In today’s fast moving, interconnected world, organisations expect newly appointed leaders to assess situations quickly, to take decisive action and rapidly to produce positive, measurable results. Newly appointed leaders are also required to create medium and longer-term strategies that result in competitive advantage and increase bottom-line profitability and efficiency.
Issues facing newly appointed leaders
No matter how well matched the skills, experience and personal attributes of a newly appointed leader to their new role, performance expectations can be difficult and sometimes impossible to fulfill.
Most organisations would agree that whether a newly appointed leader is coming from a different business, from another country, from a different sector or is promoted from within the same organisation, the newly appointed leader requires at least six months to:
- Build the required relationships
- Understand the real priorities
- Be “in tune” with the company’s culture
- Align a team around their aspirations and plans
- Be personally effectively in the new environment

In reality, finding a new leader who closely matches an organisation’s requirements may not be possible or feasible. The organisation is frequently unable to give the new leader any time to get “up to speed”, or to recover from early mistakes, before being judged on results or on their way of working. This means that in a competitive, fast moving environment, organisations that find a way for newly appointed leaders to become integrated rapidly and effectively will have a substantial completive advantage.
Purpose of programme
The purpose of the Performance Impact New Leader Fast Start Programme is to substantially shorten the normal period required for a newly appointed leader to become effective in their role. This results in the organisation’s strategic agenda being implemented effectively and more rapidly than would otherwise be the case, providing substantial value for the organisation.
Target audience
The programme is for all newly appointed leaders whether they come from a different business, from another country, from a different sector or are promoted from within the organisation. The programme has been used successfully across a wide range of industries and with leaders at all levels and job functions:
- CEO’s
- Members of the executive leadership team
- Managing Directors
- Heads of professional services
Scope and impact
The New Leader Fast-Start Programme:
- Creates clarity about key issues and how to resolve them
- Is practical, effective and results orientated
- Builds strong partnerships between the new leader and key stakeholders
- Creates highly effective thinking, behaving and working
- Builds a high performance, networked, leadership team - supporting each other to fulfil shared goals and aspirations
- Creates a shared immediate and medium term plan that addresses the priorities most relevant to the organisation
- Produces breakthrough results that create competitive advantage
- Energises growth and accelerates strategy implementation
Programme structure
The Performance Impact New Leader Fast Start Programme is tailored to the particular needs of each newly appointed leader and their organisation. The programme consists of:
- Foundation Workshop
- Mid-module assignments designed to produce performance breakthroughs
- Consolidation Workshop
The New Leader Fast Start Programme produces best results when the Foundation Workshop takes place approximately 4 to12 weeks after the newly appointed leader starts their new role and when the Consolidation Workshop takes place approximately four to six months later.
The programme consists of a series of workshops for the team of the newly appointed leader, selected peers, colleagues and subordinates. Optimal results are achieved when the New Leader Fast Start Programme is combined with individual coaching for the newly appointed leader. The same Performance Impact programme facilitator provides individual coaching.
Content and style
The New Leader Fast Start Programme utilises the Performance Impact consulting methodology called Realising Performance Potential. This methodology integrates strategic thinking, business planning and the real-time development of business professionals in a highly effective, practical and results orientated way.
The New Leader Fast Start Programme converts conceptual knowledge about business into experiential knowledge and results. The emphasis of the programme is on participants applying what they learn during the programme to produce excellent results in their normal work environment.
Foundation workshop
During the Foundation Workshop participants:
- Develop a shared understanding of the current and the desired situation in the area of the organisation to be led by the newly appointed leader
- Create a powerful partnership with their new leader and with each other
- Understand how each participant’s personal working style can have a positive & a negative effect in different situations and how to play to their individual strengths
- Are equipped to secure the buy-in of key stake holders
- Understand the characteristics of high performance teams
- Create a powerful, forward-moving, shared context viable for up to thirty six months
- Develop a plan supporting fulfilment of the forward-moving aspirations on an accelerated trajectory using the Merlin Approach
Mid-programme assignments
In the period between the Foundation Workshop and the Consolidation Workshop participants apply what they have learned in the Foundation workshop to:
- Implement the immediate-term plan that they created during the Foundation Workshop
- Work on areas requiring a performance breakthrough
- Secure the buy-in of key stakeholders for the immediate and medium-term plan they have developed
Consolidation workshop
During the Consolidation Workshop participants:
- Review progress towards the aspirations and plans they created in the Foundation Workshop
- Differentiate between leading, managing and “being a content expert”
- Choose which roles to adopt in support of their immediate and medium-term plans
- Understand the limitations of the “traditional leadership paradigm” and the value of working from a “new paradigm” of leadership
- Understand the five stages in the business life-cycle
- Prioritise work most relevant to the stage of their organisation in this life-cycle
- Develop the skills to bring about performance breakthroughs
- Understand their development needs as individuals and as a team
Outcomes and results
The Performance Impact New Leader Fast Start Programme delivers substantial and measurable results that line up with the outcomes that our clients identify as most important and relevant to them. Prior to each programme the newly appointed leader and their “sponsor” are asked to specify the broad areas in which they want results and the indicators of success for each area.
The design of the New Leader Fast Start Programmes, our preparation, Performance Impact’s Leadership Principles & Tools and the experience & skill of the Programme Leader, come together to create the conditions for these substantial results. Typically there is a positive impact across a broad range of business indicators, for example:
- Participants becoming more aspirational and entrepreneurial
- Participants demonstrating greater accountability
- Realisation of growth aspirations earlier than would otherwise be expected
- Company profile enhanced within the external market place
- Difficult market conditions dealt with substantially better than competitors
- Greater ease in attracting and retaining staff with the required attributes
- Fully engaged staff, motivated to go the “extra mile” for the company
- The newly appointed leader effective, productive, transmitting confidence & expertise without being arrogant
- Everyone experiencing a great deal more satisfaction from their work
Set up and de-brief
The programme is customised to each client’s situation and needs. This involves a substantial amount of preparation on our part. Our preparation is a critical success factor that allows the work to be highly effective. The combination of our preparation and the way that we work with the newly appointed leader and their team creates the conditions for significant, measurable results.
The unique design of the programme and the skill and experience of the Performance Impact programme leaders ensures that excellent results are produced every time. Each programme leader has over 25 year business experience, they are master practitioners of Performance Impact’s proprietary Leadership Principles, they are highly experienced executive coaches.
Contact
Please contact us for more information about the New Leader Fast Start programme.