Importance of Mid-level Leader Transitions
I’ve been through several CEO transitions – at small companies and large. They all have one thing in common – uncertainty – that leads to political positioning, examination of priorities and shifts in strategy. CEO transitions often make the business press – and get great scrutiny from shareholders and the board of directors. But what about less visible leader transitions?
CEO transitions are rare, but leader transitions happen every day due to individual staffing changes like promotions, hiring and resignations as well as organizational changes such as reorganizations, layoffs and mergers. For workers, the immediate supervisor is the one who either creates a great place to work or makes their lives miserable. Supporting and improving transitions of first-level leaders and mid-level managers can make or break a team.
Early in my career, I watched a team implode due to a bad leader transition. In this case the new leader was promoted to take over from a highly successful leader who had left the company. The previous leader had the right touch – balancing creative freedom and operational excellence – needed for this team of creative people to be successful. The new leader had been promoted too soon and came from a process-oriented area. He promptly put all projects on hold, required all decisions to be approved by him and stated micro-managing everything. The team quickly rebelled – and after a few months several team members left. Ultimately the new leader was removed, but the damage had already been done. This example includes a lot of failures, for example, the wrong leader was chosen and senior management did not intervene when they should have. But it was partially due to a mis-match between the leader and team and a poor transition with the leader.
Research Overview – New Leader Transitions
In their recent research, Wing Lam, Cynthia Lee, Susan Taylor and Helen Zhao explored the impact of mid-level leader transition on team performance by considering the impact connection between the team and the new leader, contrast between the new leader and the previous leader and similarities in proactiveness.
The research involved 155 hotel employees and 51 new managers who worked for a big hotel group in mainland China. In addition to the strength of using a real-life sample of workers, the research is enhanced by having multiple measurements at two different points in time.
Research Findings
Finding 1: The previous leader makes a difference in the success of the new leader and team success hinges on alignment of proactive personalities. Specifically, the contrast between the previous leader and the new leader influences the team’s reaction to the new leader and his or her changes. Everything the new leader does gets compared to how the old leader used to do it.
Everything the new leader does gets compared to how the old leader used to do it.
The researchers term this as “congruence” between the old and new leader and the new leader and the team. When a new leader inherits a team, he or she also inherits the history of the team – including the impact of the previous leader. This research compared the proactive personality of the new leader and the previous leader and the similarity to the team. Proactive personality is defined as the leader’s tendency to drive change and seek improvements. In other words, proactive personality is someone who is an energetic driver versus a go-with-the-flow passive person.
If the new leader has a more proactive personality than the previous leader, it is critical that the team is aligned with the personality of the new leader. A proactive new leader provides a sharp contrast to a passive previous leader. If the team is more like the old leader than the new leader, the team is likely to resist changes and struggle with the new leader.
Finding 2: The team’s relationship with the new leader helps the team accept the new leader’s changes.
Not surprisingly, the research confirmed that a team is more likely to accept changes coming from a new leader if they like the new leader and relate well. This is described as new leader identification and shared identification with the leader’s change agenda. New leader identification measures items such as “My leader represents values that are important to me”. Shared identification with the change agenda includes items such as “His or her change agenda is good for our work team”. The research showed that when a new leader and the team have similar proactive personalities, it results in higher levels of connection between the leader and team. The team is more likely to support the new leader’s work changes due to this higher level of connection.
Study Assessment
This is a complex study with both strengths and opportunities. One strength is that the sample used were real workers who experienced actual mid-level leadership transitions, so it reflects the real world. Another strength is that data was collected at multiple points in time, so we can see the actual impact of the transition on later behaviors and perspectives. As with all field research, the downside of the real world sample is that the researchers cannot control for all variables, so other factors can influence the workers during this time period. This sample is also based on a work force in mainland China and cultural differences were not accounted for in the research. Also, this research focused on congruence of only one personality trait – proactiveness – and the situation is likely influenced by other personality traits as well. Finally, the complexity of the modeling (such as moderated mediation) makes interpretation more complex – but the data do seem to support the hypotheses.
Over all, this is an important contribution to the research on leader transitions and the outcomes can be applied by any leader.
Use this Research to do your job better
Leadership transitions happen in all sorts of contexts. Some are positive – a colleague got promoted and you were hired in to the company to backfill her. Some are negative – a layoff cut out another manager and you inherited a team that is expected to do more work with fewer people. Certain elements of the transition are out of your control – timing, circumstances, expectations, resources, etc. But you can control your approach to the transition in order to make the team, and yourself, as successful as possible. This research supports the following approaches for leader transitions:
- Consider your predecessor. With an existing team, you are not transitioning in a vacuum. Everything you do will be compared to your predecessor. Gather information about the strengths and opportunities of that previous leader and determine what worked an what didn’t. Use this information to thoughtfully approach your integration into the new team. For example, should you go fast with changes or go slowly? If needed, get support from your manager or HR to run a new leader transition session that can help introduce you and your working style to the new team. Just remember, compared to the previous leader, you will be seen as a hero, a renegade or a clone.
- Gauge the proactiveness of your team. Assess your new team – considering both individuals and the team mentality. This research shows proactive personality to be a key factor. As a whole, does the team seem open to change and improvement? Or are they resistant and prefer to do things the same way they always have? Once you know the team personality, you can match your style to fit the team. If everyone is proactive, you can charge forward with your change agenda. If the team is less proactive than you, start with laying some groundwork before introducing changes. Work with them from a change management perspective to get them aligned with your vision and give them time to adjust to the changes.
- Be thoughtful in your transition. Every transition has potential pitfalls and landmines – this research covers a few. Overall, the biggest message here is that you should be thoughtful about how you transition in order to ensure success for the team. The go-to book that I have personally used for transitions and recommend to others is The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael Watkins. Check it out for a deeper dive into how to plan your transition, build alliances and create a strong start for yourself. Just as I was writing this post, I saw a related post from Lolly Daskal titled “How to Successfully Transition to a New Leadership Role”. Check it out for some additional tips.
Cool Research Stuff
Citation for featured research
W. Lam, C. Lee, M.S. Taylor, H. Zhao (2018). “Does Proactive Personality Matter in Leadership Transitions? Effects of Proactive Personality on New Leader Identification and responses to new leaders and their Change Agendas”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol 61, 1, 245-263.
Research Factors in this Study
Real-world sample, multiple time points, mediators, moderators, moderated mediation, path analysis, surface graphs, confirmatory factor analysis
