How to Avoid Disaster as a New Boss
Five career lessons from the worst first month ever
Congratulations on your new job!
Aside from your last week at a job, week one is the best week you will ever have there. Everyone will be nice to you. You’ll be introduced at every meeting. Instead of dumping work on you, people will “let you get settled.” No one will be offended if you forget their name. Someone will probably ask you to have lunch. And you’ve still got another six weeks before anyone notices how often you wear the same pair of jeans.
Hopefully, you will not face the pronouncement that Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the United Kingdom recently received on national TV: “Not a good start, Boris.” After only a few weeks in his position, the only thing Johnson has successfully done is made mistakes.
Of course, things will go wrong for you, too. Your company email won’t be set up, and your key card won’t work. You’ll flub an encounter with an executive, and wear the wrong thing to an important meeting.
You can handle these things. You can handle most things, actually. You just need to take the right approach. Here’s how you can avoid being someone people just don’t what to work with — even if you’re the prime minister — and instead be someone people still want to ask to lunch a…
