Leadership Promotions: Early Stakeholder Interviews Enhance Success

Promoting leaders into new roles and having them fail is costly to both organizational profits and employee morale. There are many reasons why this happens, with lack of proper on boarding being at the top of the list.  Part of good on boarding is ensuring the new leader is crystal clear on why they were hired, what it takes to succeed, what could make them fail, and how they will be supported. Conducting early stakeholder interviews is a technique we use in our Transitional Leadership coaching practice to help leaders determine the critical leadership behavioral success attributes they need to display to attain a quick start and be successful in the new role.  Here’s how the simple four step process works:

1. Find the early stakeholders. Determine the critical few (three to four) people most vested in, and influential towards determining the leader’s early success. Executives who were involved in the hiring process, typically consisting of the leaders’ direct boss, a senior human resource professional, and perhaps one or two others are usually good early stakeholders. 
2. Conduct interviews to determine critical leadership behavioral success attributes. Brief (30 minute or less), one on one interviews (via phone or in person) are conducted within the first month after hire with the stakeholders. The source of the feedback can be anonymous or disclosed. Our preference is to gain permission up front from the stakeholder to use their name, as there can be great value to the leader in knowing the source and context of the advice and direction. The interviews are most successful when done by an executive coach or someone who is experienced at getting and giving feedback.  The following five targeted questions are posed to the early stakeholders:  1. Why specifically did you hire this leader for this role? 2. What does this leader need to do in their very first year to be wildly successful? 3. What could make this leader fail? 4. What advice do you have for this leader? and 5. How do you specifically plan to support the new leader to ensure success? 
3. Incorporate findings into action plan.  Once the interviews are conducted, the answers to the questions are then compiled and shared with the leader. The goal is to gain agreement on the most important (one to three) leadership behaviors needed for success. These are then incorporated into the leader’s first 100-day action plan or a separate behavioral action plan. For example, if the leader’s boss highlighted the need to partner effectively with certain key executives, the leader would want to be sure that scheduling recurring meetings and gaining feedback regularly from those partners be in their action plan. 
4. Solicit recurring feedback from early stakeholders. Once the action plan has been put in place, the leader should go back to that small group of early stakeholders, thank them for their input, and tell them what they heard by sharing the few most important behavioral attributes they will be sure to display (e.g., partnering with certain key executives). Asking the stakeholders for feedback (at least monthly for the first year) is critical for validation and any needed course corrections. Questions from the leader can be as simple as, “I am really trying to make sure I am partnering with key executives, how do you think I am doing on that? “Do you have any advice for me on how I can do it even better or is there anything I should change?”

Knowing what is expected is critical to succeeding in any new role. Ensuring a leader gets the direction, feedback, and support they need can make the difference between success and failure. Employing the Early Stakeholder Interview Process can help executives get a quick start toward success.