MAKE THE FIRST YEAR AS DELIBERATE
AS THE HIRE
Transition infrastructure and coaching for leaders of leaders
Left to chance, the first year costs quietly accumulate:
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Relationships that never become alliances
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Caution where you hired conviction
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Pushback they never saw coming
None of it looks like a crisis. All of it compounds.
A structured first year compounds the positives instead.
THE FIRST MONTHS WILL LOOK FINE
The strategic assessment gets done, the priorities are named, and resources are being allocated. From where you sit, a capable senior leader is doing capable senior work.
Underneath they are guessing.
They don't know whether a recent observation is a one-off or an indication of something more cultural or pervasive. They don't notice that they are defaulting to a playbook that helped them to be successful in a different environment. They realized too late that they missed a key perspective that would have helped shape their last decision. They wonder if they're calibrated at the new level yet.
They can feel it before they can name it, and it's invisible to you.
By the time it surfaces, it has other names like the stalled initiative. in the weeds, or slow start.
Most organizations support the transition with logistics like onboarding meetings, access requests, and systems walk-throughs. The transition doesn't happen in the logistics. It happens in the person. That is where I work.
I WORK AT THE CORE
I help senior leaders identify the specific behaviors, interpretations, and limitations driving how they show up in this new role and together we design adjustments and evaluations that propel them faster.
The Transition Year by Demonstrated Mastery
The Space Between Us
The year moves through four phases, each with its own questions, at the pace of the leader rather than the calendar.
The Transition Year
The Sequence
A twelve month engagement built specifically for the first year of leading leaders. Not open-ended coaching, and not a generic curriculum.
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Orientation: Making sense of what they've entered; the organization as it actually works, and the leaders and peers around them.
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Positioning: Establishing how they lead at this level: what stops being their job, what now counts as real work, and how influence is earned here.
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Navigation: Working the middle of the transition: the end of newness, what the friction is made of, and the leader they are becoming
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Integration: Making it durable: developing the leaders they inherited, taking honest stock of who they have become, and sustaining the work after the year ends.
The Tools
Every topic in the year is anchored by a tool built specifically for this program: The Expectation Audit. The Shadow Cast. The Shared Root. The Trade. The Value Trace. The Currency. The Friction Forecast. The Fault Line. The Mirror Shift. The Bench Read. The Strata Reading. The Forward Letter.
The Notebook
The journey is captured in a notebook designed for exactly this work: The Transition Year Notebook. Individually bound booklets for each phase of the year enclosed in a leather cover. The leader writes by hand, between our sessions, in a space that belongs entirely to them.
Built by a practitioner
I'm Lisa Dunnigan. I've spent more than 25 years in leadership development, and I built The Transition Year because the first year of leading leaders is the most consequential and least supported. Every tool in this program was designed for it specifically.
Certified Executive Coach. Certified Hogan Assessment Practitioner. ICF member. MBA in Leadership.
Two ways to run the year.
1
The Transition Year Partnership - $20,000
The complete engagement for organizations that want the hiring manager fully in the architecture.
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The complete Transition Year Notebook system
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Biweekly coaching across 12 months
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The Hogan assessment with a full facilitated debrief session
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Both structured listening rounds, with the full stakeholder circle
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All 3 hiring manager touchpoints
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Additional coaching session access up to weekly, on topics of the leader's choosing
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Dedicated transition coaching for the hiring manager: the briefing partnership and reserved working sessions on your own role in the transition
Not sure which fits? That is part of the first conversation.
2
The Transition Year - $12,000
The complete program, for organizations where the leader's development is the funded scope.
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The complete Transition Year Notebook system
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Biweekly coaching across 12 months
-
The Hogan assessment with a full facilitated debrief session
-
Both structured listening rounds, focused voice set
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All 3 hiring manager touchpoints
Not sure which fits? That is part of the first conversation.