Did you know that without transition support, most leaders fail in their first 2 years? (Gallup)
It’s critical that new leaders are set up for success in their all-important first 120 days
Effective leadership transitions drive results.
Studies from Harvard Business Review, McKinsey, Forbes etc. show that structured transition support can double a leader's chances of success,
leading to:
90%
Higher chance of achieving 3 year performance goals
85%
Greater team performance with leaders who are well-supported during transitions.
13%
Reduced risk of leadership attrition and turnover
80%
Higher engagement and retention among teams when leaders receive effective support.
5%
Measurable increase in overall revenue and profit growth
1000%
Return on investment from transition programs, boosting performance, profit, and retention.
Best-practice approach with two parts:
Xcelerator Day Overview
A single day in the first month that will accelerate your new leader’s relationships, insights and clarity by months.
What:
Explore and articulate our strategic priorities and leadership style(s) you need to prioritise.
Why:
Your goals, worries, legacy
My Team Synergy (MTS) workshop
Styles, strengths, skills, gaps
Who: Talent and stakeholders:
Team talent plan, identify other key people
Your Starting Point
We’ll send an engagement survey to your team
Your Mark
What mark do you want to make
Your Plan:
What are you going to do in the next 180 days
Momentum Phase Overview
Time commitment: Two 90-minute sessions | One 3-hour session | Spread over 3 months
Powerful accountability coaching to support purposeful action, build relationships and develop awareness.
[ 3-months coaching ]
Month 2
Culture and Clarity
+ Culture Review (and/or VoC) Results
+ General Transition Coaching
+ Confirm Stakeholders to Invite to Session
Month 3
Progress and People
+ Cross Functional Synergy (CFS)
+ Reflections and Insights from Stakeholder Session
+ General Transition Coaching
+ Select Stakeholders for 360 Feedback
Month 4
Awareness + Adjustment
+ 360 Feedback Debrief
+ General Transition Coaching
+ 180-Day Plan Revisit
Your Xcelerator Day Detailed Agenda
This day is all about you. It’s a confidential and supportive space where you can ask questions, reflect, dive deep, and gain the clarity and confidence needed to succeed in your new role.
Guided by an experienced facilitator using world-class tools and an evidence-based approach, you’ll achieve breakthroughs and insights that set you on the right path. This process helps you shape your journey intentionally, ensuring that when you look back on this exciting and transformative chapter, it reflects the story you want to tell.
WHY
Your goals, worries, legacy.
START WITH YOUR AMBITIONS
As a leader, you want to make a lasting impact. This day is dedicated to helping you define your legacy, align your ambitions with the expectations of key stakeholders, and gain clarity on the outcomes that matter most. Together, we’ll explore your goals, aspirations, and challenges, ensuring you have a clear plan to prioritize your efforts and drive meaningful results. By the end of the day, you’ll have the confidence, focus, and direction needed to turn your vision into reality.
"Start with the end in mind"
- Stephen Covey
WHAT
Explore and articulate your strategic priorities and leadership style(s) you need to prioritise
Research shows that the most effective leaders are those who can adapt their style to suit different situations. To succeed, you’ll need to consistently adjust and flex your approach based on the context.
Different leadership styles are better suited to specific scenarios. Considering your goals and the context you’re operating in, which leadership style will you need to consciously lean into most often?
Counselor
A thoughtful, compassionate measured leader, retaining talent and creating warmth,
Advisor
A meticulously planned, careful leader creating clarity and control through process and data.
Counselor
An exciting, high-energy, people-oriented leader with ambitious big-picture visions.
Driver
An urgent, driven wartime leader with lofty ambitions and a strong sense of urgency, pushing through roadblocks.
MY TEAM SYNERGY (MTS) WORKSHOP
Change the pace with a 2-hour REACH profiles debrief with your direct reports.
Accelerate your understanding of your team while equipping your leadership AI with key insights into their communication styles, intrinsic motivators, natural trust levels, and more.
This engaging and energising 2-hour workshop fosters a shared understanding and common language, enhancing collaboration, communication, and trust. The result? A team that works more effectively and achieves results faster.
The workshop is designed to be fun, enlightening, and relationship-building, helping you strengthen connections within your team while laying the groundwork for informed decision-making in your talent strategy (covered in the next session).
“As a new leader, you need to re-recruit your team, to your leadership “
- Ajit Kambil
WHO: TALENT AND STAKEHOLDERS
Team talent plan, identify other key people
You will succeed through people.
You’ll have the opportunity to reflect on your current talent, team structure, and roles, laying the foundation for plans to develop or make changes within your immediate team.
By combining your understanding of team members with insights from the Team Workshop and aligning them with your priorities, you’ll create a focused talent plan.
Next, you’ll identify 6-10 key stakeholders outside of your direct reports, including allies, enablers, and potential blockers. Together, we’ll develop strategies for building proactive and supportive relationships with these individuals.
This stakeholder list will also serve as a starting point for the upcoming Stakeholder Session and 360 feedback process in the months ahead.
Session outcomes:
+ Evaluate your confidence in each team member's capability to implement your vision
+ Reflect on the needs and aversions of key stakeholders.
+ Generate ideas for effective influence strategies
YOUR STARTING POINT
“Culture Eats Strategy for breakfast.” Peter Drucker
Have you inherited a team with the right resources to excel - and a culture that inspires them to want to?
As a leader, you’ll have the opportunity to influence culture and enhance engagement. To ensure you prioritise effectively, we’ll conduct a REACH Culture Survey with your team. In your first Momentum Phase Coaching session, we’ll use the survey insights to baseline, benchmark, and analyse your team’s culture, identifying the quick wins that will drive the greatest impact.
YOUR MARK
What’s the story they will tell about your time as leader?
Before building your plan, take a moment to reflect. We began the day by exploring your goals, concerns, and the legacy you want to create. Together, we’ve analysed your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; considered the type of leader you aspire to be; prioritised your objectives; dived deep into your team dynamics; and developed a talent and stakeholder strategy.
Now, as you prepare to finalise your plan and determine your next steps, take one last moment to reflect: What mark will you leave behind?
“Be the change you want to see in the world”
- Ghandi
YOUR 180-DAY PLAN
Transitioning from envisioning to actionable steps.
Reflecting on your priorities, team, stakeholder relationships, and the immediate actions needed for quick wins, identify the key foundations you need to start laying for your bigger-picture goals. Write down your top priorities and, using the talent analysis above, determine which tasks can be delegated to team members.
We’ll set these up for you in Teams or via the web, depending on your preference. If you use Teams, our plugin will allow you to track and update your progress seamlessly. If not, we’ll ensure you can access and manage your tasks online.
Momentum Phase Details
Time commitment: Two 90-minute sessions | One 3-hour session | Spread over 3 months
Powerful accountability coaching to support purposeful action, build relationships and develop awareness.
3-months transition coaching, accountability and strategic activities
Session 1: Culture and Clarity
90 minutes | 2nd month in the role
+ 30 minutes: Team Pulse Check Results, Analysis, and Action Plan
On the Xcelerator Day, we initiated a Team Pulse Check. Over the past month, we’ve gathered world-class insights, including traffic-lit analysis, benchmarking, recommended actions, sentiment analysis, and key metrics such as intention to stay.
The results are presented in a clear, AI-driven format with logic-based recommendations, providing the new leader with a comprehensive view of team culture and actionable steps to create a positive impact.
+ 45 minutes: Coaching Based on Context and Challenges
Focused coaching tailored to the leader’s specific context and current challenges.
+ 15 minutes: Preparing for the Upcoming Stakeholder Session
Discussion on who to invite to the Stakeholder Session and how to position the invitation.
Next month, as part of the people strategy, it’s recommended to run a Stakeholder Session. This session fosters shared understanding, psychological safety, alignment, and trust between the new leader and key stakeholders, creating a results-oriented coalition.
Session 2: Progress and People
3 hours | 3rd month in the role
+ 2 hours: Cross Functional Synergy (CFS)
A fun and interactive session leveraging REACH profiles to build trust, synergy, and alignment between the leader and their key stakeholders. This session helps repair early missteps or bumps, fosters alignment, and removes roadblocks, creating vital alliances to achieve outcomes.
+ 45 minutes: Coaching Session
Focused coaching based on context, challenges, and insights from the Stakeholder Session. The session will emphasize accountability, progress, and strategies for overcoming blockers.
+ 15 minutes: Preparing for the Final Session
In the next and final session of the Xcelerator program, we’ll conduct a best-practice debrief of 360 feedback from the leader’s team and key stakeholders. During this 15-minute segment, we’ll decide who to include in the feedback process and set clear expectations.
Session 3: Awareness and Adjustment
90-minutes | 4th month in the role
+ 45 minutes: 360 Feedback Debrief
The coach will debrief the leader on their 360 feedback, focusing on what’s working well, potential derailers or blind spots, and purposeful steps to take.
+ 40 minutes: Coaching Based on Context and Challenges
With a particular focus on reviewing the 180-day plan written three months ago, the session will consider new insights and feedback, exploring any necessary adaptations at this point.
+ 5 minutes: Wrap-Up, Close, and Reflections
The Xcelerate 120 transition support program including the 1-day Xcelerator launch event and then 3 coaching sessions, truly sets leaders up for success.
Outcomes from the program:
Strengths
Gain clarity on your strengths and awareness of your gaps and tendencies. Extend this awareness to those of your new team and within the context of your organisation.
Strategy
In light of the strengths, gaps, risks, and opportunities in you, your team, and other surrounding contexts, develop your strategy and gain clarity on your priorities.
Stakeholders
People are your pathway to success. You’ll develop strategies around your closest stakeholders (current team), your peers, managers, and other key influencers - both allies and potential blockers - ensuring you have a plan and process to set yourself up for success.
An incredible outcome from 1-day and 3 sessions over 4 months.
It’s no wonder that studies show that leader transition programs can achieve 1000% ROI
Set your new leader up for success in their new role
With the Leader Xcelerator 120, we’ll equip them with the tools, insights, and support needed to thrive.