Leaders who are onboarding into new organizations must therefore focus on learning and adapting to the new culture. Otherwise they risk suffering the organizational equivalent of organ rejection syndrome (with the new leaders being the organs). They do things that trigger the organization’s immune system and find themselves under attack as a foreign body. Even in situations (such as turnarounds) when you have been brought in explicitly to import new ways of doing things, you still have to learn about the organization’s culture and politics to socialize and customize your approach.
