Page 22 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

You’ve Been Promoted, Now What? 7

For many years newly promoted managers and executives experienced a
luxury that exists in very few organizations today. It was called the “honey-
moon period,” and it was common practice up until about the late 1980s or
1990s when so much changed in the work world. The honeymoon period fre-
quently was as short as 2 to 3 months in some organizations and as long as 9
to 12 months in others. During this period the new managers could progres-
sively learn the job, meet customers and staff, and build relationships. They
would gradually diagnose what worked and what did not. The sense that new
managers must “deliver results now,” right from the start, was not as common
then as it is today in many organizations. It was generally understood that dur-
ing the latter half to two-thirds of whatever the honeymoon period was in an
organization, new managers or executives would gain increasingly greater
momentum in their roles and would somewhat gradually become highly pro-
ductive and strong contributors.
Over the past decade we have asked several thousand participants in
courses and seminars the following question: “How many of you work in an
organization where a honeymoon period of two or three or more months is
the common practice?” The responses to this question suggest that 10 percent
or fewer organizations have any kind of significant honeymoon period of sev-
eral months or more. Today’s newly promoted leaders must become highly
productive, and very rapidly! In most organizations there is no honeymoon
period. There is little slack. There are high expectations and little, if any,
patience for delivering results. These conditions create the “perils of promo-
tion” that so many newly promoted leaders describe. Some leaders who thrive
during this tenuous period are often, and prematurely, tagged with being “high
risers” or “high flyers.” Other leaders get off to a slower start. They may begin
to experience performance and organizational problems during their early
weeks and months in their role. This can be a function of an extended learn-
ing curve as well as other factors. In many of today’s organizations, you just
can’t afford for that learning curve to be too long.
You should expect that the conditions that create the newly promoted
leader dilemma will be in play in your organization. Be delighted if they are
not. If this is the case, your organization would be the exception. Neverthe-
less, you will want to do everything you can to land smoothly on your feet and
become very productive in as short a period of time as is possible. This book
is designed to help you do just that.