for change, and where there isn’t. And through engagement, you build trust.

To set the stage for this, frame it correctly from the start. Share that:

• You’re taking a learning approach – following along to understand how work gets done

• You’re identifying best practices to reinforce and areas where there’s an appetite for improvement

• As you learn, you’ll provide updates and involve people in shaping the path forward

This signals that you care about grounding your leadership in reality. It also allows you to adapt strategy to the organization’s reality and provides a good starting point for reshaping things in pursuit of larger goals.

It may seem counterintuitive, but following first can ultimately enable more effective leadership.