Leadership transitions are among the most disruptive events in an organisation's life, and they are almost always underestimated. The new leader arrives with energy and ideas. The outgoing leader leaves a gap that is larger than anyone expected. The team waits to see which way things will go. This period, which can last anywhere from three months to two years, is when organisations are most vulnerable to losing good people and making poor decisions.
Why transitions take longer than expected ¶
The optimistic assumption is that a new leader will be effective within the first few months. In practice, the time needed to understand the informal dynamics of an organisation, to build trust with the team, and to develop a clear sense of what needs to change and what should stay the same is usually closer to twelve months. Organisations that pressure new leaders to produce results before this understanding is in place often get decisions that look decisive but are not well-grounded.
The outgoing leader's role ¶
The outgoing leader's behaviour during the transition period has a significant effect on how well it goes. Leaders who stay too involved make it difficult for the new person to establish authority. Leaders who disengage too quickly leave gaps that the organisation scrambles to fill. The most useful thing an outgoing leader can do is be explicit about what they know, make introductions, and then step back in a planned and visible way.
What the team needs ¶
During a leadership transition, the team needs more communication than usual, not less. They need to know what is changing and what is not. They need to know who to go to for which decisions. And they need to see that the new leader is listening before they start making changes. Teams that feel heard during a transition are significantly more likely to engage with the changes that follow.
Structured support for the incoming leader ¶
One-to-one coaching for an incoming leader during the first six months of a new role is one of the highest-return investments an organisation can make. Not because the leader needs to be fixed, but because having a structured space to reflect on what is happening, to test assumptions, and to think through difficult decisions before making them produces better outcomes than working it out alone.
A note on Portuguese organisational culture ¶
In our experience working with organisations in Portugal, leadership transitions tend to be complicated by a cultural tendency to avoid direct conflict, which means that concerns about the new direction often circulate informally for a long time before they surface in any official conversation. Creating explicit, structured channels for this feedback, rather than waiting for it to emerge naturally, makes a significant difference to how quickly the organisation settles.
If your organisation is navigating a leadership transition and you want to think through how to structure the support around it, we are happy to have that conversation.