Hey Reader,

You've made it.

The senior role you’ve worked toward for years is finally yours. Everyone rushes over to congratulate you. People you’ve known for years tell you they always knew you could do it. It feels like everything you imagined it would.

And then the applause fades, and the work begins.

You sit through your first few meetings, and something doesn't feel quite right. No one's being hostile or even particularly difficult. But as the days go by, you start to notice a few things. One colleague tells you, "This is how we did things before. It's worked well, so we figured it would stay the same." Someone else mentions that your style is a little different from your predecessor's. The team genuinely wants you to succeed. But without realizing it, they keep pulling you back toward the way things were done before.

You start to notice it everywhere. In the systems you inherited. In the expectations around how decisions get made. In the conversations that happen (and the ones that don't). The role is yours on paper. But some days, it can feel like your predecessor is still in the room.

One executive I worked with experienced this in a pretty extreme way. After his company split in two, he became CEO of the original company. His predecessor, who was also his mentor, left to lead the new one. From the outside, it looked like a clean transition. It wasn't.

Almost immediately, the former CEO started weighing in on how his successor should run the company. How decisions should be made. What the priorities should be. What the culture should look like.

Because of their history, the new CEO found it hard to draw a line. He worried that pushing back would seem ungrateful. The team had also spent years working a certain way, and they were comfortable with it. So even though he was now the CEO, he felt pressure to lead the same way his predecessor had.

Eventually, it came to a head in a board meeting. Not the setting either of them would have chosen. The former CEO made it clear that he thought his way was still the right way. But the new CEO had reached a point where he couldn't keep trying to lead like the person who came before him.

The board backed him. They had appointed him to lead the company, and they didn't expect him to do it exactly as his predecessor had.

Eventually, the former CEO moved on, and the new CEO had the space to lead in his own way. He started visiting different locations and talking to employees at every level. He listened to what mattered to them and made those things a priority. His approach was very different from his predecessor's, and it worked. He knew what he needed to do and stuck with it, even when it took longer than he'd hoped.

Most leaders stepping into a new role will never have a board meeting like that. But what was happening underneath it is much more common.

You come into a role knowing the kind of leader you want to be. At the same time, you're surrounded by people who already have an idea of how someone in your position is supposed to lead.

When I'm coaching new execs, we don't start with grand announcements or plans to change the whole organization. That can come later, if it's actually what they want to do. We start with a much simpler question: What do you want to do differently, and why?

Getting clear on that matters. Because when people question your decisions or push you toward the way things used to be done, you need to know why you're choosing a different path.

It also helps to be clear about what you don't want to change. Not everything your predecessor built needs to go. There may be plenty that works and is worth keeping. Being open about that can make it easier for people to understand where you're going and why.

The transition will still be uncomfortable at times. And some of the changes you want to make will take longer than you'd like. But every time you make a decision that reflects how you want to lead, you make the role a little more your own. Eventually, what once felt new simply becomes the way things are done.

What would you do differently if no one was comparing you to who came before? Hit reply. I'd like to hear about it.

From one human to another,

There are five traps that keep leaders stuck. Which one is driving you?

Not sure? Take the ​quiz​ to find out which one fits you.

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