Most of the organizations OMNI works with know their newly promoted managers need support. The obstacle is rarely willingness. It is finding the time, focus, and structure on a team that already has more work than capacity.
So we put the question to four coaches from The Cleaver Company, OMNI’s leadership development partner, directly: what should an organization put in place for these transitions, starting now, before a formal program is built? Their answers pointed to practical ways organizations can create clarity, support, and momentum during the transition.
1. Spend the first conversation on clarity
Elizabeth Souder, who coaches executives through exactly these transitions, has a list of questions she wants a new manager to ask their boss in the first weeks:
- What does success look like in this role?
- What am I accountable for? Which decisions are mine, and which are not?
- What should I stop doing?
- How will we know in six months that I am succeeding?
- Where do you anticipate I may need additional support, and what resources or guidance would you recommend?
- How often will we talk about the people-leadership part of my job, rather than just the tasks and the results?
Many organizations skip the fourth question, and the fifth takes a level of candor that can be hard for a new manager to raise on their own. If the new manager doesn’t bring it up, their supervisor should.
2. Ask about the enterprise before you ask about the person
Graham Smith develops the leadership solutions Cleaver’s coaches deliver, and he frames the first conversation around three levels: enterprise, team, individual.
Start at the top. “Take me out of it for a second, what does the enterprise need from my role, regardless of who’s in it?” Getting clear on the enterprise priorities attached to the position, separate from the person now holding it, is the part Graham says is critical to do early.
Then the team level: which relationships, if they improved even slightly, would move those priorities most? That question covers the new manager’s own team and their new peer group, which is a relationship set most first-time managers have not thought about at all.
Then the individual level, where Graham recommends asking for candid feedback early: where do you see my blind spots, and what is going to get in my way? Asking for feedback in week two costs far less than receiving it in month nine.
3. Use a framework to keep the conversation focused and constructive
Austin Smith walks through one of Cleaver’s frameworks, known as RAAM, that covers what is on fire today, what the strategic targets are, and then four buckets: responsibility, authority, accountability, and measurement.
His argument for using a named framework is not about rigor. It is about removing the personal charge. “It depersonalizes it,” he says. The conversation stops being about a nervous new manager and becomes a normal exercise in defining a role, which is what it should be.
A broader Cleaver model, Awareness, Agency, Action, works alongside it. Awareness comes from assessments and honest conversations. Agency is the practical question of what this person can actually do and decide. Action is the part organizations most often drop. “If we just talk about it, nothing changes. It has to move to action.” A development conversation with no plan attached is a pleasant meeting.
4. Give them three priorities, not thirty
Todd Stone uses the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule, in reverse with new managers. Cleaver draws on widely used business and psychology frameworks like this one alongside its own models. If 80% of problems come from 20% of issues, then 80% of a new manager’s impact will come from about 20% of what they focus on. His practical version is what he calls the big three: if only three priorities had the biggest impact on this job, what are they?
The goal is triage, not thoroughness: focus on what matters most while everything else waits. “That first 90 days can be really overwhelming,” Todd says, so he gives new managers a few anchors to return to daily while urgent issues continue to arise.
That shift in perspective is important. A new manager trying to be excellent at everything in month one will make worse decisions than one trying to be adequate at everything and genuinely good at three things.
5. Connect them with a trusted peer mentor
When we asked what a company can practically do to help, Todd’s answer was simple: a mentor. Not the new manager’s boss, someone one or two years ahead of them who checks in, who is approachable, and who gives them somewhere to say “I don’t know what to do here.”
“It’s very destabilizing” for new managers, he says, and a mentor who cares about their success is the most accessible stabilizer available. It requires intentionality, consistency, and the right person in the support role.
This has a greater impact than people expect. Small organizations often assume mentoring is a bigger-company perk, but it works better with fewer layers between people.
The habit underneath all five
Elizabeth calls it going slow to go fast. The instinct after a promotion is to get straight into the job, and the instinct is wrong. “When we pause long enough to have the conversation and achieve that clarity, then we can really start moving forward.”
Graham points at the same gap from a different angle. When you ask managers how much of their time should go to coaching and developing their people, they land around 15 to 20%. Ask what they actually spend, and the number drops under 5%. For most managers it is not a missing skill, Graham notes, it is missing time.
Related reading: What Actually Happens in a New Manager’s First 90 Days, Coaching for Success: Elevate Performance at Every Level and Leadership Development: A Strategic Investment.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum an organization should do for a newly promoted manager?
One structured conversation about success, accountability, decision rights and what to stop doing, plus a named mentor who is a year or two ahead of them. Neither one requires anything beyond intention and follow-through.
Who should mentor a new manager?
Not their boss. Todd Stone recommends someone one or two years further along who is approachable and will check in, so the new manager has a place to process questions they would not raise with the person who evaluates them.
How much time should a manager spend developing their people?
It depends on the role, the team and whether the team is being repaired or being sharpened. Cleaver’s coaches make that recommendation per situation rather than by formula. Todd Stone’s observation is that the proportion should grow as a leader moves up, because the impact of developing people widens with the footprint.
What should a new manager focus on in the first 90 days?
Three priorities. Todd Stone’s big-three exercise asks which three parts of the role carry the most impact, and uses those as daily anchors while the day-to-day noise continues.
Can a small organization do this without a formal program?
Yes. Every support in this post, the first conversation, the enterprise-team-individual frame, the responsibility-authority-accountability-measurement buckets, the big three, and a mentor, works at nine employees as well as nine hundred.
Where OMNI fits
OMNI’s leadership and professional development services build the transition plan, the first-90-day framework and the coaching relationships around your newly promoted leaders. Request a consultation.
Authored by: Julie Anderson, Vice President of Business Development, OMNI Human Resource Solutions