When I got the call telling me that I was being promoted to manager, I wanted to be ready to hit the ground running with as much positive momentum as possible. I sat down and wrote out my process, my plan, and my expectations. I began preparing to share all of it with my new team. But, before doing that, I knew it was supremely important to listen to them first.

I enlisted the help of my human resources partner. I urged her to get as real as possible with my team in uncovering their thoughts prior to me even starting. She met with my new team (without me in the room) for hours, working to get it all out. She asked questions like, “What are you most concerned about? What do you hope for most? What do you need?” She broke it down by individual, as well as taking a team-level perspective. This exercise worked in no small part due to her effort, as she was able to get the team to trust her with this information on the eve of getting a new boss. They shared what had worked for them in the past and what didn’t. They discussed how I could best support them with the company’s leadership. They laid out how to put them in the optimal position to achieve levels of excellence on a consistent basis.

Then I came into the room. Together with my human resources partner, they mapped out for me what a great leader/manager looks like in their eyes. We went over everything from the meeting together. The good. The bad. Everything. It created an immediate place of safety for the members of my new team to speak their mind. I took notes, and I took action based on what I was hearing.

Now, as the new manager, you can’t recreate your principles and philosophy every time you are hired to lead a new team. It’s nevertheless important to be a listener first and to find the places where your style and their recommendations can mesh. We all want to know that our boss listens to us and cares. We want to be heard. Doing this immediately helped build that culture of trust, empowerment, real, critical feedback, and openness. That formed the basis for how we would work together. We were pushing away from the dock, so to speak, embarking on a voyage together.

This is all part of the building phase: the work of earning the respect of current and future team members, and constructing the type of culture in which people want to do excellent work. From personal experience and the wisdom of others whom I’ve been fortunate enough to interview, I am convinced that cultures of excellence come from leading with vulnerability to create a place of psychological safety and empowering your team to have ownership over their work. The greatest teams I’ve ever been part of (in sports or business) had demanding coaches who created a sense of ownership in the team among the players.

It starts with understanding what it means to build an excellent culture, and how we, as leaders, work to do it and sustain it on a daily basis so that it lasts. That means creating a place where intellectual curiosity and creativity are encouraged, and understanding when tough decisions of change have to be made. The “how” part of that equation is hard, and we will discuss it. It’s important to make it your own, with your (and your team’s) unique personality so that ownership can truly be felt and be real.

As new leaders, we easily forget that the perception of us has changed. The company has given us a form of power in our new title. We must be aware of that and act accordingly. Understand how to use that power for good and serve your team. With any change, resistance will occur. How will we choose to respond in the face of that resistance? We must be ready. We’ll talk about that.

We will also look long and hard at the most important decisions you will make as a manager: who you decide to bring on the team and who you decide to remove from the team. It will spell the difference in your career. The who is everything. We’ll define what you should look for and, most important, how to find it—and how to retain your superstars. One of my ideas on how to do that may surprise you, but I promise you, taking this approach will be the best long-term decision you can make for you, your employees, and your team.