For organisations, promotions are usually over the moment they are announced. But the person promoted now needs to act according to a new set of rules that have not been spelled out clearly. The audience has also changed the day the title did, and a full set of new expectations was raised immediately.
The first six months after a new leader is appointed contain mostly doubt if there is no support. The person who was excellent at the last job is now being measured on completely new things, by people whose expectations they cannot yet read, in front of a team who are watching them extremely closely. Many don’t get through that period.
A significant number of new leaders fail in the first two years. And of those who succeed, almost none would call that period a good time. We are not promising a smooth transition, but what our work changes is how long the uncertainty lasts, and how much it costs the firm and the person. Within a short time the leader can usually tell what success means in the new role and who judges it, which relationships are important and which are dangerous, and how they actually want to lead. By then, that newfound leadership style starts to have a positive impact on the people they now lead.
of executive transitions are regarded as failures or disappointments two years on. Of the transitions that fail, 68 percent do so on politics, culture and people rather than on strategy or capability.
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How well your promotions are actually going.
We look at the leadership teams you already have, who was promoted in, how those moves have actually gone, how the teams are performing now, and where the next promotion is most likely to fail. Our diagnostics show you whether there are actually “leadership problems” in your organisation that require further action.
Six months, one-to-one, with a leader stepping into a bigger role.
Six months of regular one-to-one coaching, then lighter periodic check-ins while the person settles in the new role. The work starts before day one, with a private conversation with the leader and a three-way conversation with the sponsor to agree what success looks like and when we review it together. The sponsor helps set the goals, but what the leader says in the sessions always remains confidential.
For organisations promoting into leadership regularly.
If you move people into leadership several times a year, you already know the same difficulties come back. Instead of dealing with these issues one person at a time, these programmes put a cohort of new leaders through the journey together. For your organisation, this is more efficient, and your new leaders will stop thinking that they are the only ones finding it hard.
Failure under pressure is usually a problem of not seeing clearly, rather than a character or performance problem. Someone can be excellent and still be operating in the dark. We help you illuminate both pillars: what you need to strengthen yourself (Pillar I) and how to read the new environment (Pillar II).
Pillar I · The person
Imposter experience arrives at every new level, even for the most accomplished leaders. Suddenly they feel they don’t deserve their new role or are not up to it, and there are few people they can talk about it with. We anchor executives in their human foundation: why they wanted this role, what core strengths brought them here, who they are without the title. In every leader we have worked with, there are real strengths that got them where they are. We help them become aware of them again and apply them to the specific situation they are in now. This is how healthy self-confidence is built.
Pillar II · The room
Most organisations treat navigating a new level as a matter of character, which is both unfair and inaccurate: navigation is about information, and information can be acquired. This field has three levels, which are not symmetrical: Above the leader are the sponsors and decision-makers. A leader needs to learn what earns their support and what loses it. Beside the leader are the peers, whose cooperation is needed, but which needs to be earned. Below the leader is their team, who were equals a short while ago, and who are now watching them with a negativity bias. Some of them may think they were better qualified to get the role and may even act destructively.
Our methodology is on the one hand based on many years of concrete executive coaching experience by Luminum Partners in complex, high-stakes environments. On the other hand, we base our work on the research of some of the world’s foremost authorities on leadership and leadership transitions, with whom some of us have worked personally. On this basis, we have developed our own methodology. Among the most important influences are Michael Watkins of IMD, Herminia Ibarra of London Business School, Linda A. Hill of Harvard Business School, and Jean-François Manzoni of IMD.
Growing into a bigger role happens in a sequence of phases. They overlap, and how long each one lasts differs from leader to leader. Each phase asks something different of the leader, and therefore we work differently in each. We accompany a person from before the role formally begins to the point where the leader has successfully arrived in it.
Before the role formally begins, the leader sits in an anticipatory state: a mix of excitement about the mandate and quiet self-questioning about whether they’re really ready for it. They may ask themselves questions such as: “why me, why now”, or also to the contrary, be in a state of over-confidence, over-estimating their leadership capabilities at this point.
Coaching outcome: A structured mandate conversation with the sponsor present, preceded by a private purpose conversation with the leader.
A leader’s thinking needs to be elevated from delivering operationally to enterprise-level strategic thinking: the leader shifts from doing a job they know to reading and shaping the organisation and people around them (e.g. sensing unspoken politics, learning what “good” means at this new altitude).
Coaching outcome: Stakeholder/ecosystem mapping exercise, paired with strengths-and-purpose coaching, so the leader isn’t only reading the room, they’re also understanding why they’re in it.
The old self doesn’t quite fit the new chair, yet: the leader experiences several identity and behavioural shifts (e.g. no longer being the doer but being responsible for others doing).
Coaching outcome: Naming the disorientation as part of the new ecosystem, and not personal failing; the leader practises small identity-stretch experiments and grows into new ways of thinking.
Under real pressure for the first time, the leader’s old behaviour patterns resurface: the identity shift from Phase 2 is tested against high-stakes situations (e.g. reverting to hands-on tactical work when overwhelmed, doubting whether the new way of leading actually holds).
Coaching outcome: Catch regression in real time and use it as live material in the safe environment of the coaching sessions, reducing the tendency to regress in real business situations.
Sustained psychological change, not a one-time event: the new way of leading becomes ordinary rather than effortful, and the isolation of the top slowly gives way to a felt sense of belonging.
Coaching outcome: Shift from active scaffolding to periodic reinforcement.
A settling into who the leader has become: pride and integration replace the acute uncertainty of earlier phases, alongside a natural sense of arrival. Active coaching support recedes.
The leader has finally completely arrived in their new role.
Coaching outcome: Reflect with the leader on who they’ve become, not (just) what they delivered. Potentially a closing three-way conversation with the sponsor.
For more on this: Read the article: The year after the promotion →
LUMINUM Partners fully customises every mandate, because every organisation’s situation is different and every leader is at a different place in their journey.
Please get in touch to arrange a completely non-binding discovery call.
Write to hello@luminumpartners.com, or use the form.