Insight

Piloting your best leadership landing

16 March 2026
All insights

What does a new C-level leader and an airline pilot have in common? Both face challenging transitions – the new leader’s first year or so and the airline pilot’s landings.

McKinsey (2018) research found nearly half of all CEO transitions fail within 2 years while IATA reports about half of airline accidents occur during landings. Transitions are high-pressure periods with limited time and space to make complex decisions and manoeuvre safely.

Turbulence ahead – keep your seat belts fastened

In the turbulence of C-level transitions, leaders find they need a wider range of skills. Sometimes, past strengths become liabilities.  Consider the new leader who thrives on detailed execution, when under pressure, retreats into their comfort zone and unintentionally undermines their team’s autonomy and morale. Not good for team trust building early into the C level role.

The “aha” moment comes when the new leader realises they can’t operate as before and accept Marshall Goldsmith’s ‘What got you here won’t get you there’ sage advice. His premise being our past success can blind us to our poor behaviours that limit our growth. We can start to think we have made it so all must be great.  Access to the ’captains lounge’ doesn’t make us a leading airliner ace.

Transitions can be tricky

When reviewing the consulting and academic research and our own CEO feedback, the common challenges faced by new C-level entrants fall into five overlapping categories:  strategic vision, culture, relationships, managing expectations, and, probably the most important, self-awareness.

Strategic Vision: Developing and communicating a clear strategic vision that aligns with the company’s goals can be a new leader’s toughest challenge. They need discipline to stay out of the weeds. Our pilot knows ‘the sky is clear above the clouds!’

That said, our CEO feedback highlighted the “work on vs in it” business mantra is too simplistic. When a key investor/director asks “Why is growth below budget?” they need detailed answers from a strong grip on the core business drivers. This depth builds confidence and key relationships – see below.

Action: Delegate effectively. Use the “important and urgent” 2×2 grid to focus on relevance, impact, and timeliness of how your own work relates to the strategy and mission. Build a clear strategic vision and reinforce this via regular key actions beyond just key messages.

Cultural Alignment: External hires must quickly adapt to the organizational culture, while promoted executives need to align with their top team’s norms. Failure here can lead to poor team cohesion and organisational resistance.

McKinsey’s survey found nearly half new CEOs failed to assess the effectiveness of their organizations’ cultures. They all agreed implementing material cultural changes was difficult.

Complex organisations can take time to fully understand and adjust to. Plenty of communications and planning is needed to avoid misunderstandings and misalignments.

Action: Spend time understanding the organizational culture and leadership team norms. Connect regularly with informal influencers and past executives. Recognise cultural change is always slower than we hope for. Expertise is often needed here.

Building Relationships: Major changes during C-suite transitions often meet resistance. An experienced CEO I spoke to said “quickly understand who your real stakeholders are and their core needs. You have less time than you think to meet their expectations.“

Spending time away from the flight deck across the organisation and the community allows for better trust building and buy-in from stakeholders. The CEO role is often lonely so having trusted advisers who will safely challenge them is critical.

Action: Treat every meeting as an opportunity to build relationships. Listen, learn and adapt.  Create a key internal and external relationships map then have regular catch ups. Be more meaningfully visible. Seek support and different perspectives from external advisors /mentors.

Matching expectations and capabilities: New leaders often have a change mandate and can feel pressured to move quickly. This perceived or real pressure can lead to poor execution if they don’t fully understand the organisation’s capabilities.

Another CEO interviewed said ‘be very honest about your team’s capabilities and make hard decisions quickly” to build your team.  The research reinforces this as the majority always wished they had moved faster in building their best teams.

Action: Conduct a detailed assessment of organisational capabilities. Build your bench strength to allow for better delegation and strategic decision-making. A stronger team allows you more space to make better strategic calls. Review my leaders time and space for more.

Self-Awareness: Executives often reported that they lacked the cross-skilling and preparation required for the personal demands and the steep learning curve of C-level transitions. Those that did prepare well were more able to focus on the key issues where they could more directly influence outcomes.

Avoid the “having all the answers” attitude and recognise that past wins don’t guarantee future success. Organisational success comes from regular, cumulative team successes not individual ‘feel good’ quick wins.

Action: Develop a detailed leadership development plan for you and your leaders. These processes are well documented and require honest feedback and regular reviews if we are to grow and be a successful senior leader. Focus on managing your self-care along with continuous learning.  Know your potential stressors and build strategies to manage these situations. Review my ‘’Dangers of always being on’ for more.

Transitions need T‑Shaped Skills

Enterprise leaders need “T‑shaped” capabilities: deep technical skills as the vertical and broader EQ and enterprise skills as the horizontal of the T. As leaders become more senior, the horizontal dimension must stretch.

As pilots train in simulators, leaders can develop via leading major projects, accepting lateral moves or secondments. Strong development programs combine internal experience, external training, coaching, and mentoring to clarify and support each executive’s strengths and development needs.

More Practice, Less Prayers

Structured leadership development always outperforms unplanned promotions. High performing firms invest in growing talent because losing top people costs far more than development programs. If you don’t develop your people, your competitors will.

A well-prepared C‑suite leader—like a well‑practiced pilot—out performs in high‑pressure transitions. We can invest in our leaders’ or promote and pray. Who would you want to fly with?

Further CEO takeaways

“In your first 3 months in a new role you are collecting plenty of data that you should put aside.  Later you sort out what will help on your leadership journey. Much of the early data is unreliable largely because of emotional filters – others and yours.”

For many CEOs, the take-off analogy was more like “a navy pilot being catapulted off an aircraft carrier.” This instantaneous take-off brings new meaning to being ‘dropped in the deep end’.

Author Michael Swinsburg Managing Partner