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Sink or Swim: The Harsh Reality of Leadership Transitions

By Leslie Braksick, Ph.D and Tim Nolan, Ph.D

Too often, leadership transition is treated less like a growth opportunity and more like a rite of passage. But developing top talent has as much to do with setting up leaders for success as it does with sending them to executive MBA courses, setting goals, and entrusting your leaders with high-profile projects. Companies spend millions each year on executive selection, but little on ensuring the successful transition of leaders and their teams. Recent research has uncovered some sobering data about leadership transitions:

70% of all leaders fail within two years of their assignment.
Perceptions of a leader’s abilities are formed with the first five days.
Leaders are expected to begin producing results within 30 days.
On average, it takes six to 12 months for new leaders to fully adapt to their new role.

Most leadership transitions are regarded as sink-or-swim propositions, and even talented leaders can sink. Sometimes weak leaders stay afloat long enough to do serious damage to their teams and companies. The trick to avoiding these maladies is not leaving the transition to chance. Putting time and energy into rapid and effective leadership transitions is an investment in results. The sooner your team members and their leader are clicking, the sooner they can meet and surpass their goals.

The market for top talent is already very tight and will only become tighter in the coming years. The time and resources put into selecting your new leaders should be matched by an investment in their development as effective managers.

The steps taken to ensure that your new leader succeeds will send a strong message to that leader, his/her peers, the team, and all the other talented leaders for whom your company will be competing in the coming years. Guard your investment in talent and don’t leave the process to chance.