The 3 factors that make leadership transitions work

There are few more important – and challenging – changes to implement at a company than a high-level executive transition. Leadership transitions impact everything from your top-level business goals to your company culture and how entire teams work.

At King Price, we’ve been through several executive transitions and onboardings in the past year as our business continues to grow. If we’ve learned anything during this time, it’s that preparing properly for a leadership transition is critical – and the fact that you’re trying to onboard someone in the middle of a global health crisis doesn’t make life any easier!

Gartner suggests that new leaders who undergo effective transitions start operating at peak effectiveness a full 9 months faster than those with an average transition. Yet we often see leaders who are either under-prepared for, or under-supported during, their transition to a new role.

According to McKinsey research, if the transition succeeds, the leader’s company will probably be successful. 9 out of 10 teams whose leader had a successful transition go on to meet their 3-year performance goals, and their teams’ attrition risk is 13% lower. But when they struggle, their teams’ performance is 15% percent lower, and their direct reports are 20% more likely to be disengaged or to leave the organisation.

And yet, nearly half of leadership transitions fail. The biggest reasons? Internal politics, culture, and people. So what can you do about it? In an excellent article, Successfully transitioning to new leadership roles, McKinsey’s Scott Keller and Mary Meaney highlight 5 areas that leaders should focus on during a transition.

At King Price, we narrow that down to 3:

The culture. I’ve often spoken about the lengths we go to, to ensure that new-joiners fit in from day 1. They spend a day on-site before they join, and they become part of a programme that seeks to engage them from this day onwards. For our executives, the culture fit process is even more comprehensive: We make sure they’re a ‘fit’ and understand our culture, up front. Then, when they join, we work incredibly hard to help them and their teams manage the change.

The team. Leaders are only as good as their people. If they don’t have the right team in place, with the right skills and attitudes to support them, it will be incredibly difficult for them to make the level of impact that they have the potential for. Once they arrive in their new roles, they embark on a journey with their teams to be able to align on our vision, goals and priorities.

The individual. 1 of the cornerstones of the King Price way has always been to empower our people to take responsibility for themselves and their performance. We don’t want our people to even see boxes, and so we’ve created an environment in which they feel safe to experiment, and even fail, in the pursuit of our greater vision and purpose. Our senior people are clear on what they want to do, and what they don’t.

With the right strategy, the right team, and the right support, we’re delighted to say our new executives are thriving. Do the hard work and preparation up front, and everything else flows from there.

In this vein, welcome to our top-level new-joiners Shaun Hammond (chief actuary), Marta Atanassova (finance manager), Malefetsane Tladi (claims manager) and Clinton Naidoo (actuarial projects), all under our Stangen brand. We think you’re awesome and we hope you have a long and happy career on our kingdom!