Few sentences in professional life land with such force as “Congratulations, you’re now leading leaders.” For many, it is both a moment of pride and a sudden jolt of anxiety. You may feel honoured by the trust placed in you, but just beneath the surface runs a cascade of questions: What do I actually do? How do I prove myself? How do I lead people who were, until yesterday, my peers?

This shift is one of the most challenging transitions in any career. It marks the move from being valued for your own output to being responsible for enabling the output of other leaders. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership shows that the most common reason senior managers stumble is not technical incompetence but difficulty in adjusting to the relational and systemic demands of leadership (CCL, 2022). It is no longer enough to be the most intelligent problem-solver in the room or the hardest worker on the team. You are now expected to create the conditions that allow other leaders to thrive.

The challenge is compounded by time pressure. While many leadership playbooks position the “first 90 days” as the window for building credibility, today’s workplaces are less forgiving. Impressions form quickly, and expectations for visible impact surface within weeks. Failing to establish early momentum risks being trapped in cycles of mistrust and underperformance that become difficult to escape. In short, there is no leisurely three-month grace period. Your team, manager, and peers will be scanning for signs of your leadership almost immediately.

And yet, rushing to prove yourself with sweeping changes can be just as dangerous as doing too little. Studies from Gartner show that leaders who chase visible “quick wins” without building relational foundations often erode trust and reduce long-term performance (Hartfelder, 2025). Early credibility cannot be built on results alone. It must rest equally on the trust and belonging you cultivate with your people.

That is why this guide compresses the usual 90-day roadmap into 60 days, structured into four 15-day waves. It acknowledges the urgency of modern organisational life while honouring a more profound truth: leadership is more than managing tasks. It is about creating a community of accountability and purpose.

This plan is anchored in two complementary lenses. The performance lens takes the practical wisdom of management research: clarify expectations, deliver early wins, create alignment. The stewardship lens insists that leadership is not about heroics but about hosting, convening conversations, distributing power, and nurturing trust as the foundation of performance.

Across the next sections, you’ll find not only step-by-step guidance but also evidence-based insight and reflective questions. The aim is not to hand you a script but to provide a compass, a way of navigating the messy, human, high stakes terrain of your first two months in leadership.

Days 1–15: Step up and take stock

Your first fortnight in a role leading leaders is not about bold moves or sweeping declarations. It is about how you arrive. The way you enter these first weeks, the questions you ask, the promises you make, the attention you give, will set the tone for how your leaders and peers experience you for months to come.

One of the most common mistakes at this level is to lean on old habits. Many senior leaders fall back into doing what made them successful before: being close to the details, solving problems quickly, and demonstrating expertise. But as research from the Center for Creative Leadership shows, the most frequent derailment pattern for leaders of leaders is the inability to recalibrate their role. They remain operators or “super-managers” rather than stepping into the work of system shaping (CCL, 2022). What once demonstrated competence now risks signalling mistrust. If you are solving your managers’ problems, what are you saying about their capability?

Equally risky is swinging too far in the opposite direction, staying distant, waiting for the “right moment” to assert direction, or assuming you have months of goodwill before expectations crystallise. Gartner research finds that impressions of new senior leaders begin forming almost immediately, and within the first month peers and superiors are already assessing whether a leader can unify people and deliver traction (Gartner, 2024). That means there is no safe “grace period.” You are being sized up from day one.

The paradox is clear, rush in too hard, and you risk eroding trust before it’s built. Wait too long, and you risk being perceived as indecisive. The way through this paradox is to step up while taking stock. These two weeks are a balancing act, being present and visible without being overbearing, making small but credible moves while focusing most of your energy on listening, learning, and mapping the system you’ve inherited.

At its core, the first 15 days are about presence, posture, and perspective.

• Presence: showing up consistently with curiosity and intent.

• Posture: signalling humility as well as confidence, learning before prescribing.

• Perspective: looking beyond individual performance to understand the dynamics of the leadership team and the wider ecosystem.

Think of this phase as building the foundations of trust, curiosity, and reliability, without which no strategy will hold.

Five critical leadership moves (Days 1–15)

 1. Run structured discovery conversations with each of your direct reports: Use these to surface strengths, frustrations, and aspirations. Harvard Business Review highlights that leaders who begin with structured curiosity lay the foundation for psychological safety and long-term trust (HBR, 2017).

 2. Clarify expectations with your boss.: Ask what outcomes are most urgent, what is non-negotiable, and where you have freedom to shape the agenda. Research indicates that early misalignment with superiors can take months to recover from (CCL, 2022).

 3. Observe team dynamics, not just individuals: Watch how your managers interact as a group. Do they collaborate or compete? Do conversations generate solutions or stall in silence? These patterns often reveal more than individual conversations.

 4. Map the wider ecosystem of influence: Identify peers, partners, and informal influencers who shape your function’s success. McKinsey research demonstrates that leaders who actively cultivate cross boundary networks accelerate performance and reduce resistance (McKinsey, 2020).

 5. Signal reliability with small but visible fixes: Address one or two practical irritants quickly to show that listening leads to action. Gartner’s data shows that early visible follow-through is one of the strongest predictors of first year leadership effectiveness (Gartner, 2024).

Five reflection questions (with why they matter)

Am I staying at the right altitude, or slipping back into operational detail? Why it matters: Your value now lies in shaping systems, not substituting for your managers. Staying too close to the detail disempowers them and limits you.

Do I have explicit clarity on what my boss values most? Why it matters: Ambiguity at the top is costly. If you are not clear on priorities, you risk investing effort in areas that don’t matter, eroding credibility before you can build it.

What patterns am I noticing across my leaders’ perspectives? Why it matters: Spotting themes helps you see systemic issues rather than isolated complaints. Acting on patterns demonstrates strategic thinking, not firefighting.

Have I visibly followed through on at least one commitment I made? Why it matters: Trust in leadership is built on reliability. Even a modest follow-through demonstrates to people that your words carry weight.

Who outside my direct team most shapes our success? Why it matters: Leadership at this level is relational. Success depends on coalitions and partnerships, not just the team you inherit. Identifying those players early sets the stage for influence.

Success measure for this phase

By the end of these 15 days, you will not yet have a finished plan or major result. But you should have established a posture of curiosity and humility, built an initial map of your system, and demonstrated reliability in small but visible ways. The measure of success is whether your leaders and stakeholders are beginning to say: “Our new leader listens, learns, and follows through.” That perception is the launchpad for everything that follows.

Days 16–30: Establish credibility and rhythm

By the second fortnight, the initial listening phase is behind you. Your leaders and stakeholders already have an impression of how you show up, whether you listen, whether you follow through, whether you hold the right altitude. Now they are watching for something else: does this leader actually make a difference?

At this level, credibility is the currency of leadership. Without it, even strong ideas fail to gain traction, with it, you create the confidence and momentum that make change possible. Research from Gartner shows that leaders who deliver meaningful progress in their first month shorten the average time to sustained performance by nearly one third (Gartner, 2024). But not all progress is equal. A McKinsey study of executive transitions found that leaders who rushed to pursue highly visible initiatives disconnected from team priorities often eroded trust and reduced long-term performance (McKinsey & Company, 2021).

This phase is about converting what you learned in the first fortnight into visible action, not by imposing sweeping solutions, but by showing that listening has led to clarity, and that clarity is leading to momentum. The way you create that momentum is not through a one-off big win, but through credibility-building rhythms: communication that makes sense of what you’ve heard, light structures that give clarity, and small but shared improvements that prove you can turn talk into action.

The second 15 days are about credibility, cadence, and contribution.

• Credibility: showing that you are not only listening, but acting on what you’ve heard.

• Cadence: establishing predictable rhythms for communication, decision making, and coordination.

• Contribution: delivering progress that matters to the leadership team as a whole, not just to one individual.

In short, this phase is where you demonstrate that your leadership makes the system work better.

Five critical leadership moves (Days 16–30)

 1. Share back what you heard: Hold a conversation with your leadership team where you summarise the themes from your discovery sessions. Harvard Business Review calls these “sense-making conversations,” and they are shown to increase trust because they prove voices are shaping your understanding (HBR, 2016).

 2. Introduce light structure and rhythm: Establish a predictable cadence: weekly leadership check-ins, shared priority boards, or simple status updates. Gallup research shows that clarity of expectations is one of the strongest predictors of employee engagement and performance (Gallup, 2020).

 3. Identify and deliver a small but meaningful improvement across teams: Look for a cross cutting frustration, duplicate reporting, a bottleneck in approvals, or confusion around roles, and resolve it. Gartner data highlights that visible follow-through on team-level irritants is one of the clearest signals of leadership effectiveness (Gartner, 2024).

 4. Celebrate contributions publicly and privately: Begin reinforcing behaviours you want repeated, collaboration, initiative, and accountability. Recognition strengthens culture while also boosting motivation.

 5. Connect outward: Use this period to strengthen ties with peers and stakeholders beyond your function. McKinsey research shows that leaders who balance internal progress with external coalition building accelerate organisational health more quickly (McKinsey, 2020).

Five reflection questions (with why they matter)

Have I demonstrated that listening leads to visible action? Why it matters: If your early listening appears disconnected from decisions, people will conclude it was performative. Linking insight to action builds trust.

Are the structures I am setting up light enough to add clarity without bureaucracy? Why it matters: Overly heavy processes signal mistrust and stifle initiative, too little rhythm creates drift. Getting cadence right shows maturity.

Do my first improvements matter to the leadership team, not just to me? Why it matters: Wins must feel shared. If they appear self-serving or symbolic, credibility is weakened rather than strengthened.

Am I reinforcing the behaviours I want multiplied? Why it matters: What you celebrate signals what counts. Failing to notice good behaviours lets cynicism creep in.

Have I begun to strengthen my web of relationships outside the team? Why it matters: Your success depends as much on external alliances as on internal progress. Neglecting this dimension leaves your team isolated.

Success measure for this phase

By the end of 30 days, your leaders and stakeholders should no longer be asking, “Who is this new leader?” but instead saying, “When we raise an issue, something happens. When we look for direction, there is clarity. When we contribute, it is noticed.” That perception of credibility, reliability, clarity, and momentum is the fuel you need to carry the team into deeper alignment and empowerment.

Days 31–45: Create clarity and distribute ownership

By the time you reach your second month, the initial impression period is over. Your leaders already know whether you listen, whether you follow through, and whether you provide clarity. Now they begin to look for something deeper: Where are we going, and how will we get there together?

This is the pivot point from credibility to direction. Without direction, teams drift. Without empowerment, teams stagnate. The challenge in this stage is not just to define priorities but to build shared ownership of them. Research from Harvard shows that organisations succeed when leaders co-create priorities with their teams, surfacing the real issues and shaping solutions together (Beer, 2009). The act of co-creation builds not only a sharper plan but also a greater commitment to deliver it.

At the same time, leaders at this stage must resist the temptation to centralise control. Many new senior managers feel pressure to “prove” their value by being at the centre of every decision. However, research on shared leadership indicates that distributing responsibility enhances innovation, resilience, and accountability (Wang et al., 2014). Your real test now is whether you can empower others to carry leadership forward with you.

The third wave is about clarity, co-creation, and capacity.

• Clarity: surfacing and addressing misalignments between strategy, structure, and culture.

• Co-creation: working with your leadership team to shape a small number of priorities everyone can commit to.

• Capacity: building the strength of your leaders by delegating ownership and reinforcing cultural norms.

The aim is to move from “my plan” to “our plan,” and from “my leadership” to “our leadership.”

Five critical leadership moves (Days 31–45)

 1. Surface and address misalignments: Diagnose where strategy, structure, or processes are slowing progress. McKinsey research shows that organisations with strong alignment across these dimensions are more than twice as likely to outperform their peers (McKinsey, 2020).

 2. Draft and share a provisional set of priorities: Use what you’ve learned in your first month to sketch two or three focus areas. Present them to your leadership team as a starting point, not a finished plan. Inviting critique demonstrates humility and fosters ownership.

 3. Co-create short-term goals: Agree as a team on specific objectives for the next 3–6 months that link organisational priorities with team aspirations. Goal-setting research demonstrates that clarity combined with co-ownership is the strongest driver of sustained commitment (Locke & Latham, 2002).

 4. Delegate ownership of initiatives, not just tasks: Ask leaders to chair meetings, spearhead projects, or represent the function externally. Shared leadership research shows that distributing ownership improves innovation and builds resilience (Wang et al., 2014).

 5. Reinforce cultural signals: Highlight examples of collaboration, initiative, and peer support. Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety shows that what leaders reward and challenge quickly becomes the norm (Edmondson, 2019).

Five reflection questions (with why they matter)

Have I moved from individual insights to a shared set of priorities? Why it matters: Without visible direction, teams lose energy. Shared priorities ensure focus and ownership.

Am I inviting genuine critique of our draft priorities? Why it matters: Co-creation is only credible if people see they can shape the outcome. Without critique, alignment remains superficial.

Are we balancing organisational demands with team aspirations? Why it matters: Goals that matter in both directions energise people. Neglecting either leads to disengagement or irrelevance.

Am I empowering leaders through ownership, or keeping too much control? Why it matters: Holding too tightly creates dependency. Delegating ownership builds both capacity and confidence in your leaders.

What cultural signals am I sending, intentionally or unintentionally? Why it matters: Leaders shape culture less by what they say and more by what they reward, tolerate, or ignore.

Success measure for this phase

By the end of 45 days, your leadership team should not only know where it is going but also feel that the direction belongs to them. They should be saying: “We helped shape these priorities. We own these goals. We are trusted to lead parts of this journey.” That sense of clarity and ownership marks the transition from a group of managers to a functioning leadership team.

Days 46–60: Deliver, reflect, and multiply impact

As you enter the final stretch of your first two months, the question shifts again. Your leaders and stakeholders have seen you listen, follow through, and co-create direction. Now they want to know: Is this leadership system really working, and where is it heading next?

This phase is where credibility turns into momentum. The commitments made in the first month must be delivered, and the priorities shaped in the second must begin to show traction. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership shows that failure to deliver early outcomes often sets in motion cycles of mistrust that are difficult to reverse (CCL, 2022). Reliability, not rhetoric, is what cements trust at this point.

But delivery alone is not enough. High-performing leadership teams are not just productive; they are reflective. Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety demonstrates that teams that take deliberate pauses to learn, examining what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to shift, outperform those that simply “push through” (Edmondson, 2019). Reflection at this stage signals maturity and ensures that early momentum does not mask underlying issues.

Finally, this is the time to look outward and forward. Your role is to translate short-term progress into a roadmap that balances performance outcomes with cultural commitments and to make your leaders visible beyond the team. Recognition strengthens both pride and credibility, while positioning your leadership group as a trusted partner to the wider organisation.

The final 15 days are about delivery, reflection, and multiplication.

• Delivery: honouring commitments and ensuring early goals land.

• Reflection: creating structured space to learn as a leadership team.

• Multiplication: amplifying impact by spotlighting leaders, extending credibility outward, and setting a longer term path.

Five critical leadership moves (Days 46–60)

 1. Deliver on early commitments: Ensure the small but meaningful goals identified in the first month are achieved. Research on executive transitions highlights that nothing undermines credibility faster than failing to land early promises (CCL, 2022).

 2. Facilitate a structured reflection session: Run a retrospective or team discussion on what is working, what is not, and what must shift. Edmondson’s research shows that reflection is not a luxury, it is a driver of sustained performance (Edmondson, 2019).

 3. Adjust visibly based on feedback: Make at least one change that reflects what you heard in the reflection. Showing responsiveness proves that feedback has teeth.

 4. Co-create a six-month roadmap: Balance performance outcomes (what must be delivered) with cultural commitments (how you will work together). McKinsey’s organisational health research shows that teams with both clear objectives and intentional culture outperform those with only one or the other (McKinsey, 2020).

 5. Spotlight your leaders: Share progress upward and outward in ways that make your managers visible. Recognition builds pride and signals that leadership is a shared enterprise, not a solo performance.

Five reflection questions (with why they matter)

Have I delivered on the commitments made in the first month? Why it matters: Reliability is the foundation of credibility. Broken promises, even small ones, erode trust quickly.

Did I create genuine space for reflection, or dominate the conversation myself? Why it matters: Reflection is about shared learning. If you take up all the oxygen, you model defensiveness instead of openness.

Am I adjusting visibly in response to feedback? Why it matters: Responsiveness shows humility and reinforces trust. Without visible change, feedback feels performative.

Does our six-month roadmap balance outcomes with culture? Why it matters: Teams burn out if only outcomes are emphasised, and drift if only culture is emphasised. Balancing both sustains performance.

Am I making my leaders visible beyond the team? Why it matters: Leadership is multiplied when others see your managers as credible. Spotlighting them enhances their influence and strengthens the leadership bench.

Success measure for this phase

By the end of 60 days, your leadership team should feel momentum, clarity, and pride. They should see themselves not just as a collection of managers but as a cohesive leadership group with shared goals and visibility. Stakeholders should be saying: “This team delivers, learns, and has a clear path forward.” At this point, you are no longer the “new leader.” You are their leader, and together you are writing the next chapter of performance and culture.

Bringing it all together: your first 60 days leading leaders

Transitions at this level are thresholds. They are not just about stepping into a new office or inheriting a new team. They are about shifting how you see your role, your leaders, and the system you now shape. The first 60 days will not define your entire tenure, but they will cast a long shadow. The perceptions you create early, of how you listen, how you deliver, how you empower, will echo far beyond the initial weeks.

The arc across these four waves is straightforward to describe, but demanding to live:

 • Days 1–15: Step up and take stock. You establish presence, posture, and perspective by listening deeply, clarifying expectations, and signalling reliability.

 • Days 16–30: Establish credibility and rhythm. You demonstrate that listening leads to visible action, set a predictable cadence, and begin to deliver meaningful improvements.

 • Days 31–45: Create clarity and distribute ownership. You move from credibility to direction, co-creating priorities, empowering your leaders, and reinforcing cultural norms.

 • Days 46–60: Deliver, reflect, and multiply impact. You cement reliability through delivery, create a structured space for learning, set a shared roadmap, and spotlight your leaders to the broader organisation.

Each phase holds two lenses in tension. The performance lens pushes you to clarify outcomes, provide rhythm, and deliver results. The stewardship lens calls you to nurture trust, empower your leaders, and model the culture you want multiplied. Neglect performance and you drift into irrelevance. Neglect stewardship and you create compliance without commitment. Held together, they form leadership that is both credible and humane.

Research reinforces this dual imperative. The Center for Creative Leadership finds that new senior leaders stumble most often not because of technical gaps but because they fail to recalibrate their role (CCL, 2022). Gartner highlights that credibility is judged within weeks, not months, and depends as much on visible follow-through as on strategic brilliance (Gartner, 2024). McKinsey’s organisational health index shows that sustainable success arises when clear objectives are paired with intentional culture (McKinsey, 2020). Amy Edmondson demonstrates that psychological safety, the ability to speak up, learn, and adapt, is what turns short-term wins into enduring performance (Edmondson, 2019). Together, these insights point to a simple truth: what you do in these early days matters not just for outcomes, but for the fabric of the leadership system you are now stewarding.

Reflective close

As you step into this journey, carry forward a few grounding questions:

• Am I balancing urgency for results with the deeper call to build a leadership culture worth belonging to?

• How do I want my leadership team to describe me at the end of these 60 days?

• Where am I willing to let go of control so that others can step into their own power?

• Am I reinforcing the culture I want multiplied, or the habits I want to change?

• What story of leadership am I beginning to write, and is it one I will be proud to own six months from now?

The invitation is not to be flawless, but to be intentional. To treat these first two months not as a test to be endured but as a possibility space to be shaped. To remember that leading leaders is not about directing from above, but about cultivating the conditions where leadership flourishes all around you.

If you can do that, if you listen deeply, act reliably, empower generously, and reflect openly, you will not only survive your first 60 days. You will lay the foundations of a leadership system built on trust, stewardship, and shared success. And that foundation will carry you and your leaders much further than these first two months.

References

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Center for Creative Leadership (2020) Keep a promising career on track and prevent derailment. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership. Available at: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/5-ways-avoid-derailing-career/ (Accessed: 31 August 2025).

Edmondson, A.C. (2019) The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Hoboken: Wiley.

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Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P. (2002) ‘Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey’, American Psychologist, 57(9), pp. 705–717.

McKinsey & Company (2020) The organizational health index: Ten years of research on what drives performance. New York: McKinsey & Company.

Van Velsor, E. and Leslie, J.B. (1995) ‘Why executives derail: Perspectives across time and cultures’, Academy of Management Perspectives, 9(4), pp. 62–72.

Wang, D., Waldman, D.A. and Zhang, Z. (2014) ‘A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(2), pp. 181–198.