How HR Executives Can Adapt to a New CEO

The arrival of a new CEO is a pivotal moment for an HR leader, one that can secure your position as a trusted advisor — or place your role at risk. Nearly half of CEOs (48%) make their first senior leadership change within the first three months, and another 26% within six months. For CHROs, this underscores the importance of establishing trust and demonstrating your value early in the relationship.

While the change in leadership could feel intimidating, getting a new CEO presents a huge opportunity, with the chance to position yourself as an indispensable business partner, said Horst Gallo, a startup advisor, investor, and international CHRO. Getting there, however, requires going beyond traditional HR tasks, creating strategic alignment, and positioning HR as a critical driver of business outcomes.

Whether your organization has recently appointed a new CEO or is preparing for one, the following expert strategies can help you secure and even bolster your position while setting you up for long-term success.

Making a strong first impression

Set the tone for how your new CEO will perceive your contributions by demonstrating your value early on. Research shows that first impressions can persist for months. To make the most of this transitional period, consider the following do’s and don’ts to leave a positive and impactful impression.

Do:

• Ask for a regular, weekly one-on-one conversation.
• Connect talent decisions to broader business outcomes.
• Identify how the organization works to achieve business goals.
• Anticipate what challenges they could face and bring solutions.
• Show interest in their goals and what they hope to achieve.

In practice: Tony Deblauwe, a global HR leader and former vice president of HR at Celigo, suggests revisiting your organization’s culture playbook. While many organizations already have one, you likely have an opportunity to take a more business-minded approach. Use this moment to translate how your organization’s talent achieves business outcomes and connect the dots between culture and output in your playbook for your new CEO to see.

Don’t:

• Overpromise and underdeliver.
• Assume that the status quo is enough.
• Wait for the CEO to invite you to engage with them.
• Hoard the CEO’s time and limit their connections.
• Overwhelm the new CEO with too many details.

In practice: Don’t overlook the value that onboarding can have in building trust with your new CEO and maintaining trust with the rest of the leadership team, says Gallo. This process can include taking your CEO through the organization, presenting your management system, and setting the CEO up with strategic conversations. An introduction like this not only helps your CEO become acquainted with the organization but also shows other executives that you’re focused on its overall success.

In some cases, this process might involve proactively engaging with your board to prepare the CEO’s calendar well in advance of their first day, Gallo noted In his experience, boards are often very receptive to this approach, as they also want to make a good impression on the new CEO — and HR leaders can play an integral role in making that happen.

Getting to know your new boss

Foster a strong and collaborative relationship with your new boss by understanding their working style and how you can best align with it. By understanding their preferences and priorities, you’ll increase your chances of becoming a trusted advisor.

Use these recommended strategies to build upon your first impression and get to know your new CEO:

• Start with intentional one-on-one conversations. Use early meetings to get to know them as a person and understand their vision, goals, and priorities, Gallo says. If you can walk away understanding their preferences and what success looks like to them, you’re more likely to deliver.
• Observe how they engage in meetings. Watch how your new boss conducts themselves in early executive or all-hands meetings, suggests Deblauwe: “Watch what they say as much as you watch for nonverbal cues. Pay attention to what they focus on, where they start, and where they finish.”
• See how they assert themselves. Pay attention to how the new CEO engages through email or Slack channels, advises Deblauwe. For example, if there is an escalation thread on Slack involving an unhappy customer, notice how (or if) the CEO jumps into the discussion. “Absence can speak volumes, too,” Deblauwe notes.
• Consider how they respond to feedback. When you’re in one-on-ones and offering feedback to your new CEO, be mindful of how they respond to your guidance and what subjects trigger a negative reaction, says Deblauwe.
• Solicit outside perspective. Gallo suggests tapping into your network to get feedback on your new boss. “Call somebody up and ask, ‘What’s this person actually like? How do they make decisions? What are their strengths? And where do they need the most help?’ ” he says.

Once you know your new CEO’s goals and leadership style — and they know the value of connecting HR priorities with business goals — you can better establish yourself as a trusted business partner.

Pro tip: Don’t forget that you’re still a team member, and your team needs you, too. As you build trust with the new CEO, it’s equally important to maintain trust with your long-standing team members. After all, they’re also adjusting to new leadership. Gallo suggests using this time to connect with your team and fellow executives and help coach them through the change. Plus, when your team speaks highly of you, it reflects positively on you to the new CEO, he adds.

Positioning yourself as a key business partner

Once you’ve laid a solid foundation, it’s time to strengthen the ground on which future decisions are built. Yes, you want to continue demonstrating the business value of HR, but you can go further by becoming a sounding board beyond HR issues. Position yourself in a place of trust with these strategies.

Lead with confidence to bolster trust.

“Don’t be afraid to express yourself and have a voice in the room,” says Deblauwe. “If you find you’re in a situation where you read the room and see everybody agreeing with the CEO, either because they’re tired or bewildered or something else, but you can also see that the CEO is looking to have people challenge them, be the person in the room to ask, ‘Are you sure that that would work the best?’”

By creating this dynamic, you demonstrate to the CEO that you can act as constructive counsel even outside of your department. The more you show you trust yourself, the more they’ll trust you.

You can approach one-on-one meetings with your CEO the same way, helping them become a culture champion by encouraging them to model desired behaviors and guiding them through difficult conversations, writes Deblauwe. Your candid and constructive feedback could support them as much as your relationship.

Use data to drive strategic and informed decisions.

To continue building trust, demonstrate your strategic alignment to drive business outcomes, says Gallo. For example, if the goal is revenue growth and you need more people to achieve it, show how you plan to hire top talent faster and onboard them more efficiently.

“Most HR leaders have data-driven insights and should use them more to help the CEO make informed decisions,” says Deblauwe, noting that building the connective tissue is a frequently missed opportunity for HR leaders. “Put yourself in a position where you can say you’ve looked at the data, performance, and people costs to make a suggestion based on the potential impact.”

Drive organizational solutions to improve efficiency.

“Even if it’s related to sales, you have an opportunity to create a connection between the output and the people who deliver the output,” says Deblauwe, who also makes the case that HR should know who the top-performing team members are (especially in sales and marketing, customer success, and product).

By knowing who the top performers are, you can use that data to figure out what works cross-functionally and what does not. For example, say that you sense silos. As CHRO, you can collaborate with these teams to uncover what’s impairing their top performers and address the problem. “HR often misses an opportunity to unearth process and workflow breakdowns and help solve for it,” says Deblauwe.

Spotting signs of emerging leadership changes

As much value as you display, the hard truth is that things may still not go your way. Though a missed meeting might not be cause for concern, there are a few situations that Deblauwe and Gallo say could be signs that your once-secure position is in jeopardy.

Concerning signs include:

• If you start to get excluded from strategic conversations. Be on alert if you were always involved in a C-level team meeting, and you’re suddenly not included.
• If you get increased scrutiny out of the blue. Take note if the new CEO presses about what HR really does or where your budget is going, especially if it was never previously in question.
• If HR-related matters get delegated to other leaders. Be wary if a significant people-related change is on the horizon, and the CEO puts another executive in charge without first talking to you about it.
• If you get asked to execute on decisions you weren’t privy to. Stay cognizant if you get informed afterward of a decision you must now execute.
• If the CEO brings in external HR support. Recognize declining trust if the new CEO wants to bring in external HR consultants to help with some HR-related things.

“If you sense it, you have to discuss it,” says Deblauwe. If you get caught off guard by an isolated interaction in a meeting, ask to talk to the CEO for five minutes afterward to clear the air, he suggests. But if there’s a pattern of miscommunication, opt for a more structured meeting. “Say there are a few observations you need to review with them, and it can’t wait until next week,” Deblauwe says. Being direct is better than going the roundabout way and asking other leaders if they’ve heard anything, a method Deblauwe has observed — and seen not work.

Once you’ve started the conversation, use it to clearly identify what you’ve observed, and be confident enough to ask tough questions. Gallo suggests asking:

• Am I getting this wrong?
• Are you expecting something else?
• Is this no longer a priority?
• What should my team and I be focusing on?

Beyond that, come prepared to identify what you’re working on, how it’s connected to strategic priorities, and where you predict the projects are leading, Gallo suggests. Use the conversation to rebuild your relationship and, ultimately, renew trust.

Deciding if this new future is for you

As your relationship with the CEO evolves, it must be flexible, says Deblauwe, adding that CHROs shouldn’t expect to achieve a static state of trust that withstands any condition. The key to maintaining trust is to adapt as the situation does and keep the connection close enough so the CEO sees you’re flexing with the changes. But don’t flex until you reach a breaking point.

If you get to a place where you feel your value isn’t being recognized or your potential is being withheld, it’s important to reflect and ask yourself whether this new CEO’s direction inspires you or if you feel you have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully under their leadership.

You’ve clearly demonstrated your ability to be a trusted partner, but do you see the same in your new CEO? You’ve demonstrated your expertise and ability to add value beyond HR on the table. Now ask yourself if those traits are being appropriately valued. There may come a point where you’ll have to consider not just the company’s future but your own.