You are put in charge of a team that liked the previous manager.

Take this situation apart. Each piece goes in one box: yours, or not yours. There is no third box, and almost nothing falls in one piece.

Yours

How you listen, and which agreements you keep.Listening in the first weeks instead of proving yourself, and keeping every small word. Trust is the outcome; reliable behaviour is the stake, and only the second can be delivered by you.

Not yours

The comparison with your predecessor, and their initial reserve.The loyalty they feel is real and cannot be hurried; whoever tries to force it mostly proves the reserve was justified.
What they say about you among themselves.In the first months every new manager gets talked about, at the coffee machine and in group chats you will never see. That conversation belongs to adjusting and dies down by itself, whether you try to overhear it or not.

The reasoning. Their hearts still carry the previous name; your behaviour is writing the new one meanwhile. There is no other pen.

First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do.Epictetus

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