The Reasons Why So Many Newly Hired Executives Fail

Today’s best managers know that the failure rate of new executives is roughly 64%. Newly hired executives fail due to: expectations about the job don’t match reality, changes in the direction of the company caused by leaders who leave, dependence on old skills that were successful at their former job, failure to find out what is required in the new job, not finding out what the new company culture is all about, and not establishing relationships early on with key people in the new organization. To combat the failure rate, today’s best managers know that coaching new hires about the new company is vital.

Source: Butterfield, S. 2008. Onboard coaching: New leaders can contribute faster. Leadership Excellence, 25/3, p. 14.

Coach Employees To Help Improve Their Job Interview Performance

Today’s best managers are seen as individuals who want to help their employees succeed, such as by getting promoted. One way to help employees move up to better jobs is by coaching them to perform better in job interviews. Managers can help employees prepare for interviews, practice how to answer questions, and provide feedback about interview performance to further improve an employee’s chances for getting promoted. Coaching helps employees get better jobs and also helps the manager get better performance evaluations, which is a double-win situation.

Source: Maurer, T. J., Solamon, J. M., & Lippstreu, M. 2008. How does coaching interviewees affect the validity of a structured interview? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 355-371.

Re-Wire Your Problem Employees Into Successful Employees

Many employees have hard-wired beliefs in their brain about their abilities and their performance, which can result in them being poor performers. Today’s best managers don’t give up on such employees. Instead, they try to rewire their employees’ beliefs about themselves: 1) help them to realize and acknowledge their beliefs about their performance, 2) allow the negative beliefs to surface, but then don’t act on them in the same ways as they always do, 3) help employees develop new responses to the negative feelings they have, and 4) coach employees on ways to improve skills and abilities where they feel they are lacking.

Source: Ahern, A. 2008. Fire or re-wire: Dealing with problem people. Leadership Excellence, 25/2, p. 16.