The First 6-Month Review for a New C-Suite – Here's How to Nail It

You’ve Reached a Career Milestone and Stepped Up into Your First C-Suite Role

You’ve implemented your 100-day plan. You mapped it across three smart tracks: learning the business, understanding the people, and aligning your thinking into the context of the culture. You’ve listened. You’ve observed. You’ve begun to build trust.

And now? You’re six months in. The probationary period is coming to an end. And while it might seem like just another HR milestone, this moment holds more weight than many realise.

This is a career-defining moment.

The business is deciding whether to fully back you. You’re deciding whether this is the place you can lead and thrive long-term. But more than that, this is where you take stock and ask:

• Have I successfully made the shift from operational leader to c-suite executive?

• Am I delivering value at the right altitude?

• And does the MD/CEO and the organisation see it?

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The Crucial Shift: From in the Business to on the Business

For many, stepping into their first c-suite role is a milestone that has been years in the making. It’s a step that feels familiar on the surface — leadership is leadership, right?

Not quite.

In previous leadership roles, you led your function. You were the go-to problem-solver, team builder, and executor. You measured your success by your team’s engagement, your P&L, or your customer metrics.

But now, you’re at a new altitude. And that demands a very different orientation:

• Strategic stewardship, not operational management

• Enterprise contribution, not functional delivery

• Long-term growth and sustainability, not quarterly wins

• Governance, culture, and systemic thinking, not just tactical execution

And of particular significance — your most important team is no longer just your direct reports. It’s your executive peers on the executive committee or leadership team. Many new c-suites forget this. They keep their energy focused primarily on their own function first. But at this level, your value is measured by how well you partner cross-functionally — how you contribute to shared outcomes across profitability, innovation, customer experience, and organisational growth.

This is where many falter — not because they’re not capable, but because they haven’t reframed their identity. They continue operating like high-performing Heads Of, just with a bigger title. But the seat requires more.

The earlier you embrace this shift, the better. Because — let’s be honest — early decisions about whether an executive is going to succeed are often made long before the 6-month mark.

From day one, people are watching:

• How do you show up?

• What do you ask about?

• What are you curious about?

• Where are you placing your energy?

The first few weeks leave lasting impressions. Confidence, competence, presence, strategic clarity — these are evaluated quietly, but they matter deeply, especially to your MD, your peers, and the Board.

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Common Missteps New Executives Make

They say hindsight is a beautiful thing. According to a McKinsey global survey on executive transition (n = 1195), more than half of new executives said they spent too little time preparing themselves for the demands of their new role.

Here are some of the most common hindsight pitfalls I hear about when new clients come to me for coaching after their initial 6 - 12 months in their first c-suite role:

1. Staying too narrow

It’s a common misstep for new executives to focus inward, prioritising their own department above all else. But at this level, your primary team is no longer the one you lead—it's the one you sit beside. Your executive peers are the team that determines your strategic altitude, your influence, and your ability to drive enterprise-wide outcomes.

Many new execs make the mistake in their order of priorities - that if they ‘fix the function’, they’ll prove their worth. But c-suite leadership isn’t about functional rescue. When you invest in building trust, alignment, and shared momentum across the leadership table, your functional success becomes a byproduct of enterprise impact. That’s where true influence begins—not with functional optimisation, but with cross-functional collaboration and strategic contribution at the highest level.

Don't get me wrong —functional team and direct reports are definitely up there on the high importance list and should be addressed early in the transitional period. It's just not the be-all-and-end-all main event.

2. Waiting too long to act

A solid on-boarding 100-day plan should absolutely include discovery — learning the business, building trust with your team and key stakeholders, understanding the unspoken rules of the culture. But it can’t end there. Plenty of leaders spend their first months “listening and learning” — but too often, it becomes a prolonged passive state beyond the first 6 months, even up to as long as 12 - 18 months in the role. They remain cautious, deferential.

The risk? They blend in. They fail to shift gears. They look like a cautious passenger, not a driver of change.

Before they know it, the strategy has been set. The budget has been locked. The influence window? Missed.

Meanwhile, their team is in limbo. Their peers are unsure what they stand for or what value they will contribute. And their MD hasn’t yet seen the spark they were hired for.

Here’s the truth:

• Impact isn’t about bravado, but it is about presence.

• Listening earns trust, but action builds credibility.

• Waiting too long to shape direction means you’re defaulting to someone else’s strategy.

3. Failing to make their work visible

Many new execs are doing valuable work—but it’s going unseen. They’re either waiting for perfection or unclear on what counts as c-suite level contribution.

The result? Perception gaps. And at this level, perception is reality.

If your MD and peers can’t clearly articulate the difference you’ve made, your impact hasn’t truly landed. Visibility isn’t about ego—it’s about strategic communication. Your value must be seen, felt, and aligned to business goals, or it risks being missed entirely.

4. Setting strategy too far ahead

Many leaders make promises of the development or revision to a 3-year strategy — a big, bold, impressive vision. But they miss the bridge from today to that future.

Long-term vision without near-term traction is dangerous. If you’re not showing visible and documented progress in the first 3 to 6 months, it becomes hard to maintain confidence in your leadership.

You must deliver value now, even while you build the roadmap for tomorrow.

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What Should be the Focus Within the First 6 Months?

I recommend focusing on four key dimensions during this early phase of executive transition:

1. The Business Develop a deep, contextual understanding of the business—its performance, its position in the market, its strategic priorities, and its operational dynamics. This means engaging with key data and financials, but also taking a deep dive to understand customers, competitors, and the broader ecosystem. Your goal here is to build credibility quickly through strategic insight, not just functional knowledge.

2. The Culture The culture is often invisible until you crash into it. In your first six months, observe the unwritten rules, behaviours, rituals, and beliefs that shape how things really get done. Understand the tone set by leadership, the risk appetite, the speed of decision-making, and the organisation’s tolerance for change. Your ability to work with the culture—while identifying where it may need to evolve—will shape your influence.

3. The People Identify your stakeholders early—and build trust and credibility faster. This includes your peers on the executive team, functional team, and the critical influencers in and around the business. Focus on listening, observing, and building authentic relationships. Look for high-potential talent, pockets of resistance, and collaboration gaps. Who can be your trusted advisors? Your people map will become your influence map.

4. Self-Management Lastly, don’t underestimate the importance of intentionally shaping how the business comes to understand you. This is the time to build your leadership presence, establish your reputation, and consciously embed your leadership style into the fabric of the organisation. Every business has its own nuances and rarely is a new executive a perfect fit across all competencies from day one. Identify the leadership behaviours, strategic capabilities, and influence skills you’ll need to evolve in order to maximise your value.

The big four should each play a role within your 6-Month Review narrative and be wrapped into how you have synthesized your new insights and key learnings, the quick high-value wins you have already made, and how your strategic vision and action-orientated plan is shaping up.

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How to Prepare for a Standout 6-Month Review

A well-structured 6-month review for a new c-suite executive should balance reflection, performance & impact, alignment, and forward strategy—framed not just around what’s been done, but how you’re positioned to lead ahead.

But it will be the strategic narrative you craft and the leadership presence you bring into the room at the review meeting that elevates the outcome and leaves a lasting impression.

Start with an Empathetic Mindset

Before getting into the standardised performance review planning stage, I always ask my clients to visualise stepping into their MD or CEO’s shoes and imagine their big picture perspective on:

• What would "exceptional" look like for someone in your role—beyond the written KPIs and scorecards?

• What would give them absolute confidence that they made the right hire and that you’re the right leader for now and for the future?

• Have you shown up with that calibre?

• And what may they have heard from others and their initial observations about you within this role?

Mindfully Prepare for How the Meeting will go down

The review meeting has been scheduled. This isn’t a time to play it low key or spend too much time being overly social. It’s the moment to deliver your narrative with well-thought-out intention and get down to business.

In the meeting mindfully prepare to:

• Own the Room Consciously think about how to walk in with presence. Not arrogance, but grounded clarity. You're not there to prove you're busy—you’re there to show you're exactly the leader the organisation needs now, and for what’s coming next.

• Lead with Impact, Not Activity Resist the temptation to list everything you’ve done. Instead, zoom out. What impact have you had? What have you shifted strategically, culturally, or cross-functionally? That’s what lands at exec level.

• Reflect honestly Yes, reflect on the impact and outcomes of what you have done but also prepare to reposition your value. Your goal is not just to recap actions, but to show how you’re thinking, leading, and adding strategic lift to the business.

• Articulate your value simply and clearly—with evidence Use a range of communication techniques. Storytelling can be a method to humanise your impact if applied with a purposeful, structured, and strategically disciplined style. Follow a format of Challenge → Action → Result → Strategic Relevance and anchor your points in data, metrics, or tangible outcomes wherever possible. Think improved performance, stakeholder wins, cultural shifts, or commercial traction. Highlight not just what you did, but why it mattered—and connect it to the organisation’s strategic goals.

• Be Clear on What’s Next Your review is also about the future. Come with clarity on what you’re focused on next, what the business can expect from you, how you plan to lead forward, and how you will track success. This is where you shift from “new hire” to “enterprise leader.”

Documentation and Narrative

Every Executive Performance Review structurally will usually comply with a company protocol and governance processes specific to your organisation. Everyone can follow that, but those who strive to reach a high-performance rating of “exceptional” will take things the extra mile.

Here’s what I recommend you make sure you cover in addition to the standard review documentation to ensure you nail it:

1. Your First 6 Months

• What did you inherit? Paint a clear picture of the state of play.

• What have you observed and learned? (Insight) Go beyond the numbers — highlight cultural dynamics, team patterns, key relationships, blind spots, market insights, and customer experience realities

• What have you done? Highlight early wins (often the low hanging fruit), structural changes, process improvements, or problem-solving moments—supported by tangible outcomes and KPIs.

• What impact have you had? Consider business value, strategic alignment, team engagement, stakeholder confidence, or leadership presence.

2. Your Visibility & Influence

• How have you contributed to enterprise-wide conversations?

• What relationships have you built across the executive and cross-functional landscape?

• Where have you influenced key decisions, created alignment, or helped resolve friction points between functions?

3. Your Next 6 Months

• What is your strategic focus? What are you committing to lead?

• What enterprise-level opportunities will you champion?

• What foundational work still needs acceleration or uplift?

• What metrics will you use to track progress and impact?

• What does success look like? Define it across performance, influence, and strategic outcomes.

• How will you continue to lead? Share the leadership tone you’re building, how you're embedding it across your team and the exec table, and how you’ll keep evolving. Think internal influence, external thought leadership, and your personal development roadmap and the support you require to accelerate it.

Make sure your MD walks away with an unmistakably clear perspective that not only did they make the right hire—but that you are the leader who’s aligned, activated, and ready to help drive the organisation’s future forward.

Bonus Tip: For maximum impact, pair your review structure with a visual one-pager or executive narrative that outlines:

• H2 roadmap

• Stakeholder engagement plan

• Key enablers required

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The Final Word: Support Can Make All the Difference

Much effort and emphasis is placed on finding the right candidate for the job. Selection processes are lengthy, costly, and critical — with every decision trying to mitigate the risk of leadership failure.

But more and more, I’m seeing that what happens after the hire is just as important.

Because the truth is this: The right support early in the role — coaching, strategic advisory, thought partnership — can increase the chance of success by an order of magnitude.

Even the most experienced leaders benefit from an external perspective. Someone to:

• Challenge their assumptions

• Help them reframe their role

• Accelerate their strategic impact

• Keep them focused on what matters now and next

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If you're a marketing or business leader navigating a new c-suite seat, and you're ready to amplify your impact, let's talk.

I work with new and seasoned executives to build leadership confidence, sharpen strategic contribution, and deliver visible value early.

Visit www.jaisanderson.com or message me directly to find out more about how I can support your leadership journey.

Because the first six months? They’re not just a test.

They’re your launchpad.