Executive Coaching for New CEOs: Navigating Your First 100 Days

Executive Coaching for New CEOs: Navigating Your First 100 Days

The transition to CEO is fundamentally different from any other leadership step you've taken. Here's why the first 100 days matter—and how executive coaching helps new CEOs navigate this critical period without the costly mistakes most make.

By Craig Fearn •

The newly appointed CEO who called me was three weeks into the role. Highly capable. Stellar track record as COO. Board’s unanimous choice.

And absolutely drowning.

Everyone wanted pieces of his time. Strategic decisions that couldn’t wait. Cultural issues he hadn’t anticipated. Board members with different agendas. A leadership team watching to see what kind of CEO he’d be. Investors expecting quick wins. And the nagging feeling that despite all his preparation, he wasn’t quite sure how to actually BE a CEO.

“I thought I was ready,” he said. “Turns out knowing about the CEO role and actually doing it are very different things.”

He’s not alone. The transition to CEO represents a fundamental shift that catches even the most capable executives off guard. And those first 100 days? They set the trajectory for your entire tenure.

After seventeen years working at board level and through my work as an EMCC Professional Coach, I’ve supported numerous executives through CEO transitions. What I’ve learned is this: the new CEOs who get coaching support for this transition perform significantly better than those who try to figure it out alone. Not because they’re less capable. Because the transition has unique challenges that benefit from structured support.

Why the CEO Transition is Different

Let’s talk about why stepping into the CEO role is fundamentally different from any previous leadership transition you’ve made.

The buck genuinely stops with you. As a functional leader or even COO, you could escalate difficult decisions to the CEO. You had someone to consult, someone to share responsibility. As CEO, ultimate accountability is yours. This psychological shift is significant.

Everyone’s watching. Your actions, decisions, communication style, even your body language in meetings—all of it gets interpreted as signals about strategy, culture, priorities. The scrutiny is constant and intense.

The complexity is genuinely different. You’re no longer optimizing one function or area. You’re balancing competing demands across the entire organization while managing board, investor, customer, employee, and other stakeholder relationships. The system you’re operating in is more complex than anything you’ve handled before.

Your previous strengths might not serve you. What made you successful as CFO or COO—deep functional expertise, operational excellence, driving execution—these matter but they’re not sufficient. CEO effectiveness requires different capabilities. Many new CEOs struggle because they keep using the approach that worked before.

You can’t show uncertainty the way you used to. When you were functional leader, you could say “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure” pretty freely. As CEO, admitting uncertainty requires more careful management. This doesn’t mean faking confidence you don’t have. It means learning to hold and communicate uncertainty differently.

Relationships change. People who were peers are now direct reports or board members. The openness you had before shifts. You need new peer relationships—with other CEOs, with your board chair, perhaps with a coach or mentor—because you can’t process the role’s challenges the same way anymore.

Understanding these shifts intellectually doesn’t mean you’re ready for them emotionally and practically. That’s where coaching makes the difference.

The Myth of the First 100 Days

Here’s something important. The idea that you must hit the ground running, make big changes fast, stamp your mark immediately—this is mostly myth.

Yes, the first 100 days matter enormously. But not because you need to transform everything quickly. They matter because you’re establishing pattern. How you operate. How you engage. What you pay attention to. What kind of CEO you’ll be.

Harvard Business Review research shows that the most effective new CEOs use early days for learning and relationship-building, not just action. They ask questions. They listen deeply. They resist pressure to make premature decisions just to appear decisive.

Research from Spencer Stuart on CEO transitions found that while first 100 days are important, what really determines success is whether you build the right foundation—relationships, understanding, strategic clarity—that enables sustained performance beyond.

So if you’re a new CEO feeling pressure to deliver quick wins and major changes immediately, take a breath. That pressure is real but it’s often internally generated or based on outdated thinking about leadership transitions. What you do in early weeks matters. But thoughtful foundation-building beats hasty action every time.

What Actually Matters in the First 100 Days

Based on supporting numerous CEO transitions and observing many more, here’s what actually determines early success.

Building genuine relationships with key stakeholders. Your board chair, board members, your leadership team, critical customers, important investors, key employee groups. These relationships form the foundation for everything else. You can’t lead effectively if you haven’t invested in understanding people and building trust.

Developing deep understanding of the business. Not surface-level. Deep understanding of strategy, operations, culture, challenges, opportunities, competitive dynamics. New CEOs who rush to action before really understanding the situation frequently make expensive mistakes.

Establishing your leadership approach. People are watching to understand what kind of CEO you’ll be. Accessible or distant? Decisive or consultative? Strategic or operational? Detail-oriented or big-picture? There’s no universally right answer. But you need clarity about your approach and you need to demonstrate it consistently.

Identifying critical priorities. Not everything. The 2-3 things that genuinely matter most in your first 6-12 months. These become your focus. Everything else is noise.

Assessing your team. You inherited a leadership team. Are they the right people? Do they have the capabilities needed for where you’re taking the organization? This assessment needs to be thoughtful and fair. But it can’t be avoided.

Creating strategic narrative. How do you articulate vision, strategy, and priorities? The narrative you create shapes how everyone understands what the organization is trying to achieve and why it matters.

Managing your own transition. The internal work of becoming a CEO—shifting identity, managing imposter feelings, developing new capabilities, finding sustainable rhythm. This internal transition enables the external performance.

These priorities are where executive coaching for new CEOs focuses. Not on creating perfect plans or memorizing frameworks. On navigating these complex, often ambiguous challenges in ways that set up long-term success.

Where New CEOs Typically Struggle

Several patterns limit new CEO effectiveness. Being aware of them helps you avoid them.

Doing too much. Trying to be everywhere, make all decisions, involve yourself in everything. This doesn’t scale and it signals you don’t trust your team. Learning to delegate properly—including strategically important work—is essential.

Moving too fast on people decisions. You inherit a leadership team. Some will be strong, some less so. But making hasty judgments before you really understand context, capabilities, and organizational dynamics often backfires. Take time to assess properly.

Being operationally reactive rather than strategically proactive. It’s easy to get pulled into operational issues—they’re urgent, they’re familiar, they feel productive. But CEO value comes from strategic thinking and positioning, not operational firefighting. You need discipline to stay focused on strategic priorities.

Underinvesting in board relationships. Your board chair relationship is critical. Individual relationships with board members matter too. New CEOs who don’t deliberately invest in these relationships often struggle with board dynamics later.

Ignoring culture. Strategy matters. But culture determines whether strategy actually gets executed. New CEOs who underestimate culture or think they can shift it quickly through speeches and initiatives consistently underperform.

Not building peer support network. The CEO role can be isolating. You need peers—other CEOs you can talk candidly with, advisors who understand the role, a coach who provides confidential thinking partnership. Trying to navigate it alone is unnecessary and counterproductive.

Maintaining previous identity. You were a great CFO or COO. That’s what got you here. But continuing to operate primarily from that functional identity rather than growing into CEO identity limits effectiveness. The identity transition is real work that many new CEOs don’t anticipate.

Coaching helps new CEOs navigate these challenges by providing structured space to think through decisions, process the transition, develop new capabilities, and have candid conversations that you can’t always have with board, team, or stakeholders.

How Executive Coaching Supports CEO Transitions

So what does effective coaching for new CEOs actually look like?

Creating thinking space. New CEOs are bombarded with decisions, demands, information. Coaching creates protected time for reflective thinking. Processing what’s happening. Considering options without immediate pressure to decide. This thinking space is scarce yet essential.

Developing strategic perspective. Coaching helps new CEOs develop the strategic thinking capability the role requires. Not through frameworks—though frameworks can help—but through facilitated reflection on strategic questions, challenges, and opportunities.

Working through relationship complexity. Every significant relationship has nuance—with your chair, individual board members, leadership team members, key stakeholders. Coaching provides space to think through these relationships, plan approaches, process difficulties, and develop relationship effectiveness.

Supporting the identity transition. Moving from functional leader to CEO requires genuine identity shift. Coaching supports this internal transition—working through imposter feelings, developing CEO mindset, building confidence in the role while maintaining appropriate humility.

Preparing for high-stakes situations. Board presentations. Difficult conversations with underperforming team members. Investor presentations. Media interactions. Coaching can include preparing for these situations—thinking through approach, anticipating challenges, practicing if helpful.

Providing confidential sounding board. There are thoughts and concerns you can’t always share with board or team. Coaching provides confidential space to think through sensitive issues, test ideas, process difficulties without risk of undermining your position.

Accelerating learning. My seventeen years of board-level experience means I understand the contexts, pressures, and dynamics new CEOs face. This enables more informed coaching—I can help you see patterns you might miss, spot potential issues early, draw on relevant experience without prescribing solutions.

Maintaining accountability. It’s easy for good intentions about leadership approach or priorities to slip under operational pressure. Coaching creates accountability—did you actually do what you said mattered? If not, what got in the way? This gentle accountability helps new CEOs maintain focus on what genuinely matters.

Structure and Rhythm

CEO transition coaching typically runs intensive in early months then adjusts based on need.

Many new CEOs benefit from weekly sessions in the first 8-12 weeks. This frequency enables processing rapidly evolving situations, preparing for significant upcoming events, and building thinking space into what’s typically an overwhelming period.

After initial period, fortnightly or monthly sessions often work well. Enough frequency to maintain momentum and provide regular thinking space. Not so frequent that it becomes administratively burdensome.

Sessions typically run 90 minutes rather than 60. The complexity of CEO role and the thinking required benefit from longer format.

Some coaching includes occasional shadowing—the coach observes a board meeting or leadership team meeting, then debriefs with you about dynamics, your effectiveness, what you might adjust. This real-world observation can surface insights that conversation alone might miss.

The ROI of CEO Coaching

Let’s talk money. Executive coaching for CEO transitions represents meaningful investment—typically several thousand pounds per month.

Worth it?

Consider the cost of CEO transition failure. Organizational disruption. Board intervention. Potential CEO replacement. Impact on strategy execution and performance. These costs massively exceed coaching investment.

More importantly, consider the value of a new CEO who acclimates quickly, makes sound early decisions, builds strong relationships, and performs at high level from early in their tenure rather than struggling through a difficult first year.

Organizations that invest in CEO transition coaching typically see faster time to full CEO effectiveness, better early decision-making, stronger stakeholder relationships, higher board confidence, and reduced risk of transition failure.

For the CEO personally, coaching provides capabilities, confidence, and thinking partnership that serve you throughout your tenure. The investment in your first 100 days pays dividends for years.

Who Benefits Most from CEO Coaching

Not every new CEO needs coaching. Some have extensive CEO experience from previous roles. Some have extraordinary support systems. Some navigate transition smoothly through their own capabilities and resources.

But CEO transition coaching is particularly valuable for:

First-time CEOs. If you’ve never been CEO before, you’re navigating truly new territory. Coaching accelerates learning and reduces costly mistakes.

CEOs stepping into significantly larger or more complex organizations. Even if you’ve been CEO before, stepping into much larger scale or greater complexity represents substantive transition. Coaching helps you scale your effectiveness.

CEOs in high-stakes turnaround or transformation situations. When you’re joining an organization in crisis or leading major transformation, the pressure is intense and margin for error is slim. Coaching provides critical support.

CEOs who want to perform exceptionally, not just adequately. Some new CEOs are satisfied getting by. Others want to be genuinely excellent in the role. Coaching supports exceptional performance.

CEOs who recognize the value of external perspective. If you understand that you don’t have all answers and that external thinking partnership enhances your effectiveness, coaching will serve you well.

Choosing the Right Coach

Not all executive coaches are equipped to work with CEOs effectively. The role’s unique demands require specific coach capabilities.

Look for coaches with genuine board-level experience. They need to understand boardroom dynamics, board-CEO relationships, governance complexity. Coaches without this experience struggle to provide relevant support.

Coaching credentials matter. EMCC Professional Coach qualification or equivalent demonstrates proper coaching training and adherence to professional standards.

CEO transition experience is valuable. Has the coach supported other new CEOs? Can they speak knowledgeably about typical challenges and effective approaches?

Chemistry is essential. You’re going to discuss sensitive issues, admit uncertainties, think through difficult situations. The coaching relationship needs sufficient trust and rapport for this to work.

And assess their approach. Do they help you think rather than telling you what to do? Can they challenge you appropriately? Do they combine supportive partnership with developmental push?

Starting Sooner Rather Than Later

If you’re a newly appointed CEO or about to step into the role, my recommendation is simple: start coaching before Day 1 if possible. Certainly within your first few weeks.

The earlier you start, the more support you have for critical early decisions, the stronger foundation you build from the beginning.

Waiting until you’re struggling—three months in, overwhelmed, realizing things aren’t going as hoped—means you’ve lost valuable time and possibly made preventable mistakes.

Better approach: recognize from the start that CEO transition represents major challenge. Get support early. Use coaching to navigate the transition thoughtfully rather than scrambling later to correct course.

If you’re a board considering CEO transition support, building coaching into the package for new CEOs signals that you take transition seriously and want to set them up for success. This investment typically delivers strong return through better CEO performance and reduced transition risk.

The Long Game

CEO transition coaching isn’t about surviving the first 100 days. It’s about building the foundation for sustained excellent performance throughout your tenure.

The capabilities you develop, the thinking patterns you establish, the relationships you build, the strategic perspective you cultivate—these serve you for years.

New CEOs who invest in coaching for their transition typically continue coaching relationships, often moving to less frequent cadence. Because they’ve experienced the value of that thinking partnership and external perspective.

The boards that support CEO transition coaching typically continue supporting ongoing CEO development because they see the performance benefit.

This isn’t remedial intervention. It’s high-performance support for leaders taking on one of the most challenging transitions in business.

If you’re preparing for or navigating CEO transition, a conversation about how coaching might support your specific situation can help clarify whether this makes sense for you. This transition shapes your trajectory as a CEO. Worth thinking through properly and getting the support that maximizes your effectiveness.

The step to CEO is significant. You don’t have to navigate it alone.

References

About the Author

Craig Fearn is the founder of Lighthouse Mentoring. He holds two Fellowships (FCMI and FRSPH) and serves as an IoD Ambassador. With 17 years of board-level experience across NHS, technology, financial services, and manufacturing, Craig provides strategic guidance on board governance, executive coaching, and organizational wellbeing.

Learn more about Craig →

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