The first ninety days in a new leadership role are rarely what people expect. Energy may be high, interest and curiorsity promote a desire to listen rather than instruct. And yet, within weeks, many new leaders find themselves navigating something they were not quite prepared for - the gap between what they know how to do and what the role actually demands of them.
This gap is not a sign of inadequacy. It is a structural feature of leadership transitions. Michael Watkins, whose research on leadership transitions remains among the most widely cited in this field, found that new leaders are disproportionately likely to underperform or derail in their first year — not because they lack capability, but because the demands of a new role differ fundamentally from those that preceded it (Watkins, 2003). The skills that earned the promotion are often not the skills the new role most requires.
This is where leadership coaching can make a meaningful difference. Engaged at the right moment, leadership coaching offers new leaders a structured, confidential space to think more clearly, act more deliberately, and build the relational foundations that high performance depends upon.
There is a temptation, in a new role, to demonstrate competence quickly. To make decisions. To show the team that things are in capable hands. This impulse is understandable — and often counterproductive.
New leaders who move too quickly into action before they have listened, understood the culture, and mapped the landscape around them frequently create problems they later have to unpick. Decisions made without full context. Priorities set before trust has been established. Signals sent — unintentionally — that certain voices matter less than others.
Research on leadership transitions consistently points to the same insight: the leaders who onboard most effectively are those who treat the first ninety days as a period of active learning, not a race to prove themselves (Bradt, Check & Pedraza, 2011). This means asking more than asserting, listening more than directing, and building relationships before attempting to change them.
It also means developing a clear-eyed view of what the role actually requires — which is rarely identical to what was described in the interview process.
At its best, leadership coaching is what allows a capable leader to become an excellent one by accelerating the quality of their self-awareness, their decision-making, and their relationships.
For leaders in their first ninety days, coaching typically works across three interconnected areas.
Understanding the culture before trying to shape it. Every organisation has a set of unwritten rules that govern what is valued, what is tolerated, and what is off-limits. New leaders often enter without a reliable map. A coach can help a leader read these signals more accurately — and avoid the costly mistake of importing ways of working that suited a previous culture but misfit the current one. As Schein (2010) argued, culture is not just backdrop; it is the medium through which leadership is experienced and evaluated.
Developing self-awareness under pressure. The conditions of a new role — high visibility, unfamiliar relationships, and the pressure to perform — can intensify a leader's less helpful patterns. Those who tend to over-control may tighten their grip. Those who are conflict-averse may avoid the difficult conversations that early-stage trust-building actually requires. Coaching creates the reflective space to notice these patterns before they take hold. Research on self-awareness in leadership consistently shows that leaders who understand how they are experienced by others are more effective over time (Atwater & Yammarino, 1992).
Building psychological safety early. The way a new leader behaves in their first weeks sets the emotional tone for months to come. Whether people feel safe to speak honestly, raise concerns, and challenge ideas depends substantially on the signals that leader sends — in meetings, in one-to-ones, and in how they respond to mistakes. Edmondson's (1999) research on psychological safety shows that team members take their cues from the leader about what is safe to say. A coach can help a new leader think carefully about those signals, and act on them deliberately rather than by default.
Leadership is not only an individual endeavour. It is something the team experiences — in the tone of meetings, in whether dissent is welcomed or quietly discouraged, in whether people feel seen and heard or managed from a distance.
This means that coaching for a new leader has a systemic dimension. The shifts a leader makes — in how they listen, how they respond to uncertainty, how they create space for others — ripple outward. They begin to shape what the team believes is possible and what kind of culture they are part of.
A new leader working with an executive coach is not only investing in their own development. They are investing, indirectly, in the environment their team will work in. That is a meaningful return — particularly in a period when first impressions become lasting ones.
References:
Atwater, L. E., & Yammarino, F. J. (1992). Does self-other agreement on leadership perceptions moderate the validity of leadership and performance predictions? Personnel Psychology, 45(1), 141–164.
Bradt, G. B., Check, J. A., & Pedraza, J. E. (2011). The new leader's 100-day action plan. Wiley.
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 350–383.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Watkins, M. (2003). The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press.