Onboarding Insights for Incoming CEOs
Stay Focused on Five Key Concepts to Help Smooth the Transition From Industry Leader to Association Chief Staff Executive
Stepping into a leadership role in a new organization is challenging and exciting no matter what. For CEOs joining a new association or other mission-driven organization, onboarding encompasses a host of familiarization activities, such as developing relationships and learning about the culture. For incoming CEOs with a broad association management skill set, the onboarding process starts with learning more about the industry or profession the organization serves. For others—those transitioning from a role in the industry or profession—onboarding looks different. They bring valuable industry acumen, and often long-standing connections and relationships, so their onboarding period needs to consider a shift in perspective and an awareness of potential pitfalls.
What’s Different
Where once the leader may have built alliances in a singular area of a profession or industry, now as CEO the individual must consider all stakeholder perspectives. Where once advocating for a particular direction may have been par for the course, now brokering a range of informed options and considering resource deployment are paramount actions. Further, in some cases, industry friendships built over time will need to take a back seat to the priorities of the organization the leader now serves.
As in any transition, a well-conceived and executed onboarding plan—one with buy-in from both the board and the CEO—is crucial. In concert, industry leaders making the move to association CEO are well-advised to bear in mind several concepts. Nancy Green, FASAE, CAE, an association leader with experience as both full-time and interim association CEO, offers five such ideas. As an interim, Green has worked with incoming CEOs making the transition from an industry role. While leading the onboarding process is not often an interim executive’s responsibility, helping position the new CEO for success is. As keen observers and sometimes changemakers during the period preceding the new CEO’s tenure, interim executives are often in a good position to help acclimate the incumbent.
Five Key Concepts
1. Embrace the landscape view. In a membership organization, a facilitative approach is necessary. The association CEO role is distinctive, emphasizes Green, in that no one other than the CEO has that same landscape view—not the board, not the members, not the staff—or the primary duty of connecting the dots between strategy and execution. Anticipating what is coming, while ensuring the informed engagement and contributions of a range of stakeholders, is so crucial and requires intentionality.
While taking a broad view is not necessarily new territory for CEOs transitioning from within an association’s industry, the dynamic can be somewhat different. Jason Newmark made that transition when he joined AHRA—The Association for Medical Imaging Management in October 2023, following Green, who had served as interim CEO. His prior health administration roles were expansive, but Newmark emphasizes that stepping into an association leadership role requires a deliberate shift from the focused perspective of an industry-member to a broader mindset of a generalist. “I purposefully dedicate time to read a wide range of journals, monitor regulatory developments, and stay connected to other organizations in the medical imaging field with which we are partnering or may want to partner with in the future.,” he explains. “I’m focused on thinking broadly about what our members may be most interested in or may not know about at all.”
2. Establish productive relationships. Every CEO must focus on building relationships with organizational influencers and other stakeholders. For the CEO who is transitioning from industry, certain relationships are in place, but they must evolve. The CEO is now in a position where the views of a range of stakeholders must be heard and in which the individual is responsible for leading a staff. It may be easiest to say yes to any number of requests, especially to board members who were previously colleagues or even friends, but sometimes the answer will have to be no. Therefore, establishing clear expectations for communication, strategic dialogue and decision making, and other interactions is important. For the CEO from industry, developing some respectful distance from the board and other influential stakeholders is also crucial. Just as the CEO is nurturing a new relationship with the board and other members, the individual is also building a relationship with staff. As Newmark notes, his industry experience and established networks made him a natural to focus on further relationship building, fundraising, and sponsorship development during his early days at AHRA. Meanwhile, he has been intentional about leaning on the expertise of his team members for association management work with which he was less familiar—a practical approach, but also one that builds respect and trust.
3. Avoid the echo chamber. When one of her interim engagements provides for overlap with an incoming CEO from the industry, Green reminds the individual that selective listening is a pitfall. “When you’re a member,” she notes, “it is your choice who you interact with and what you are interested in. As CEO you have to hear from a broad range of stakeholders. Learn and seek to understand, she advises.” Newmark underscores the importance of regular intelligence gathering. “I was in a unique position because I already knew many of our members,” he says. Coming to the role from the industry enables me to walk in members’ shoes and appreciate their perspectives. I can then ask questions: What challenges are most pressing? Where are we, as an association, falling short? Are you realizing value from your membership with and engagement in AHRA?”
4. Become well-rounded and well-Informed. Industry knowledge is an asset, but CEOs must become broad consumers of intelligence from across the organization as they navigate the new role. That does not mean being indecisive, points out Green, but the difference is offering informed, evidence-supported options versus definitive answers. Especially with the board, it is crucial to provide options, rationales, and risk assessments—and to build buy-in—before choosing a path. Cultivating the partnership with the board around strategic decision making may mean the difference between success and failure–even when the CEO does know the answer.
5. Lead a results-driven culture. Building and sustaining a results-driven culture begins with adopting a mindset that board, staff, and constituent success constitute success. Recognize that the environment is different—for example, metrics are equally important but may look different from those experienced in an industry role—but modeling the value and driving member engagement in addition to monitoring margins, is crucial, whether in collaborating with staff or emphasizing communication in governance decision making. It is a mindset, notes Green, that all good CEOs, no matter their prior roles, are well advised to embrace.
