I joined New Relic as EVP right after the CEO let go of the previous head of product. Our largest customers told us there had been little innovation in nearly three years. Sales had stopped trusting that product and engineering could deliver. And person after person told me they had already tried what I was about to suggest.
That is what the bigger seat usually looks like. You don't get it because things are going well. You get it because something has to change, and the people who handed it to you expect the change to show up fast.
I coach executives stepping into a bigger seat, a first-time CEO, a new COO, a leader promoted over the peers they sat beside, through the first quarter. I have made those moves myself: the founder who became a public-company CEO, the EVP at New Relic, the VP at Cox Automotive, the COO in a turnaround. This is what I did that worked, what I watch new leaders get wrong, and the one place where the standard advice splits.
Most people in the bigger seat are doing it for the first time
The seat your peers used to hold, the mandate nobody wrote down, and the pressure that comes with both are what the job is, not a verdict on you. The numbers further down say the same thing: most new COOs and CEOs are first-timers, most were promoted from inside, and most report the strain. When a private equity sponsor owns the company, the pressure has a date on it: a value creation plan, a board that wants the number and the story behind the number, and a sale somewhere down the road. More on that below.
What I did, and what I would do again
1. Find out which job you were actually hired to do
The COO seat alone has at least seven versions. At Cox Automotive a recruiter brought me in to fix technical problems. The problems were people and process. Ask the CEO, the board and the sponsor the same question in your first week, then write the answer down and send it back to them. If the three answers differ, that is your first finding.
2. Learn the business from your customers, internal or external, and the front line before you touch the org chart
At New Relic the customers and the sales team told me what was broken faster than anyone inside product would have. If you run a function like technology or finance, your customers are the people inside the company who depend on you; ask them the same questions. The front line knows. In month one you can ask the naive question; by month six the same question costs you standing.
3. Agree decision rights and success measures with the CEO, in writing, in the first quarter
Which calls are yours, which stay with the CEO, how you disagree in private and align in public. The CEO relationship is set in the first quarter, not the first year. If a sponsor owns the company, do the same with the operating partner: what they see, when, and how bad news travels.
4. Fix one visible operating problem before you redesign anything
At New Relic we changed three things. One general manager held product and engineering to business metrics. A quarterly planning session set the share of engineering that went to the roadmap, to bugs and to new sales. And one escalation meeting decided every roadmap change, so nobody traded the roadmap under the table. Six months later our customer advisory board, Disney's CTO and Capital One's SVP among them, told us we had delivered more than in the previous three years. Nearly $50 million in new sales followed within five months. None of it needed a reorg first.
What I watch new leaders get wrong
1. Taking the deck's word for it
In my first week at Cox Automotive I was handed a spreadsheet with a Gantt chart that pinpointed exactly what we would deliver and when. I asked one question: how accurate has that been so far? Trust the plan you inherited when the front line and the numbers agree with it. Not before.
2. Letting the team the change will disrupt most run the change
I watched one healthcare company try to move to the cloud three times, with the operations team in charge of its own disruption, and each time success was defined as "we moved to the cloud". It worked the fourth time, under one leader, when success became building software faster and more reliably. The full story is here.
3. Making "we shipped it" the definition of success
A team once asked me for three million dollars to build an API. Success was "we ship it". When success became a million transactions in the first 90 days, the same team found the integrations, the sales training and the SKU the plan had left out. Outcomes over activity, from the first week.
4. Managing the way that earned you the promotion
In the first 250 people at Interland, most decisions came to me. That is how a founder gets to 250 people, and it is exactly what stops a company at 250 people. Your value in the bigger seat is what happens when you are not in the room.
5. Going quiet
People will resist the change, and they will fill your silence with their own version of it. Say where you are going, why it is a must, and that it is not optional. Then say it again, in one-on-ones, with each person's context.
The numbers behind the first quarter
More than 85% of the COOs appointed in 2025 were first-time COOs, and 82% were promoted from inside, according to Russell Reynolds (more on the COO seat here). Of the 168 new S&P 1500 CEOs named in 2025, 84% were first-time CEOs and 48% came from the COO or president seat, according to Spencer Stuart (the general manager guide covers that path). And 71% of 10,796 leaders in DDI's Global Leadership Forecast 2025 reported significantly higher stress since stepping into their current role (the IT director guide has the rest of that study). Read together: the job is usually new to the person doing it, and the strain is the job, not the person.
Where the advice splits, and where I land
Half the field says touch nothing for 90 days. The other half says the biggest mistake new leaders make is not moving faster. Both are reacting to the same two failures: the leader who redesigns the org in week two on a slide deck, and the leader who is still "listening" in month five while the team decides nothing matters.
My read: learn fast, decide on data, and make the first decision visible. A decision almost always beats a pause. If you cannot find one visible operating problem worth fixing in your first quarter, you have not learned the business yet; and if you fix six, nobody will remember which one mattered.
If a private equity sponsor owns the company
The four moves and the five mistakes still apply. What changes is the clock. A sponsor arrives with a playbook and a timeline, and a board that expects the plan delivered. The first ninety days have to stabilize before any of the plan can happen, and the operating partner is a second CEO relationship: agree early what they will see, when, and how you will bring bad news before it is a surprise. Surprises cost more trust than bad news delivered early.
One of my clients was the technology leader at a private equity-backed company. His boss told him he was under pressure. Then the company told my client the boss was being replaced, and that he could take over as interim. He had led people. What he had not done was lead beyond the work itself: the sponsor, the board, the peers who were now his team. We built the first quarter around one job, getting the stakeholders aligned on what the seat was for. He went to each of them and asked what they needed from the role, listened, and wrote it back to them, so the mandate existed on paper before anyone measured him against it.
From there it was the sequence that works when it is followed, and the one most new leaders skip under pressure. A plan the stakeholders had shaped, so they owned it. Expectations reset with the team and with the shareholders, out loud, so nobody was measured against the old ones. Then execution, and more communication than felt necessary. It is the same sequence as the New Relic story above, with a smaller team and a shorter clock. The interim did not need to be the hero. He needed the people around him to know what was going to happen next, and then to see it happen.
Your first 30 days, in one list
- Ask the CEO, the board and the sponsor what you were hired to do. Write down the answers and send them back.
- Talk to your largest customers, internal or external, and the front line before you talk to consultants.
- Agree decision rights and success measures with the CEO in writing. Do the same with the operating partner.
- Ask each plan you inherit one question: how accurate has it been so far?
- Pick one visible operating problem. Fix it in the quarter. Say so when it is fixed.
- Tell your former peers the friendship continues and the role changed. Settle the passed-over candidate in week two.
- Hold a one-on-one with each person who reports to you and ask the same questions each time; read the disagreements as signal.
The questions people ask in their first week
What should a new executive do in the first 90 days?
Find out which job you were actually hired to do, and write it down. Learn the business from your customers, internal or external, and the front line before you touch the org chart. Agree decision rights and success measures with the CEO in writing. Then fix one visible operating problem before you redesign anything. The CEO relationship is set in the first quarter, not the first year.
How long should you wait before changing anything?
Less time than most of the advice says. Half the field tells you to touch nothing for 90 days; the other half says the biggest mistake new leaders make is not moving faster. My read: learn fast, decide on data, and make the first decision visible. A decision almost always beats a pause.
How do you lead people who used to be your peers?
Say the change out loud, once, and then behave like it. Tell each former peer in a one-on-one that the friendship continues and that your role now requires you to treat them the same as the rest of the team. Deal with the person who was passed over for your seat in the first two weeks, not after it festers. Small symbols matter more than you think.
What if the team knows more than you do?
Good. Learn before you change: your customers, internal or external, the sales team, each lead who reports to you. Your value in the bigger seat is not knowing the most. It is what happens when you are not in the room: whether decisions get made, whether the right work gets done, whether problems reach you early.
What changes when a private equity sponsor owns the company?
The clock. A sponsor arrives with a playbook and a timeline, a value creation plan the board expects delivered, and a sale somewhere down the road. The first ninety days have to stabilize before any of that can happen. Treat the operating partner like a second CEO relationship: agree what they will see, when, and how you will bring bad news early.
Is an internal promotion easier than coming in from outside?
Easier on knowledge, harder on authority. Most new executives are promoted from inside: 82% of the COOs appointed in 2025 were, according to Russell Reynolds. You know the business, which is the advantage. You also inherit the seat your peers used to hold and a mandate nobody wrote down, and nobody resets the relationship for you.
When should a new executive get a coach?
In the first quarter, if at all, because that is when the mandate, the CEO relationship and the first visible decision get set. A first-time CEO, a new COO or a leader promoted over their peers gets the most from a thinking partner who has made the same move. If you want someone to hand you the answer, a coach is the wrong purchase.
If you just landed the seat and want a thinking partner who has sat in it, that is the work I do. The first conversation is forty-five minutes on video, no pitch. Tell me what you were hired to do and who handed you the job, and I will tell you honestly whether I can help.