I read a recent HBR article entitled Inside the First Year as a CEO by Ty Wiggins and Rebecca Davies. The two surveyed a small, gender diverse, number of CEO’s regarding their first 12-18 months of leadership. The results resonated with me as both a senior executive and advisor to senior teams.

The responses of the 35 CEO’s they surveyed serve as a good reminder and derivative of the Jim Collins concept of “first who, then what.”

A number of other lessons ring true as well from my experience:

1. The reality of the culture is different than how you perceive it initially. 75% of the people were surprised by the culture they stepped into was different than what they thought it was during the interview process
2. Employees are often more dedicated and talented than you realize. See lesson one; employees may be disengaged or disenfranchised, but that reflects on leadership and culture
3. The senior leader takes too much time to build and make changes to his senior team. Its the most common regret of incoming CEO’s
4. It takes much longer for a senior team to function well as a team; for the group surveyed by the authors of the article, on average was 14 months and most said it was still a work in progress. The reality that might be masked is that this is a dynamic and continual process.