5 Steps to Coach Leaders Through Transitions

The life cycle of a leader involves numerous transitions, from expanded responsibilities to promotions to retirement planning. When transitioning into a new leadership role, coaching can help make the difference between success or failure, as Michael Watkins notes in his book The First 90 Days (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). 

HR can play a critical role in guiding leaders through these pivotal milestones by following the STEPS model—scan, tailor, explore, plan, and stay connected—for transition coaching, a proven five-step method to aid leaders through their journey. You don’t need to be a professional coach to offer transition coaching for leaders within your organization. This type of coaching can be offered by any HR professional who has a role in supporting a leader’s success. 

I created the STEPS model from my years of experience coaching leaders through the leadership life cycle, which I discussed on a recent episode of the People + Strategy podcast. The best practice is to execute these steps over the first 90 to 180 days of a leader’s transition because this period is critical to their success.

Here’s how to execute the STEPS model.
 

Step 1: Scan

Identify where transitions are occurring within the organization and the best method for engaging leaders. This can be accomplished either formally or informally. 

If you opt for the informal method, scan the leadership landscape for leaders who might be experiencing a transition. This is where you can leverage your internal HR partners because they are often in the know about leadership changes. 

The more formal way of scanning is to build a transition coaching program within your organization for promoted and externally hired leaders and include the scan step in your program. The benefit of this method is that you create a systematic and repeatable process for identifying and engaging with leaders in transition. 

Whichever method you choose, the best time to work with leaders in transition is in the moments when the leader is actually experiencing the pain points of their challenge.  
 

Step 2: Tailor 

Create a list of tailored topics that the leader you’re coaching could be experiencing during the transition identified in the scan step. The point of this step is not to be prescriptive or make assumptions about what’s needed, but rather to be thoughtful and empathetic to what the leader may be experiencing at that time. It provides you with a foundation or anchor point when working with the leader. 

For example, a first-time leader may be challenged with how to manage former peers, a newly promoted leader might be navigating how to lead leaders for the first time, or a retiring leader may be struggling with how to let go and ensure knowledge transfer to a successor.  
 

Step 3: Explore

Once you begin coaching the leader and you’ve discussed the list of possible topics specific to their transition, take time with them to explore: What else? 

As a savvy HR professional, this is a critical point in the coaching engagement process when you will use your active listening skills to understand what the leader is uniquely experiencing as it relates to their transition and meet them where they are. This is when you can also engage with the leader’s manager to provide input regarding the “what else” to be covered. 

Here are some sample questions you can ask:

• What do you need to let go of?

• What experience and wisdom are you applying from your past to your current situation?

• What rules or beliefs do you have that are getting in the way?

• What competencies, abilities, or skills do you want or need to develop?

• How are you growing? What are you learning?  
   

Step 4: Plan

Create a tailored transition coaching plan, incorporating your list of topics from the tailor step and what the leader and their manager generated from the explore step. 

At this point, I send the leader a list of what we’ll cover and an overview of my role as their coach, their role as the client, and their manager’s role during the transition coaching. 

During this step, it’s important to emphasize that because coaching is client-driven, the leader is highly encouraged to come to coaching sessions with other topics that pop up for them along the way. You don’t want them to feel as if they need to just stick to the plan.

To produce maximum value from the coaching engagement, consider scheduling at least one checkpoint meeting during the engagement with the leader and their manager to discuss and celebrate progress, reflect on learnings, and calibrate for what’s next and what’s left. I usually meet with the leader and their manager at the beginning, middle, and end of the coaching engagement.  
 

Step 5: Stay Connected

As the coaching engagement comes to a close, this becomes an opportunity for you and the leader to not only reflect on their learning and growth, but also to look forward regarding the leader’s path ahead. In doing so, you solidify an alliance with that leader, which naturally creates space for you to walk alongside them during future transitions.

Here are a few strategies to stay connected: 

• Offer quarterly coaching check-ins.

• Use your resources. Be sure to leverage other HR processes and programs, such as staying close to succession planning work, talent reviews, and those in high-potential leadership programs.

• Keep good notes during the coaching sessions so you can review them later. If you finished working with a leader a year ago and you knew they were a couple years away from retirement, it’s a perfect opportunity to check in on their timeline and offer transition coaching. 

• Feature leaders you’ve coached in company forums, presentations, leadership programs, and panels. This not only allows you to stay connected with these leaders, but also becomes a way to spotlight the value of this work to other leaders within your organization.
   

We all know that development takes a village, so the more support the leader gets during the transition, the more successful the transition will likely be. Using the STEPS model for transition coaching enables HR to play a critical role in guiding leaders through pivotal experiences that impact not only their success, but also the success of the teams they lead and, ultimately, the organization.