 Executive Transitions
Market Study
by Leland A. Russell
Three Excellence In Execution leadership mindsets—Think Strategically, Focus Sharply, Move Quickly—are the foundation of Leadership In FastTime®. Together, they provide a comprehensive mental model with achieving breakthrough performance.
By practicing nine proven principles, you can translates the Leadership In FastTime® mindsets into effective action.
Leadership Principle Nine, LEAD THE TRANSITIONS, is an antidote for the weak beginnings and endings that waste valuable time and resources. It provides leadership guidelines for starting initiatives and projects in a smart way and finishing them with finesse to maximize results.
EXECUTIVE TRANSITIONS are one of the critical transitions for every organization. This is especially true today given that both the number of executive transitions and the complexity is expected to increase dramatically. According to a study by Booz Allen Hamilton in 2007, global CEO turnover is at roughly 15%, the highest it has been in the past decade. Other studies point to 40% of new leaders failing within the first 18 months. Aon Consulting reports there is a 50% chance an executive will quit or be fired within his first three years.
The cost of failure with executive transitions can be significant. Along with direct costs of recruiting, sign on bonuses, and exit packages, come numerous indirect costs which can be even greater such as alienated employees, customers, suppliers, and tarnished brand image.
The Institute of Executive Development and Alexcel Group conducted an Executive Transitions Market Study to get a deeper understanding of this critical issue. Their study examined:
- Transitions that top executives make into and through organizations
- Road blocks that can occur in the process
- Organizational roles and processes that may facilitate such transitions and change.
A few key lessons learned have emerged for leadership: Focus on early wins while learning as much as you can about the culture, what your team needs, whose opinion counts, and with whom you need to create partnerships. While both business acumen and people acumen are essential, failure tends to happen when the latter is ignored, as we will see in this report.
“These lessons are important for leaders and organizations to understand,” says leadership development expert and executive coach Patricia Wheeler, Managing Partner of The Levin Group and current Managing Director of Alexcel Group, “because they expect internal transfers to be seamless and require little help; our results show that, in fact, this is not the case. As 20% of senior executives are not successful when they change roles internally companies need to take notice. Our results suggest that a relatively small amount of time, if invested correctly, will help senior executives assimilate in their new roles and may prevent the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars and work-hours.”
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