Every senior hire arrives with a paradox attached. The resume that opened the door is also the factor most likely to get in the way, because experience earned elsewhere carries assumptions that may not survive within the new organisation. Michelle Sohn, who has led customer strategy and digital transformation work across luxury, technology and financial services at companies including American Express, Cartier, Tiffany, and Uber, draws a distinction that most leadership advice blurs: professional credentials transfer, trust does not. “My experience transferred more easily than people’s trust in me,” she says. That gap is where new executives either establish themselves or quietly stop, and it is widening now that AI can manufacture the appearance of competence faster than any leader can demonstrate the real deal.
What Credibility Measures
Credibility is often treated as a matter of presence, the ability to command a room and speak first with authority. Sohn’s definition is considerably less theatrical and even harder to fake. “Executive credibility means people can trust how you think, what you commit to, and how you handle responsibility, especially when the situation is unclear,” she says. Note what is being assessed there. Not the polish of the delivery, but the quality of the reasoning and the reliability of the follow-through. Previous roles, in her framing, buy you nothing more than attention. “Your previous roles give people a reason to listen. What happens next depends on whether you understand the business in front of you. Can you identify the real issue, ask a question that moves the discussion forward, and make a recommendation that accounts for the trade-offs?”
This repositions the pressure most new leaders feel in their first weeks. The instinct is to perform certainty, on the theory that hesitation reads as weakness. Sohn argues the opposite dynamic is at work. “Listening carefully, acknowledging what you don’t yet know, and contributing something useful can demonstrate more confidence than having an immediate answer to everything.” The person who admits the boundary of their knowledge is signalling that everything inside that boundary can be relied upon, which is a more valuable signal than blanket confidence. And the verdict is not delivered in the meeting anyway. “Credibility starts in the room, but people decide whether they can count on you through their experience of working with you.”
The Prescription Trap
The most common failure among accomplished professionals is not underperformance. It is speed. “They become so focused on demonstrating their value that they start prescribing solutions before understanding the context,” Sohn says. The incentive structure practically guarantees it: someone paid a premium for pattern recognition will reach for the pattern, particularly in the early period when they feel the need to justify the hire. The trouble is that patterns are context-dependent. “A successful approach from your previous company may depend on resources, relationships or conditions that don’t exist in the new one.” The playbook that worked elsewhere may have been carried by a budget, a relationship, or an operating environment that the new organisation simply does not have.
The cost lands in a place few leaders anticipate. “Moving too quickly can make a capable leader appear dismissive of the people already doing the work,” Sohn says, and once a team reads a new executive that way, the executive’s proposals stop being evaluated on merit. Her alternative does not involve a long observation period. “I would start by understanding what has been tried, why it stalled, and what the team knows that I don’t. That doesn’t require months of observation. You can contribute early while remaining curious.” The test she applies is simple enough to run on yourself in real time: “The distinction is whether you’re using your experience to ask better questions or treating it as proof that you already have the answer.” She is candid that the error runs in both directions. Moving from Cartier to Tiffany, she prioritized understanding the house’s way of doing things. “Looking back, I could have been bolder in both my recommendations and my actions.” Deference, held too long, is its own failure to deliver the judgement you were hired for.
Visible Judgement In An AI Era
AI has made competent-looking analysis cheap, and that has quietly devalued the currency most new leaders have traditionally used to establish themselves. A well-structured recommendation no longer proves much, because anyone can generate one. Sohn’s response is to move the evidence one layer deeper. “As AI makes it easier to produce a polished analysis or recommendation, leaders need to make their judgment more visible.” The questions she would put to any proposal are the ones a generated output cannot survive: “Can you explain the assumptions behind it, where the information may be incomplete, and what would change your recommendation? Can you connect it to the customer, the economics of the business, and the people responsible for executing it?”
Her preference is unambiguous, and it inverts the usual instinct to project total command of the material. “I would trust a leader who says, ‘Here is what the analysis suggests, here is what we still need to validate, and here is the decision I recommend,’ more than someone who presents a confident answer they cannot explain.” The practical implication for anyone positioning for a broader role over the next few years is that fluency with these tools matters mainly as a form of quality control. “Use AI where it adds value, but remain accountable for the recommendation. The ability to generate an answer doesn’t remove the responsibility to question it.” Sohn pairs that with a diagnostic worth running now. Ask a few trusted stakeholders what they rely on you for today, and what they would need to see before trusting you with more. “The gap between those answers gives you something practical to work on.” Then close it with evidence from outside your current remit: a problem that forces you into another function, reconciles competing priorities, or requires a decision with incomplete information. What compounds, in her view, is not a title. “You can build a reputation for learning quickly, exercising sound judgment, and helping other people to deliver.”
Follow Michelle Sohn on LinkedIn for more insights on executive credibility, customer strategy, and leading through organisational change.
