How Does Executive Coaching Support a New Chief Executive's First Year?
Being appointed chief executive of an organisation is one of the most visible steps in an executive's career. From the moment the appointment is announced, the board, the team, customers and the wider sector begin to watch the new chief executive's first moves. The executive has to bring the experience that served them well in previous roles to a new organisation, a new team and often a different culture. The first year is the period in which that experience is adapted to the new context and the executive's position within the organisation takes shape.
Decisions taken in this period have a lasting effect. The assessments made of the inherited team, the priorities set in the first months and the working relationship established with the board lay the ground for the years that follow. The higher an executive rises, the fewer people they can openly consult. The team looks to the executive for direction. The board looks for results. Between these two expectations the executive needs a neutral space in which to test their own thinking.
Executive coaching is one of the structures that answers this need. An executive coaching process with a newly appointed chief executive turns the first year into a planned period of development. In the executive coaching work E&E Group has carried out with more than 2,000 executives, we see that first-year support also delivers a clear return for the organisation. In this article we look at what awaits a new chief executive in the first year, how the executive coaching process is structured around this period and what the organisation gains from it.
What Awaits a New Chief Executive in the First Year?
The first months are a period of learning. The new chief executive wants to get to know the organisation's financial position, operational structure, customer relationships and ongoing projects quickly. Written reports provide part of this picture. How the organisation really works, however, often emerges in conversations, meetings and everyday moments of decision. Where the executive obtains information and how they weigh it directly affects the soundness of their first decisions.
The inherited team is the second key area. The new chief executive starts working with a leadership team formed before their arrival. Some team members may have been candidates for the same role, others may have worked closely with the previous executive. Getting to know each member's strengths and development areas takes time. Staffing decisions made too early can shake the team's trust. Postponing decisions, on the other hand, can slow the organisation down. The new chief executive has to find a balanced path between these two risks.
The mark left by the predecessor is also part of this period. Following an executive who held the role for many years and was embraced by the team can mean that every step the new chief executive takes is compared with that experience. Conversely, arriving after a difficult period may leave the team expecting rapid change. In either case, it takes time for the new chief executive to express their own leadership style in a way that respects the organisation's past and takes account of the team's expectations.
The relationship with the board forms the third area. Although the board's expectations were discussed during the appointment process, how they translate into day-to-day leadership becomes clear in the first months. Which matters are referred to the board, how often reporting takes place and where the limits of decision-making authority lie all take shape in this period. In family businesses or organisations with complex ownership structures, this relationship takes on even more layers.
Organisational culture is the fourth and often the least visible area. Every organisation has its unwritten rules, decision-making habits and ways of communicating. When a new chief executive carries over methods that worked in their previous organisation unchanged, those methods may be received differently in the new one. Understanding the culture is a step to take before deciding to change it. Skipping that step can lead even well-intentioned change initiatives to meet resistance.
External stakeholders are also added to the first-year agenda. Key customers, business partners, financial institutions and industry representatives want to meet the new chief executive and form an impression of the organisation's direction. The order of these meetings, the messages to be given and how the executive will represent the organisation externally are planned separately in the first months. First contact with external stakeholders can play a decisive role in shaping perceptions of the organisation's new chapter.
This demanding agenda also has a cost for the executive's own energy. A new role often means long working hours, frequent travel and changes to personal routines. Some appointments also require the executive to relocate to another city or country. How the executive manages their time and energy, which work they delegate and which areas they keep for themselves are matters not to be overlooked for the first year to be sustainable.
What these four areas share is that they come to the fore in the moments when the executive is on their own. Although the chief executive has the widest access to information in the organisation, the number of people with whom that information can be discussed candidly is limited. Conversations with team members may be shaped by their own positions. Conversations with the board carry an element of evaluation. In the first year, a space independent of internal dynamics in which the executive can test their thinking therefore becomes important.
How Is the Executive Coaching Process Structured?
An executive coaching process with a newly appointed chief executive begins immediately after the appointment or alongside the start date. In the first stage a three-way meeting is held with the executive, the coach and a representative of the organisation. The organisation's expectations of the new chief executive, the executive's own goals and the framework of the process are discussed together. Putting the organisation's expectations and the executive's development goals on the same table ensures that the process serves both the executive and the organisation.
At the start of the process, assessment tools are used to establish the executive's behavioural tendencies and work preferences. This data makes visible how the executive's strengths can be used in the new role and which areas call for conscious adaptation. Assessment results are shared only with the executive and the coach. The scope of information to be passed to the organisation is set out clearly at the outset.
This confidentiality framework is the foundation of the process's credibility. When the executive knows that the thoughts and doubts shared in sessions will not be passed on to the organisation, they address the matters on their agenda more openly. Updates to the organisation focus on progress against the agreed goals rather than on the content of sessions. The organisation can thus follow the course of the process while the executive has a safe space to work in.
The points agreed at the start of the process are set out below:
• Development goals for the first year and how they connect with the organisation's strategy
• The frequency and length of sessions, and the more intensive schedule in the first months
• The confidentiality of what is discussed in sessions and the scope of information passed to the organisation
• The timing of interim reviews and who attends them
• The method for the review held at the end of the process
The session schedule follows the natural rhythm of the first year. Sessions are more frequent in the first three months. In this period the executive's agenda centres on learning, building relationships and setting first priorities. In the months that follow, sessions move to a less frequent rhythm and the agenda turns to the outcomes of the decisions the executive has put into practice, the working arrangements with the team and the relationship with the board.
Sessions can be held in person or online. Given the executive's demanding schedule and travel, a balanced mix of the two is preferred. In some processes the coach, with the executive's consent, attends a leadership meeting as an observer. This observation offers an opportunity for direct feedback on how the executive runs meetings, communicates with the team and takes decisions. Structured feedback gathered from team members and board members around the sixth month also allows the executive to compare their own perception with that of those around them.
The content of sessions is drawn from the executive's own agenda. One session may focus on the executive's observations of the inherited team, while another may address how to present a strategic plan to the board. The coach takes an approach that deepens the executive's questions. Voicing their own thinking, testing their assumptions and weighing alternatives together helps the executive take decisions on a more considered footing.
Coach matching is one of the decisive steps in this process. A coach working with a new chief executive who has senior leadership experience and understands the organisation's sector and scale is better placed to assess the situations the executive faces in the right context. The executive's working style and communication preferences are also taken into account in the matching. The trust built between coach and executive directly affects how open the sessions are and how productive the process becomes. We set out the criteria we use for matching in detail in our article What Criteria Are Used to Match Coach and Executive in Executive Coaching?.
Interim reviews keep the process on course. The interim review, usually held around the sixth month, covers the extent to which initial goals have been met, newly emerging needs and the priorities for the remainder of the process. The participation of an organisational representative in this meeting allows the organisation to see the executive's development and to update its expectations.
This support carries particular weight for executives who take up their role after a discreetly run search. These executives often meet their teams on their first day and acquire much of their knowledge of the organisation in the first weeks. The first weeks of the executive coaching process are therefore planned on a more intensive schedule, running in parallel with the executive getting to know the organisation.
What Does the Organisation Gain?
The first gain of executive coaching is that the new chief executive's onboarding proceeds in a more planned way. Every appointment involves a period of adjustment. How long it lasts and how smoothly it goes, however, are closely linked to the support the executive receives. A planned executive coaching process helps the executive clarify priorities earlier and demonstrate their contribution to the organisation sooner.
The second gain is the quality of the relationship with the leadership team. When the new chief executive tests their assessments of team members with the coach, staffing decisions rest on firmer ground. An assessment of the team as a whole can support this process. Making the distribution of competencies within the team and the areas that are missing visible gives the new chief executive objective data to draw on when shaping the team. We shared this approach in detail in our article How Is a Leadership Team Assessed as a Whole?.
The third gain is the working relationship with the board. In the executive coaching process, presentations to the board, how difficult subjects will be handled and how differences in expectation will be managed are discussed. This preparation helps move communication between the board and the chief executive onto a more open and predictable footing. The participation of an organisational representative in interim reviews also allows both sides to update their expectations at regular intervals.
The fourth gain relates to the durability of the appointment. A senior appointment is a significant investment of time and resources for the organisation. Misalignments in the first year, if not addressed in time, can end with the executive leaving the role. That means both a new search and a renewed period of uncertainty inside the organisation. By helping potential misalignments to be noticed early and become something that can be discussed, executive coaching supports the sustainability of the appointment.
Being able to track these gains also strengthens the organisation's decisions about executive coaching. The goals set at the start of the process are compared at the end of the first year with the concrete steps the executive has put into practice. Feedback from the team, observations from the board and the performance indicators set by the organisation form the core inputs of this comparison. Executive coaching thus becomes a development investment whose results the organisation can evaluate.
Finally, executive coaching contributes to the organisation's leadership culture. A chief executive who starts the role with an openness to development tends to pass a similar approach on to the team. Team members who see the executive making time for their own development come to regard receiving feedback and working on their own development areas as more natural. First-year support can thus go beyond the development of a single executive and positively influence the way the leadership team works.
The human resources function plays an important bridging role in this process. The human resources director protects the organisational framework of the process, plans the interim reviews and helps keep expectations between the board and the chief executive up to date. Following how the process works without becoming involved in the content of sessions makes it easier for the organisation to take ownership of the executive coaching process.
The review held at the end of the process sets out the gains of the first year and the needs for the period ahead. Some organisations choose to continue the process with less frequent sessions at this stage. Others start a similar executive coaching process for other members of the leadership team. In either case, the experience of the first year provides valuable input for the organisation's later decisions on leadership development.
The review at the end of the first year can also inform the organisation's plans for leadership continuity. As the new chief executive comes to know the team and sees which executives are preparing for broader responsibilities, this becomes a valuable source of information for future senior appointments. Addressing this information in a structured way within the executive coaching process helps leadership transitions to be managed more predictably.
A new chief executive's first year is a period in which decisions that shape the organisation's coming years are taken. Neutral and experienced support alongside the executive during this time helps decisions to be taken more deliberately, relationships to be built more soundly and the appointment to become lasting value for the organisation.
At E&E Group, drawing on the executive coaching experience we have built with more than 2,000 executives in our work since 1992, we turn the first year of newly appointed senior executives into a development process aligned with the organisation's goals. To discuss an executive coaching process for your new chief executive's first year, you can contact us.
