There’s often an unspoken expectation when you step into a new leadership role: prove your value quickly. Find the problems. Make decisions. Fix what isn’t working. Show everyone why you were hired. I understand that pressure. But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned about leading change is that the fastest way to lose influence may be trying to use it too soon. Years ago, I accepted a Chief of Staff role supporting the CTO of a major digital wireless company. It was one of those interesting leadership positions where I had broad visibility and significant responsibility, but very little formal authority. I couldn’t simply tell people what to do. If I wanted to influence the organization, I had to earn the right to do it. And that started with trust.
When you enter a new organization, it’s easy to notice things you would do differently. Processes seem unnecessarily complicated. Meetings feel inefficient. Decision-making appears slow. Priorities may seem unclear. Within the first few weeks, you can probably create a fairly substantial list of things you believe should change.
The temptation is to start fixing them.
But there’s something dangerous about diagnosing an organization before you understand its history. That inefficient process may exist because of a problem you haven’t heard about yet. The meeting you think should disappear may be compensating for a communication gap somewhere else. The leader who seems resistant may have lived through three previous transformation efforts that promised improvement and created chaos instead.
What looks irrational from the outside often makes more sense once you understand how it got there. So before changing things, I learned to get curious.
In that Chief of Staff role, I deliberately spent time building relationships. I asked questions, listened, and learned how people worked together. I tried to understand what was important to them, what frustrated them, and what they needed from me. I followed through on commitments, solved problems when I could, and looked for ways to make it easier for people to do their work rather than immediately telling them how their work should change.
Over time, I began thinking about trust like an emotional bank account. Every conversation was a potential deposit. Every promise kept was a deposit. Every time I listened instead of assuming it was a deposit. Every problem quietly solved was a deposit.
Eventually, difficult conversations became necessary. They always do when you’re leading meaningful change. But by then, I had something in the account to draw from.
Trust gave me permission to challenge things that I couldn’t have challenged effectively on day one.
Building trust doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations, lowering expectations, or trying to make everyone happy before you make a decision. Trust is not about popularity. It’s about credibility.
Do people believe you understand enough to make the recommendation you’re making? Do they believe your intentions are aligned with the success of the organization and its people? Do they believe you’ll tell them the truth? Will you listen when they disagree? Will your actions match your words?
Those questions become especially important when change gets difficult, because eventually it will.
A leader who has built trust can say something people don’t want to hear and still retain credibility. A leader who hasn’t built trust may struggle to gain support even when the decision itself is right.
Organizations sometimes celebrate leaders who arrive promising to disrupt everything. There are certainly situations where disruption is necessary, but disruption without understanding can create damage alongside progress.
If your first message to an organization is essentially, “Everything you’ve been doing is wrong, and I’m here to fix it,” consider what you’ve communicated to the people who built it. You may intend to create urgency. They may hear disrespect. You may see outdated processes. They may see decisions made under constraints you don’t yet understand. You may believe you’re challenging complacency. They may believe you’ve already decided they are the problem.
That doesn’t mean you preserve something simply because people worked hard to create it. It means you respect the people and the history enough to understand them before deciding what comes next.
Over time, I developed a simple belief: you have to earn the right to disrupt.
Before asking people to follow you somewhere new, demonstrate that you understand where they are. Before challenging someone’s thinking, show that you’ve listened to it. Before changing the process, understand why it exists. Before asking for trust, behave in ways that deserve it.
This is especially important for leaders brought into an organization specifically to create change. Your title may give you authority on your first day, but it does not automatically give you influence.
Those are two very different things.
Authority can require compliance. Influence creates commitment. Sustainable transformation needs far more of the second.
There are several things I’ve learned to do when entering a new role, organization, client relationship, or transformation effort.
1. Listen before diagnosing. Ask people what is working as well as what isn’t. Learn what has already been tried and understand where previous efforts succeeded or failed. History matters, and understanding it can keep you from solving the wrong problem.
2. Keep small promises. Trust isn’t built only through major moments. If you say you’ll follow up, follow up. If you commit to getting an answer, get the answer. If you tell someone you’ll circle back by Friday, don’t make them chase you on Monday. Small promises create evidence that your word means something.
3. Solve something that matters to someone else. One of the fastest ways to build credibility is to make someone else’s work easier. Not because it gives you political capital, but because it demonstrates that you are there to contribute, not simply critique.
4. Ask before assuming. When something doesn’t make sense, get curious. “Help me understand why we do it this way” creates a very different conversation than “Why are we still doing this?” Both questions may ultimately lead to the same change, but only one begins with respect.
5. Challenge with context. Once you understand the people, history, constraints, and business objectives, challenge what needs to be challenged. Trust should never become an excuse for avoiding necessary change. The goal isn’t to preserve the status quo. The goal is to make change more informed and more likely to succeed.
This lesson also matters when organizations recruit leaders to drive transformation. It’s tempting to look for the person who promises the boldest vision or the fastest results. But some of the strongest transformation leaders have another capability that is harder to capture on a résumé:
They know how to enter an organization well.
They observe and ask good questions. They understand culture without becoming captive to it. They build relationships across functions and levels. They know when to listen and when to challenge. And when they do challenge, people understand that the challenge comes from a desire to make the organization stronger, not from a need to prove they are the smartest person in the room.
That kind of leadership can be the difference between transformation people tolerate and transformation people help carry forward.
At GSD Coach & Recruiting, we believe the right hire is about more than matching experience to a job description. Especially in leadership roles, organizations need to consider how someone creates results.
Can they influence without relying solely on authority? Can they build credibility across an organization? Can they listen deeply enough to understand before acting? Can they challenge constructively? Can they create trust while still driving accountability and change?
Those qualities become increasingly important when an organization is growing, restructuring, transforming, or navigating uncertainty.
Because bringing in someone with the mandate to change an organization is only the beginning.
The real question is whether people will trust that person enough to follow.
You may be given the authority to disrupt on day one. The right to disrupt is something you earn.
GSD Coach & Recruiting helps organizations identify leaders who bring more than experience to the role. We look for the judgment, influence, relationship-building, and leadership capabilities required to create sustainable results. Talk With GSD
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