What separates finance professionals who influence strategy from those who only report the numbers?
The answer isn't better spreadsheets. It's developing the judgment, leadership, and business acumen to become a trusted strategic advisor.
The Finance Leader Podcast helps finance and accounting professionals, FP&A teams, controllers, CFOs, business owners, and executive leaders strengthen the connection between finance, operations, and strategy. Episodes provide practical insights, proven frameworks, and real-world lessons to help you improve decision making, develop executive presence, build stronger partnerships across the organization, and create measurable business value.
Hosted by Stephen McLain, a retired U.S. Army Finance Officer and corporate FP&A and accounting consultant, the podcast combines military leadership experience with practical corporate finance expertise to help finance professionals lead with greater confidence and strategic impact.
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Bonus episode # 38: Please enjoy this encore episode....You have assumed a new role at a new company. What are your first steps? What do you do first so you set yourself up for success? Those first few weeks can determine how well you know your role, and more importantly, who do you need to meet, what systems do you need to learn, and what are the details about the company’s culture. Your first actions in a new role will be critical to your success, so plan carefully and embrace learning and meeting new people.
Episode outline:
Embrace onboarding and ask questions,
Learn the culture and live it,
Know your manager’s priorities and their manager’s priorities,
Build your internal network, and
Build credibility immediately and add value.
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The views and information shared on The Finance Leader Podcast are intended solely for educational and informational purposes. They do not constitute financial, accounting, tax, legal, investment, or other professional advice. Always seek guidance from a qualified professional before making decisions related to your specific circumstances.
Stephen McLain:
Hi, this is Steven McLean and the finance leader podcast. This is bonus episode number 38. Last week I concluded season 10 of the finance leader podcast. And for the next few weeks I will be sharing a few bonus episodes as I prepare season 11 for you. This week I am sharing episode 74. What to do first in a new work role. You want to ensure that your first steps and a new role will set you up for success in the long term, season 11 will debut on July 26. Please enjoy this bonus replay of episode 74. What to do first and a new work roll. Please enjoy. Thank you you have assumed a new role and a new company. What are your first steps? What do you do first, set yourself up for success. Those first few weeks can determine how well you know your role. More importantly, who do you need to meet? what systems do you need to learn? And what are the details about the company's culture? Your first actions in a new role will be critical to your success. So plan carefully, and embrace learning and meeting new people. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLean. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. Please consider following me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. My usernames and the links are in this episode's show notes. Also, please join the Facebook group I have for this podcast community. Thank you. This is episode number 74. And now we'll be talking about what to do in your new role. And I will highlight the following topics. Number one, embrace onboarding and ask questions. Number two, learn the culture and live it. Number three know your managers priorities and their managers priorities for build your internal network, and five, build credibility immediately and add value. Author Josiah Martin said the magic in New Beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all. This week, I am talking about what you need to do when you take a new role in a new company. This is a time of new beginnings for you, for your new colleagues and for your new company. Set yourself up for success from the very first day so you fulfill your potential and grow your experience and skills as you get ready for the next roll on your way to accomplishing your long term goal. I will continue to ask this. How was your goal process going for this year? Are you still focused or are you facing distractions, our work will do that. But I want to re emphasize that your family's needs are not distractions. When you put an event on your calendar, it is not a distraction, it becomes an event you can manage around so put those family events on your calendar and plan for them. Do the people in your life contribute to your long term success and happiness. And sure that those you lead and close are contributing positively to your own life plan including your mindset. remove people from your life who are a major distraction, who are toxic, who are abusive, and who don't lift you up. They are not worth it. Keep your inner circle clean with those people who sincerely believe in you and want you to succeed. Our mindsets can be tainted too easily by toxic people if you let that type of poison close to you. This year. So far, I have talked about our goal planning process and episode 71 about keeping a journal and episode 72. And last week in Episode 73, I was discussing finance and accounting career trends for 2022. If you missed those episodes, please go back and listen. You won't be disappointed. So you have a new role and a new company. What do you do first, well ensure you embrace the onboarding process and hopefully, you have a great onboarding experience. This is the time the company set aside to get you set up like your device and accounts. What apps do you need your pay and benefits to learn the culture and to learn organizational expectations leaders. I also asked you to review your own onboarding process to see if it sets up your new team members for success. Onboarding is an investment. So ensure your onboarding program welcomes and embraces new team members, so they win from day one. Knowing and embracing the corporate culture will help you navigate expectations on performance and behavior. It tells you how to approach your work, how to present ideas and how to communicate and and respond to adversity. The most important aspect of being the new person and a new company is to build your credibility, quick, learn and ask questions. Don't be the know it all, but be the sponge. So you do soak up the experiences of those on your team. So you know where to focus, and what the expectations are regarding work performance, and in fact, how to accomplish the tasks assigned to you successfully. A big part of your credibility is that you have to build trust on your team. You need to be on time and follow through on your tasks. You need to learn and not try to be the know it all. Be humble as you learn the culture, and how your new company operates. As you accomplish tasks, you will discover better ways to do things, and you can share those in the right way. Additionally, be respectful and courteous of everyone. I want you to ask about priorities, what are your supervisors priorities, and also ask about their boss's priorities. You need to know both so you know where to focus your effort. Set up your boss's success to this is important to get right. Our responsibility is to align our effort properly. So we are all rowing in the same direction. So we move forward together. I am also hoping your boss has established priorities, so you know where to focus your effort. This is a critical aspect of leadership. As a finance and accounting professional, you need to learn a few critical things quickly. What financial systems will you be using? What will your role be for monthly close? What metrics are you responsible for? And what are your points of contact for knowing the deeper details for those metrics? Also, who is the senior leader strategically responsible for the metrics you will be analyzing or accounting for? When you step into a new company, build your professional reputation in the right way. build credibility, faster your soft skills like time management, communication, emotional intelligence, and handling adversity. Listen way more than you talk. And when you talk, ask a question on how to do something within your duties. So you learn your job at first is to learn, learn the systems, learn and live the expectations and learn your duties. You are hired for your potential to grasp your duties to fit into a team that is already performing, to contribute in a positive way and to add value. build and protect your professional reputation from day one. By being enthusiastic and by approaching your new responsibilities through learning. You don't know this company from the inside yet, but today on day one, you get to learn the right way through a professional attitude and approach. So let's talk about a few areas after you take on a new role in a new company. Number one, embrace onboarding and ask questions. Your onboarding experience set you up to begin your work experience onboarding is to ensure you have a basic understanding of the company and policies that affect you. Like how to apply and use your benefits, your paid time off, how we interact as we work, expectations of behavior and professionalism, and many more topics. Your onboarding is the introduction to the company. So maximize your time to get the basics done before you begin your regular duties. What do you need to know or set up going forward? Number two, learn the culture and limit. The culture you are now in determines how you interact with others, how to share ideas, and how you manage conflict along with many scenarios. Embrace the culture and live it. Support it with every task you're assigned to get done. Embrace that culture with every idea you present and every time you speak with a colleague. Number three, know your managers priorities in their managers priorities. You need to know where to focus your time and your effort and that is where priorities come in. Don't be afraid to ask what the priority is. Because you can only work effectively on one major task at a time. You want to make sure you are working on the tasks that matter first, when you're given three tasks to do, ask what the priority is. If you're not told right away, and there are constant priorities of effort, what should you be working on as conditions and problems arise and share you know these two and know at least two levels up what the priorities are. Prioritize every task and every request to do something and make sure it aligns with the priorities you are given. Number four, build your internal network. Give way more than you get in your network. That is the answer to everything you do in life or work or business or politics. Give way more than you receive from other people. Immediately after starting in your new role. Learn who will be the people who will contribute to you succeeding. You need to know the managers and senior leaders who are executing the metrics and accounts you are responsible for. So you can get the detail Also why something happened or will happened. Reach out often so you know the trends show you are more prepared for monthly clothes, share the information within your network. Also, build those connections sincerely and not only when you need something build trust in your network. Don't forget to make a connection with the most important people in the organization. And that's the executive assistants. The assistants make things happen in every organization is the assistants who pulled together miracles and they don't get enough credit. They are the angels who want to help and are always willing to get it done with a happy approach. Introduce yourself to them and always be respectful of their time. Number five, build credibility immediately and add value. You need to build your credibility on day one, be reliable, be courteous, be respectful of everyone, meet your deadlines without excuses, and be on time. I want you to get some quick wins and over deliver on what you are tasked with be reliable and time conscious. Be respectful of everyone's time. To gain a quick win. Use your soft skills like communication, bridge a gap that you find. That is one of the best ways to add value. As you build your network and begin to talk about problem solving. You will discover that person a needs to talk with Person B, but they don't realize it you can put these two together so they can solve the problem they both probably want to get solved. Also be a lifelong learner, never stop learning. Ask questions and apply knowledge and experience for the good of the company. Ensure you add value to every task you work on. Don't just put together an analysis because it is a task that has to be done. But how can you use that analysis to help a decision maker to make a better decision? That is what I want you to do add tremendous value in everything you do. Do your part and making your organization the best organization, no complacency and no supporting the status quo. Be consistently adding value and ensure you're setting up your teammates and boss for success. This is another critical component of building trust. So you have a new role and lots of information is coming at you at once. So what do you do? Maximize your onboarding to get the basic setup like your pay your benefits and the accounts you need, like your email, and what apps you need to work on. Know your priorities. Learn your job, and build some quick wins, learn and ask questions. Don't try to be the know it all. But be the team player who can be trusted, become a leader and help to bridge gaps and communication and execution. live and breathe the company culture. Be an ambassador for what the company delivers to the market. So for action today. If you're about to start a new role and a new company soon. Ask about the onboarding process so you are prepared and can maximize it. Additionally, learn as much as you can about the company. When you are interviewing, you did your research about the company so you knew the basics, but you are interviewing with many companies, you have the job now or you are considering an offer with them. So do some more digging into the company's culture, their offerings, their reputation, and how they change the world. This is important as you surround yourself in their culture and become one of them. Embrace your new role with enthusiasm and be ready to add tremendous value. Today I talked about what to do in a new role in a new company and highlighted the following points. Number one, embrace onboarding and ask questions. Number two, learn the culture and live it. Number three, know your managers priorities in their managers priorities. Number four, build your internal network and five build credibility immediately and add value as a finance and accounting professional on day one after onboarding you need to get access to and learning the systems you will be working in. You need to know what you will be responsible for regarding the metrics that you'll be analyzing, reports you will be submitting and other analysis or accounts you will be responsible for plus, one of the most important things you need to know is what you will be responsible for during monthly close you need to get a monthly close schedule with points of contact and what reports are due and when. Regarding monthly, close and share you know what data and reports that need to be done before you can perform your analysis or report running. We all know that monthly close is built around a schedule of reporting and it has to be sequenced properly, who needs to do their job first and correctly before you can run your reports and do your analysis. Find out who that person is. Go meet them as soon as you can. Next week I'll be talking about habits so you can continue to change your approach and behavior to increase your chance of success. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast dedicated to helping you grow your leadership skills to change your mindset and to clarify Are your goals so you advance your career. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, you can check out more resources at financier academy.com and sign up for my weekly updates so you don't miss an episode of the show. And now building your team, and I'll see you next time.
