At which levels of leadership within organisational structures, pose the greatest challenge to an executive’s successful transition? Across the research and literature, the number of leadership levels range from 3 to 7. However, in my recent PhD Research into leadership transitions (detailed further at the end), I could only justify the existence of 4 distinct levels that executives experience […]

All leadership transitions are challenging, however the transition to CEO or GM offers some particularly difficult challenges. Whilst researchers’ views on how many leadership levels exists varies, all agree that one of the levels / transitions is the move from a functionally based role to a general management or enterprise level. This move from the […]

Credibility is essential for leaders to be effective, but how important is it for leaders-in-transition? A lack of credibility can contribute to high rates of leadership transition failure and for the participants in my study, credibility was a frequently mentioned as a promoter of transition success. Based on either reputation or early actions, leaders-in-transition found […]

As I near the end of my doctorate, it is exciting to be able to start sharing the findings. Here are the 6 key areas of challenges leaders-in-transition faced across my research. These areas of challenge are experienced by both internally promoted leaders and externally recruited ones, during a leadership transition. Cognitive challenges The ability to […]

Leadership transitions represent a significant challenge and many leaders-in-transition (LIT) experience considerable distress. Many soon realise a distinct divergence between the realities of their situation and their expectations. They soon learn that in a new context many of their mastered competencies fail to produce the results achieved in previous roles. Often the leader-in-transition loses hope […]

Being in the write up stage of my doctorate into what promotes and inhibits a leader’s success during a leadership transition, I am keen to start sharing some of the findings. One interesting outcome thus far is that in terms of the promoters and inhibitors, it is clear that the bulk of the promoters to […]

A study of 1000 Fortune firms found that only 25% of the leaders were considered fully transitioned into their roles – performing at the expected level with the prevailing conditions and available resources*. The study was redone four years later and the number had decreased to 16%. The majority of leaders were seen as still acting like […]

The biggest predictor of executive derailment is a poor transition to a more senior role. Executive derailment is where promising leaders and executives fail to meet their expected levels of success. Easy to see when leaders resign early, are terminated, get passed over for promotions or plateau in their careers at a level lower that people expect. […]

In a survey of 588 senior executives 60% reported that it took them six months—and close to 20% said it took more than nine months—to have a full impact in their new roles. Less than a third said they had received any meaningful support during their transitions—a big problem when you consider that more than […]

Leaders making significant structural changes due to taking on a new role or as a response to business pressures, need to communicate extremely well if they want to be successful. To quote a leader from my research you need to ‘kill them with communication and love’ in order to get your change agenda moving. Recent research […]