Conquer New Job Anxiety: Your Path to Success with the SET Approach

Updated 4/6/2025

You landed the job! Congratulations! The initial euphoria, however, often gives way to a wave of self-doubt and anxiety as you face the reality of a new role. You're not alone. According to Forbes, a staggering 87% of people experience anxiety when starting a new job. This is a normal, albeit challenging, transition. At Your Path Coaching and Consulting, we understand these feelings and believe in empowering you to navigate this change. Instead of letting anxiety dictate your experience, take control by developing a strategic plan for success. This blog will introduce you to the SET approach, a simple yet effective framework for excelling in your new role.

Introducing the SET Approach: Your Blueprint for Success

The SET approach is designed to help you proactively manage your transition, build strong foundations, and make a lasting positive impression. It's about slowing down, being intentional, and understanding the nuances of your new environment. To truly excel, you need to grasp the organizational culture, decision-making processes, resource allocation, and the definition of success. The SET approach guides you through this process with three key actions:

• Study Your Work Environment

• Engage with Stakeholders

• Tell Your Story

1. Study Your Work Environment: Knowledge is Power

The initial challenge in any new role is the knowledge gap. You're entering uncharted territory, and acclimating takes time. To bridge this gap, actively study your environment. Focus on understanding:

• Organizational Culture: What are the unspoken rules and values? How do people interact?

• Key Processes: How are decisions made? What are the workflows?

• Performance Expectations: How is success measured? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs)?

• Available Resources: What tools and support systems are available to you?

Remember, the first 30 days are crucial for information gathering. Leverage different learning styles, as suggested by Walter Burk Barbe, Ph.D.:

• Visual: Observe meetings, review documents, and study organizational charts.

• Auditory: Attend meetings, listen to conversations, and ask questions.

• Kinesthetic: Participate in hands-on activities, shadow colleagues, and learn by doing.

2. Engage with Stakeholders: Building Relationships for Success

Effective leadership and teamwork are built on trust, as Patrick Lencioni emphasizes. To build trust, you must understand and serve the needs of your stakeholders. Engage with:

• Your Manager: Understand their expectations and priorities.

• Team Members: Learn their roles, responsibilities, and challenges.

• Cross-Functional Colleagues: Build relationships and understand interdependencies.

• Clients/Customers: Understand their needs and expectations.

• Senior Leadership: Gain insights into the organization's strategic direction.

Schedule one-on-one and group meetings to actively listen, ask insightful questions, and identify opportunities to contribute.

3. Tell Your Story: Connect and Build Rapport

As you engage with stakeholders, be prepared to share your story. This helps build rapport and creates connections. Develop:

• A 30-Second Introduction: Clearly and concisely communicate who you are and your role.

• Relevant Anecdotes: Share experiences from your previous roles and your journey to this new position.

• Personal Interests: Share appropriate personal details to build connections.

Remember to engage in two-way conversations, actively listening and responding to questions. Aim for concise, two-minute or less speaking segments to encourage dialogue.

Your Path Coaching and Consulting: Your Partner in Transition

At Your Path Coaching and Consulting, we guide individuals through career transitions. Our executive coaching and business consulting services are tailored to help you:

• Develop a personalized transition plan.

• Enhance your leadership and communication skills.

• Build strong relationships and navigate organizational dynamics.

• Overcome self-doubt and achieve your professional goals.

Don't let anxiety hold you back. Schedule a free consultation with Your Path Coaching and Consulting today to discuss how we can help you excel in your new role. Visit our website at www.yourpathexecutivesoltuions.com to learn more about our services.

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Your Partner in Career Success

I'm not just a writer; I'm also a father, husband, executive coach, and former retail executive. My 21 years of experience leading operations, sales, and marketing teams have given me firsthand knowledge of feeling stuck, undervalued, and underappreciated.

But I also know the transformative power of professional development, the strategies for climbing the corporate ladder, and the profound satisfaction of finding fulfillment in your work.Your career path is a unique journey of discovery. Each opportunity builds upon the last. At Your Path Coaching and Consulting, we're dedicated to helping you gain clarity, accelerate your professional growth, and unlock your full potential.

We offer personalized coaching and consulting services to empower you at every career stage. Our expertise includes:

Executive Coaching: Guiding leaders to enhance their leadership skills, communication abilities, and team dynamics.

Business Consulting: Helping organizations optimize strategies, foster growth, and build high-performing teams.

Career Coaching: Assisting individuals in defining a career path and building the skills, network, and competencies needed to maximize their potential.

Our holistic approach combines proven techniques with a deep understanding of your needs and aspirations.

Connect with us:

Website: www.yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-path-coaching-and-consulting

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Fight the Myth of "If you want it done right, do it yourself".

Do you live by the saying, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."? Most individuals who have experienced success based on their own individual efforts struggle to transition to delegating tasks to others.

This can be rooted in various beliefs. You may feel training others to do tasks correctly will take too long. You could be anxious about the cost of hiring great talent. You may also see your self-worth linked to what you produce and be uncomfortable taking on the manager role.

No matter the beliefs that are getting in the way of your delegating, deep down, you know the only way to scale your business is by reducing the number of tasks you are personally doing and investing time, money, and effort into building your organization's competencies.

Micromanaging versus effective delegating

Frequently, people who manage others opt for micromanaging instead of delegating. Micro-managing allows you to stay close to the work and leverage the hands of others without engaging their minds.

While micromanaging can allow you to get things done, it restricts your growth, leads to burnout, and contributes to employee turnover. Micromanaging is harmful because it does not engage the full person. It will lead you to treat employees like machines to be programmed and directed instead of humans who are resourceful, creative, and able to add incremental value to projects.

Instead of micromanaging, you can de-stress your life and expand your organization's potential by investing in delegation. Effective delegation is the key to growing the talent around you, working fewer hours, and achieving organizational goals. A disciplined approach to empowering employees can create a learning organization that builds new skills and competencies through continuous improvement. There are four steps to effective delegations.

1. Pick the right people

2. Define the task

3. Provide parameters

4. Monitor results

The time you spend executing these steps will reduce your need to micromanage and increase your comfort in delegating. Allowing you to dedicate more of your time to activities that bring you greater fulfillment, are more strategic, and generate sustainable growth for your organization.

Pick the right people for the right jobs

In his book Good to Great, author Jim Collins highlights the importance of having the right people in the right seats on the bus. This is essential to the success of any company. Your most important role as a leader is to surround yourself with talented people who can help you accomplish your company’s goals.

The first step in this process is to clarify what you are looking to accomplish and define the skills and experience that you believe are necessary for success. Once you do this, you can identify who can best support you in executing this initiative.

It is important to pick the right person to do a task. You want to identify someone with the will and skill necessary to succeed. If you currently do not have someone on your team who has the desired skill, then your focus has to be on adding additional people to your team or developing the skills of a current member who has the potential to grow in capabilities. Remember, team members do not have to be employees. Hiring contract workers, virtual assistants, or consultants are all great ways of expanding the capabilities of your team.

Define the task

Once you have selected the right people to work on an initiative, the next role of a leader is to define the task you want to complete. Start by linking the task with your company’s purpose. It is important to show people how the work they are being asked to do connects with the company's overall goals. This can help the employees to understand why the work you are asking them to do is important.

After making this connection, outline your expectations around the task. Communicate your desired end state. Clearly define what success will look like and when you expect the employee or team to deliver against that expectation.

Provide an opportunity for your employees to ask clarifying questions about the desired end state and the path from where they are today to where you want them to go. The time you spend upfront aligning on goals and the employees' path to achieve goals will reduce the number of questions you receive later in the process.

Provide parameters

Next, work with your employees to define the parameters for completing the task. You want to be clear in defining milestones, budgets, available resources, and any other constraints that would influence employees' actions.

You reduce uncertainty by aligning with employees upfront on what is permitted and what is not. The more clarity employees have on your expectations, the easier it will be for them to comply. You should document goals and parameters and verify that your employees understand their roles and responsibilities. This will prevent later questions about roles, responsibilities, expectations, and parameters.

Sometimes, employees understand what is expected but do not comply. When this happens, your focus should be on understanding what is getting in the way of the employee's success. Identifying competing priorities, skill gaps, mental blocks, and other obstacles will help you work with the employee to find solutions that support them in meeting expectations.

Monitor results

The final step in the delegation process is defining how and when you will touch base with your employees regarding progress. By defining and communicating milestones, you and your employees understand where projects should be at specific time periods.

This can reduce stress and drive accountability because employees know what to accomplish and when. If an employee is off track at the time of check-ins, you can provide course correcting advice to get them back on track.

If they have a problem they can not solve independently, you can conduct a root-cause analysis and help them identify solutions. Root-cause analysis may help you identify whether additional time, money, skills, people, or resources are needed to accomplish the given goal.

Summary

Time is your scarcest resource, and you can never get it back again once it is gone. As a leader, you must value your time and ensure that you allocate it in ways that benefit your organization most. The more time you spend doing things that only you can do and that are your strengths, the more of a positive impact you can make on your organization.

As the top person in your organization, you see things that no one else sees and can do things that no one else can do. You provide the most value when you can think strategically, selectively dig into details when needed, and coach, train, and develop your team to build their competencies.

Organizations are stronger when they leverage their employees' hearts, minds, and bodies. The best way to tap into the endless potential of your employees is to teach, train, and trust them to do the work that you hired them to do. Building a high-functioning team takes time and effort. The investment you make into selecting the right talent, defining the task, setting parameters, and monitoring progress will help you achieve more while feeling less overwhelmed.

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Coach and Business Consultant with Your Path Coaching and Consulting. He is a former retail executive with over 20 years of experience in the retail industry. He is a Co-Active coach who focuses on helping professionals and small business owners overcome insecurities, knowledge gaps, and lack of direction. He does this by assisting clients to tap into their values, recognize their strengths, and develop actionable strategies for growth.

Have you been trying to improve your career or business on your own but are not seeing success as fast as you desire?

Book a free discovery call to discuss your goals and how I can help you accelerate.

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Delegate More and Worry Less with the Leaders Intent Process.

Leader's intent has gained popularity as an approach to leading teams. Although it originated in the military, it has been adapted for the business world through executive leadership training programs and books. The concept of this approach is simple: instead of leaders trying to plan for every possible outcome and process, they

• Set business objectives

• Communicate why they are important

• Outline guiding principles

• Define key deliverables 

• Request brief back from the team

• Empower their teams to make decisions and take action to achieve goals. 

This approach allows flexibility, creativity, and innovation, enabling everyone to leverage their strengths to solve business problems.

Delegate more with the leader's intent process.

I recently helped a client set a new approach with his office team around how they would attract more customers. The business owner's objective was to establish a set customer outreach process. He told me this was important because he wants to increase his employees' wages this year and needs the extra revenue to cover the added expense. We outlined guiding principles such as budget and key deliverables such as developing a new sales script. By the end of our discussion, he had a good framework to introduce to employees and gain their buy-in for transforming their approach to attracting new customers. 

One of the biggest challenges that most business leaders have is ensuring employees understand their vision. The leader's intent process calls for leaders to

• Slow down

• Articulate their vision

• Put it on paper

• Communicate it to their team

Once leaders communicate their intent to their team, they must provide time for employees to ask questions and provide feedback. After all questions have been answered and concerns addressed, it is crucial for the leader to request a brief back. This will help ensure that employees understand what you want from them, and you can confidently empower the team, knowing they have the information they need to execute the business objective.

Verify understanding with a brief back.

A brief back is a simple yet effective way for a leader to confirm that those working with them understand their vision and the parameters associated with the task they are delegating to employees. The brief back starts with a simple question:

" Tell me what you heard?"

This question allows the employee to share their interpretation of the conversation so that the leader can validate that they are on the same page.

Key call out: you must ensure your team understands what you communicate. 

In many cases, the brief back process allows the leader to clarify their ask and to ensure alignment with their employees. It is common for leaders not to have complete clarity about what they want until they can discuss it with others. The brief back process allows everyone involved to confirm their understanding of the business objective, its importance, guiding principles, and key deliverables.

Summary 

In conclusion, the leader's intent approach is a powerful tool that can help improve business performance. It encourages leaders to communicate better and confirm understanding. This approach unlocks motivation, innovation, and creativity by eliminating micro-managing and allowing employees to be more involved with the planning process. The brief back step can help ensure the leader and employees are on the same page. As businesses evolve and grow more complex, leaders must change their approach to leading teams. The leader's intent approach is the solution for positioning yourself to delegate more and worry less.

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Thank you for reading this blog

As an executive coach and small business consultant, I guide small business owners and business professionals in achieving their professional and business goals.

Whether you want to start, transform, or improve your business or career, I can help you magnify your strengths, minimize weaknesses, identify threats, and take advantage of opportunities.

Let's talk about your goals.

Have Feedback  Send me a note at

Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com