Leaders in Transition

People's lives are a story of transition. We are always leaving one chapter behind while moving on to the next. Transitions, whether personal or professional, mark pivotal moments filled with a blend of emotions—for example, anticipation, stress, and uncertainty—as well as a host of new challenges.

Throughout a leader's life cycle, the individual is likely to face numerous transitions, whether it is their first leadership role, a promotion, expanded responsibility, or preparing to retire. For instance, a leader whom a company hires externally may be challenged with learning the nuances of organizational culture; a newly promoted leader may need to build muscle in strategic-thinking skills; and a leader taking on a struggling function may need to focus on how to lead through resistance and create transformational change.

As leaders navigate such phases, the experience and complexity often intensify, demanding a balance of guidance and support. The talent development function can direct and support leaders through their pivotal transitions by following the STEPS (scan, tailor, explore, plan, stay connected) model for transition coaching, a proven framework to aid leaders through their journeys.

You don't need to be a professional coach to offer transition coaching for leaders within your organization. Any TD professional who has a role in supporting a leader's success can offer it.

I created the STEPS model from my 18 years of experience in coaching leaders through the leadership life cycle. It applies to leaders going through any transition, so it's an extremely accessible model for TD professionals.

Best practice is to execute:

• The scan step prior to a leader stepping into a new role

• The tailor, explore, and plan steps over the first 90 to 180 days of a leader's transition

• The stay connected step continually after the transition coaching engagement ends

The ideal time to work with a leader in transition is in the moments when they are actively feeling the pain points of their challenge. Especially in the case of a leader who is new to their role, coaching helps make the difference between success or failure. As Michael D. Watkins writes in The First 90 Days, a new leader's success or failure is determined in their first three months.

Scan

The purpose of the first step is to identify where in the company transitions are occurring and the method for engaging leaders. Scan the leadership landscape on an ongoing basis to be on the lookout for individuals who may be experiencing a transition.

Use technology, such as the organization's HR information system, to learn of promotions and external leadership hires. Also, leverage your internal HR partners because they are often in the know about leadership changes. In executing this step, create a systematic and repeatable process for identifying and engaging with leaders in transition.

Tailor

For the various transition types, create a list of tailored topics that the leader could face. For example, in your work with leaders, you likely know that managing former peers may be a challenge for a first-time leader; a newly promoted leader may be navigating how to lead leaders for the first time; and a retiring leader may be struggling with how to let go and ensure knowledge transfer to a successor.

Be thoughtful about what the leader may be undergoing at that time. Doing so provides you with a foundation from which to draw before ever beginning the coaching engagement. The initial list serves as an anchor point in early conversations with the leader but will continue to evolve over time as you work with them.

Explore

At this point, begin working with the transitioning leader. Discuss the possible topics specific to their transition that you created from the previous step and ask for their reaction and feedback. For instance, let's say I am working with an internally promoted leader, and I suggest that one of our coaching topics be on the importance of strong stakeholder relationships. The leader may react by saying that they don't need to focus on that because they know the stakeholders with whom they'll be working and already have good relationships with them.

To explore that further, I would challenge them to think more deeply about their perspective by asking such questions as:

• Now that you're in a more senior leadership role and have new responsibilities, how might you see your relationship with the stakeholders changing?

• How might the expectations between you and the stakeholders look different?

• How might your interactions change now that you'll be peers?

• How might the nature and purpose of your interactions change (that is to say, from tactical to more strategic conversations)?

Asking such thought-provoking questions often causes the leader to reflect and realize that the topic is relevant to them after all.

The purpose of exploring the leader's reaction to the list of possible transition coaching topics is not to prove that they must explore the topics you're suggesting, but rather to encourage reflection regarding the relevance and benefits of discussing topics that frequently come with the nature of leadership transitions.

On the other end of the spectrum, if a leader insists that coaching around a topic will not benefit them, you should remain unattached to the topics you suggest and honor the leader's wishes to coach around whatever topics they find most pertinent and beneficial.

After discussing the topics list and receiving the leader's feedback, inquire about what else they may want to explore during the transition coaching engagement. Use your active listening skills to understand what the leader is uniquely enduring as it relates to their transition, and meet them where they are.

For example, I would ask: What else do you see as your priorities and challenges during the next few months? A leader coming externally from the retail industry into a new role within healthcare may share that their unique challenge is to learn the nuances of healthcare. Upon the leader sharing that challenge, I would further explore the topic by asking curious coaching questions in the moment as well as when the topic resurfaces throughout our engagement such as:

• What do you need to let go of?

• What experience and wisdom are you applying from your past to your current situation?

• What rules or beliefs do you have that are getting in the way?

• What competencies, abilities, or skills do you want or need to develop?

• How are you growing? What are you learning?

Engage with the leader's manager to gain additional input regarding what else to cover during the transition coaching engagement. The leader's manager will likely suggest coaching topics that the coachee may not have thought about due to lack of experience or exposure. For instance, a newly promoted vice president may not yet have faced the complexities of organizational politics that often come with senior-level leadership roles and, therefore, would not think to suggest the topic to explore.

Plan

This step entails creating a tailored transition coaching plan that incorporates the list of topics from the previous two steps. Discuss with the coachee what you'll cover and provide an overview of your role as their coach, their role as the client, and their manager's role during the transition coaching engagement. Also discuss the cadence of coaching sessions—I recommend every other week to ensure momentum toward coaching goals.

Emphasize that because coaching is a client-driven engagement, the leader should come to coaching sessions with other topics that arise along the way. You don't want coachees to think that they cannot alter the plan.

For example, I had a coaching client who held some strong beliefs around delegating. He was struggling with how to step into his leadership role because he thought he should still be rolling up his sleeves daily to work alongside his team. Through our coaching partnership, we explored whether that mindset was still working for him, how his beliefs were driving his behavior, and the consequences of that behavior on his team. It was fascinating to see him wrestle with his beliefs until, one day, he came to me and said: "If the company is paying me to lead this team, and I'm always in the trenches, then what does the company need me for?"

It was exciting to watch him go through that leadership transformation. The changes he made in his approach to delegating not only made him a better leader, but his team grew stronger as well because they were challenged with building new skills.

To produce maximum value from a coaching engagement, consider scheduling checkpoint meetings with the leader and their manager to facilitate three-way discussions to celebrate progress, reflect on learnings, and calibrate for what's next and what's left. For instance, before the checkpoint meeting at the three-month mark, I ask the leader to come prepared to discuss questions such as:

• What are your key learnings and insights thus far regarding our transition coaching topics?

• From what we've discussed so far, where are you feeling most confident and competent, and where are you feeling the need for more focus and development?

For a six-month coaching engagement, I usually schedule a checkpoint meeting with the leader and their manager at the beginning, at the three-month mark, and at the end of the coaching engagement.

Stay connected

As the coaching engagement comes to a close, the final step becomes an opportunity for you and the leader to reflect on their learning and growth as well as look forward to their path ahead. In doing so, you solidify an alliance with the individual, which naturally creates space for you to walk alongside them during future transitions.

Offer quarterly coaching check-ins. Leaders often cherish the opportunity to remain close to their transition coach as a resource for working through additional challenges that no doubt come up as the leader continues to acclimate and grow in their role.

Keep good notes during the coaching sessions. That way, you can review them later to inform your future interactions. For example, if you finished working with someone one year ago, and you know they were a couple years away from retirement, it's a perfect opportunity to check in on their timeline and offer transition coaching.

Feature the leaders you've coached. Highlight them in company forums, presentations, leadership programs, and panels. That enables you to stay connected with them as well as becomes a way to spotlight the value of STEPS work to other leaders in the organization.

A seamless integration

A benefit of the STEPS model is that it easily integrates into existing talent management processes because it offers a practical approach to support leaders going through transition. If your company has a mature succession management process, for instance, integrate the framework into preparing a successor for a next-level role or supporting a successor who has recently received a promotion. Or, if your organization is committed to robust leadership development programs, leverage elements of the model into the program design phase.

You could also incorporate topics from the explore step to delve into what a cohort of leaders may be experiencing via group and team coaching sessions. Through the STEPS model's applicability in numerous scenarios and settings, TD professionals can reach for it when seeking to augment or take their TD strategies to the next level.

Development takes a village, so the more support leaders receive during a transition, the more successful the transition will likely be. As William Bridges writes in Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes: "Change is situational. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological. It is not those events, but rather the inner reorientation or self-redefinition that you must go through to incorporate any of those changes into your life. Without transition, a change is just a rearrangement of the furniture. Unless transition happens, the change won't work, because it doesn't take."

Coaching leaders through important transitions can help ensure that a change isn't just a rearrangement of the furniture, but something transformative that becomes a meaningful inflection point full of discovery, insight, and productive action forward for the leader.