Critical evaluation of the principles during Onboarding a New Leader Remotely

 Be crystal clear about short-term objectives.

This is where the focus needs to be on how smooth is the transition happening in the
organisation after hiring. If the new leader is not clear of the short-term objectives of the
organisation, then the time he and the organisation take to adjust to things might be too late in
a crisis situation or could lead to mismanagement.
 Provide a structured learning process.
In a recent Savannah Group study of 200 senior interim executives, 95% said access to that
information made them more effective in their first few weeks, especially if the organization
asked them ahead of time what would be most valuable. If the hired person gets and more
access of what is happening inside the organisation, the more his plans will be in sync of
what the firm is trying to achieve. This makes the transition and short-term goals even
clearer.
 Build a (more) robust stakeholder engagement plan.
One should start by building a consensus internally about who the new leader’s key
stakeholders are and, critically, the order in which the new leader should meet them; these
things are often not apparent to new hires themselves. This will make the crisis situation
management even better as then the planning will automatically get organised.
 Assign a virtual-onboarding buddy.
This was something adopted by Microsoft recently during Covid. Four key roles of buddies
are: (1) They help orient new hires to the business and its context (2) They facilitate
connections to people whose support is necessary or helpful (3) They assist with navigation
of processes and systems, and (4) They accelerate acculturation.
 Facilitate virtual team-building.
A facilitator asks the leader and team members questions to uncover what they would most
like to share with and learn about one another. The facilitator summarizes the resulting
insights and uses them to guide a conversation between the leader and the team. This results
in a very effective team bonding exercise and generates trust among employees for their
newly hired leaders.
 Consider hiring a coach.
Given that you, your team, and your new leader’s team are all dealing with the stresses of
responding to the crisis, transition coaches can be especially impactful now. They are
particularly helpful when they understand the organization, the company culture, and the
stakeholder environment. This is something similar to virtual buddies but with a more
specific purpose and objective and that is to orient the leader about every issue he has while
taking up his position as the leader in the organisation.