Three Tips to Ease the Transition to a New Boss

Either you or your boss has been reassigned and you will now be reporting to someone new. Understand that this will be a transition for both of you.

What role can you play in making this as easy a shift as possible? Here are three tips from one of our Leadership Training Programs:

1. Go slow. There may be many issues that are important to cover. But use the Urgent/Important matrix to prioritize what to share with them at first. Move down the list in a way that does not overwhelm them and shows that you have a strategic handle on the situation.
2. Be helpful. If you are the one who knows how the department operates, offer suggestions on how to get things accomplished most efficiently and who can unravel snags or facilitate solutions.
3. Assess their style. It will help you both if you can learn to adjust to your new boss’ preferred working style early on. Do they want details or end results? Do they want a variety of ideas or the bottom-line recommendation? Do they prefer face-to-face communication or emails that can be easily tracked?

Getting to know a new boss can be eased significantly by a slow, helpful, flexible approach.