Chalk and cheese. That’s how I describe the first 90 days of an unprepared, newly promoted leader versus one who is prepared for the role before promotion. The former operates in reactive mode, while the latter shows up steady, studied and purposeful.
Far too often, the unprepared leader arrives with a bolt cutter, eager to dismantle, pull apart and reset the department or business with a personal stamp. It is busyness framed as velocity and progress. The danger lies in noise masquerading as intelligence, while valuable insights that could inform a more measured approach are ignored.
This type of leader often listens to the wrong people—individuals posing as insiders with their pulse on the ground. On closer inspection, they are troublemakers, performers and sycophants whose true intentions become clear only after the damage is done.
The unprepared leader usually has no structured 90-day plan. The immediate short- and long-term focus is simply to shine. Egocentricity drives the effort rather than a desire to create an egalitarian environment where everyone wins.
Against this backdrop, workplace upheaval, team dysfunction and constrained organisational performance become predictable outcomes. Employees are not aligned to a shared vision of excellence or a change programme designed to build excitement around a new future. Instead, the department or business drifts into a newer version of its old existence.
For many leaders in this situation, the first 90 days are erratic, marked by an unstructured operating framework and interpersonal friction. The leader does make a mark, but it is one employees would rather forget.
Not all unprepared leaders create chaos. Some succeed, but the journey is longer and marked by more misses than hits. It is far simpler to prepare the leader before the promotion takes effect.
“Prepare before you promote.” That is the advice I share with businesses considering leadership appointments.
The prepared leader is less likely to create mayhem and more likely to sow seeds of success.
Preparation helps avoid common missteps. The tools used to drive performance are sharp, not blunt, and respect replaces doubt about whether the promotion was deserved.
The debate at the starting block is always how the newly promoted leader balances the urgency to show early results with the need to build intelligence around the ecosystem. Even if the leader was part of the ecosystem before the appointment, the view changes once one wears the crown. A new set of corporate lenses becomes mandatory for the new vantage point.For the prepared leader, the first 90 days begin in discovery mode. Early wins may come from low-hanging fruit, but curiosity overrides impulsive behaviour. At this stage, the leader focuses on high-level thinking and resists prescribing solutions without first grasping root causes.
The prepared leader respects the power of the pause. Going fast means going slowly at first, then building speed and momentum based on intelligence.
Unfreezing the status quo is one of the most challenging actions any leader can undertake, since the depth of resistance determines the effort required. This leader understands that becoming the chief architect of change is critical to winning hearts and minds and essential to neutralising resistance.
Alignment mapping then becomes important to progressing the journey. Strategies for employee buy-in are implemented at this stage and no effort is spared in mobilising excitement for the changes ahead.
New markers of engagement become visible and growing trust emerges as a measurable win. The leadership footprint begins to saturate the culture.
The leader then moves into the systems-mapping stage of the 90-day plan. While this phase is hard-wired to systems, processes and procedures, the prepared leader understands that employee partnerships grease the wheels for adoption of the new operating model.
When executed well, a 90-day plan and its stages reduce the possibility of stumbling and enhance the probability of soaring for the newly promoted leader.It is also important to remember that, depending on the dynamics of the business environment, 90 days may be insufficient to move through all of these stages. In some cases, a single stage alone may require 90 days for completion.
The lesson is simple: every promotion requires readiness for the journey. Is it not only fair that leaders be prepared for the trip?
