Leadership transitions are among the most consequential moments in a leader's career and among the most perilous. Research by the Corporate Executive Board found that nearly half of senior leaders who take on new roles underperform during the transition period. Michael Watkins, in his influential work "The First 90 Days," documented the patterns that distinguish successful transitions from failures. Coaching during this critical window can dramatically improve the odds of success by providing a confidential thinking space, an objective perspective, and a structured approach to an inherently chaotic experience.
Understanding the Transition Challenge
A newly promoted executive faces multiple simultaneous challenges. They must learn the technical demands of the new role, build relationships with new stakeholders, establish credibility, understand the political landscape, and often let go of the activities and identity that made them successful in their previous position. Each of these challenges alone would be significant. Together, they can be overwhelming.
The emotional dimension of transition is often underestimated. Promotion is supposed to feel like success, and new executives often suppress the anxiety, self-doubt, and grief they experience. Grief may seem like a strange word to associate with promotion, but leaving behind a role where one was competent and confident, leaving behind relationships and routines that provided stability, is genuinely experienced as loss by many leaders. The coaching space provides a rare opportunity to process these emotions honestly.
The First Month: Listen and Learn
Coach the client to resist the urge to act decisively in the first few weeks. The most common mistake newly promoted executives make is arriving with a plan and implementing it before they understand their new context. This creates resistance, damages relationships, and often leads to poor decisions based on incomplete information.
Instead, help the client design a systematic learning process. Who are the key stakeholders they need to understand? What are the critical business challenges they need to grasp? What is the history they need to appreciate? Encourage them to schedule one-to-one conversations with their direct reports, peers, and key external stakeholders, and to approach these conversations with genuine curiosity rather than a predetermined agenda.
In coaching sessions during this period, help the client process what they are learning. What patterns are emerging? What surprises them? What are the unspoken rules of their new environment? The coach serves as a thinking partner who helps the client make sense of complex and sometimes contradictory information.
The Second Month: Build Relationships and Early Wins
By the second month, the client should be transitioning from learning to action. Coach them to identify early wins, visible achievements that build credibility and demonstrate competence without requiring major organisational change. The best early wins solve real problems that others recognise, align with the organisation's priorities, and showcase the leader's distinctive strengths.
Relationship-building continues to be a priority. Help the client think strategically about their stakeholder map. Which relationships are most critical? Where is there natural alignment, and where are there potential tensions? How does the client want to be perceived, and what behaviours will create that perception? These questions help the client be intentional about their impact rather than leaving it to chance.
Pay particular attention to the client's relationship with their new team. The leader's first interactions with direct reports set the tone for the entire working relationship. Coach the client to balance listening and direction, to resist the temptation to make immediate changes to the team, and to invest time in understanding each person's strengths, motivations, and concerns.
The Third Month: Establish Direction
By the end of the third month, the client should be in a position to articulate a clear direction for their area of responsibility. This does not mean announcing a grand strategy but rather communicating a coherent narrative about where they see the team or function heading and why. Coach the client to develop this narrative, testing it in coaching sessions before sharing it more broadly.
Help the client also establish the routines and structures that will sustain their effectiveness in the longer term. How will they manage their time between strategic and operational demands? What meeting rhythms will they establish? How will they maintain visibility with key stakeholders? How will they continue to learn and develop? These structural decisions, though they may seem mundane, have an outsized impact on the leader's long-term effectiveness.
Supporting the Ongoing Transition
The first 90 days are a critical period, but the transition does not end on day 91. Continue to support the client as they deepen into their role, addressing the challenges that emerge as the initial honeymoon period fades and the real work of leadership begins. The coaching relationship established during the transition period often becomes the foundation for a longer engagement that supports the leader through their first year and beyond.