Leadership Transition
The adaptation of a mid-manager or a senior executive to a new job is a critical period. Expectations are high, you need to build relationships and trust in a new environment that are unfamiliar and stressful. Stress is high and there is a need for immediate results.
The job of a leadership transition coach
Coaching the winning candidate through a transition process can be the differentior of success or disappointment.
Its aim is to achieve the best possible adaptation of a new executive to his or her new team and organization. A coach helps the entry into the new work context and allowing the very best professional and personal development.
Through in-depth and thought-provoking conversations, the leadership transition coach accompanies the new leader in learning the new abilities. This will allow him or her to get the knowledge necessary to adapt to a new culture. Also a coach is facilitating the execution of new actions and the assumption of new responsibilities.
A new environment
As a leadership transition coach I’ve met executives who move to other organizations. They were highly competent with excellent technical skills and able to guarantee the success of the position. They know how to make decisions and check situations, applying the management skills that were the basis of their selection. Still, technical ability alone is insufficient for a successful adaptation. A transformational coachingh process can enable executives to challenge old and proven habits. But also can help identifying and incorporating the changes needed to reach success in a new environment.
Lighting the path
Within this context a leader may encounter one or more of the following challenges – often unconsciously. How can leadership transition coaching help? Understanding that other cultures and values also allow successful results. We overrate our personal experience, and based upon this we begin to pass judgment on the new culture we find ourselves confronting. This may lead to bias, impeding observation and learning in a new environment. The coach can help the coachee to identify his or her pre-conceptions and manage them.
Blinded by the light
Active listening and observation during the first phase of integration. Upon entering a new organization the new executive is the center of spotlight, especially from the management. He or she may try to reduce the pressure by seeking to establish the credibility of his or her knowledge. Compelling as this may seem, this can be counter-productive. The coach accompanies the coachee in this first phase of discomfort. Helping him or her to replace early answers with leading questions. Active listening to the answers – help the new entrant understand the organizational culture. Also the client will learn to identify the rules of the game and make a sound diagnosis of how things work. They can also help upper management see strategies in a new – and goal – light.
Human factor
Human resistance to change is inevitable. The new leader’s enthusiasm may come across to stakeholders as threatening rather than refreshing. The capacity to center oneself, having a wide range of emotions at hand but with none dominating – and being conscious of these – can help the newcomer step back before jumping forward.
Conclusion
It’s fundamental for a new leader to earn technical credibility. The manamagement requires immediate demonstration of the competence needed for the position. It is also essential to develop relational skills to create trust with team members in the shortest time possible. Then comes strengthening his or her connection to them and improving the coordination of his or her interactions. As a leadership transition coach I guide you in earning this trust. I offer the possibility of learning or reinforcing abilities such as the analysis of way you make commitments.
A leadership transition coach helps the leader become aware of his or habitual patterns of behavior and their outcomes.
He or she proposes interventions and provides new interpretations of the challenges he faces.
In the coaching process, the coach and the leader design and build the future together.