Leadership and People Management: Foundations to Practice · Onboarding and Early Team Member Success
Setting Expectations and Checking In Early
New hires often hesitate to ask genuinely important questions during their early weeks, worried about appearing incompetent, which is exactly why a leader needs to proactively create space for those questions rather than assuming their absence means everything is genuinely clear.
A new hire is often acutely aware that they are still being evaluated and forming a first impression with their new team, which creates a genuine, understandable reluctance to ask a question that might read as revealing incompetence or a lack of preparation, even when that specific question is genuinely important and the new hire's uncertainty is entirely reasonable given how new they actually are.
- New hires often hesitate to ask genuinely important questions during their early weeks, worried about appearing incompetent while still being evaluated.
- A leader explicitly stating that early questions are expected and welcomed meaningfully lowers this psychological barrier compared to hoping a new hire will feel comfortable on their own.
- New hires benefit from check-ins considerably more frequent than the standard ongoing cadence, given the higher volume of new information and adjustment during onboarding.
- A specific question about what currently feels unclear invites a more useful answer than a generic 'how's it going' check-in, which tends to receive an equally generic response.