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.

Talk with Dorian

Have Feedback Send me a note at

Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

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5 Tips to Help Managers Improve Employee Motivation

The key to effectively running a profitable business is motivating employees to perform their roles at a high level. For your employees to perform at their best, they must be intrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation comes from understanding who they are, who they want to be, and how their current role can help them close the gap. Finding intrinsic motivation is a deeply personal process. Still, it can be assisted by taking the time to understand your employees' goals and help them see how their goals can be accomplished within your organization. By helping employees identify how their work connects to your company vision, you can create higher levels of commitment and personal accountability.

Higher levels of commitment and accountability will lead to employees working harder to accomplish company objectives because they understand how their success is linked to yours. Former MLB Coach Yoga Berra once said, "If you know where you're going, it's a lot easier to get there." This is as true in business as it is in baseball. When you help your employees develop a clear vision of where your company is going and the benefit they will receive from excelling at their role, you create an environment where employees want to thrive because they know they will win, as the company wins.

Be Clear on the Company's Mission and Vision.

The first step is ensuring employees understand your business's vision and mission. This understanding needs to be clear, aspirational, and values-based. You might feel that vision and mission statements as empty words that do not provide much value to the day-to-day operations of a business. This could not be further from the truth. Vision Statements offer employees a picture of what a company wants to be. At the same time, a mission statement details why the work that is being done is essential. When you provide your employees with the what and the why of the company's existence, they can better find purpose in their work within the company.

Employees' commitment and motivation are highest when their passion and purpose align with the company's needs. By consistently communicating the company's vision and mission statement, you can help employees understand how central both are to everything the company does. This lays the foundation for the employee to connect the dots between their role and the company's overall success.

Gain Commitment.

Once you have helped employees understand the company's vision and mission, your next job is to gain employees' commitment to their role within the organization. Gaining employees' commitment transfers the burden of accountability from you to the employee. When employees are committed to doing a job, they are more likely to show initiative, seek help, and require less follow-up from you. Gaining commitment is essential because commitment is the foundation for accountability. Accountability is an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. If you establish a safe and candid work environment with your employees, they will only commit to things they believe they can accomplish. By soliciting commitments from your employees, you gain awareness of the employee's belief in their ability to complete a task and their word to put their best effort into achieving it.

Secure Resources.

After gaining commitment, you should seek to understand what resources employees need to complete the task. If the employees are going to complete the task for the first time, the help they need might be coaching or training. You should work with the employees to identify the resources required to complete the job. Aligning the amount of time, money, materials, technology, people, or other resources upfront can prevent future frustration, conflict, and delays. By identifying and securing the resources necessary to complete the task upfront, you can better position the employee for success.

Monitor Performance.

You and your employees must establish a routine for discussing employee satisfaction and performance. By defining periodic moments to pause and review actions and results, both parties have certainty that they will be able to discuss

• How is the employee performing compared to expectations?

• How does the employee's current work align with their personal goals?

• What additional training or support does the employee need?

• If any changes need to be made to current roles or responsibilities?

• Ways to improve communication, partnership, and collaboration between employees and other stakeholders associated with the company.

During these meetings, you and the employee should review previous commitments to ensure that both parties follow through on the previously communicated actions. If either party fails to meet prior commitments, a resolution should be found to adjust expectations or provide additional resources or support.

2-Way Feedback.

During the progress check-ins, you and the employee should have the opportunity to provide each other with feedback. Check-in meetings should be more than you communicating expectations and providing feedback. Employees should have time to voice concerns or give feedback on work conditions, goals, organizational culture, and management practices. Encouraging employees to be candid about their wants and needs can help to strengthen relationships and remove leadership blind spots. By providing a space for employees to voice their thoughts and concerns, you can better understand what might be getting in the way of their productivity. With this information, you can better support employees in finding solutions that help them and the company perform at higher levels.

Summary

Employees join companies to satisfy their wants and needs. You can help employees identify how their wants and needs can be fulfilled through work. This will create higher levels of loyalty and commitment. Committed employees will do everything within their power to support the success of an organization. To improve your employees' productivity and effectiveness, start by understanding why they're working for you. Then, help them see how their commitment to bringing the company's vision and mission to life will bring them closer to achieving their goals.

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach 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 helping clients 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 where we can discuss your goals and how I can help you accelerate.

Talk with Dorian

Have Feedback? Send me a note at

Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

For daily tips on leadership and professional development, follow me:

LinkedIn

Facebook