How do you lead a business you have just been parachuted into?

Resist the urge to act on day one. The first ninety days are for listening: to the people who run the work, the numbers, and the things said only in the corridor. Your job in that window is to find the one or two truths everyone already knows but no one will say, and to earn the right to act on them. Change made before that right is earned rarely holds. Nearly 50 percent of externally hired executives fall short of expectations within the first 12 to 18 months. Most of the time, the problem is not competence. It is sequence.

Why do parachuted leaders fail?

They fail because they import a playbook from their last business before understanding this one. Michael Watkins, in his widely referenced The First 90 Days, calls this the action imperative trap: the intense urge to put a stamp on the organisation, which leads to poor early decisions that are extremely hard to undo. A related trap is what Watkins calls staying in the comfort zone, where a new leader defines the role through the lens of what they already know rather than what the business actually needs.

McKinsey research reinforces this. Their analysis of CEO transitions found that stakeholders give a new CEO roughly nine months to develop a strategic vision, 14 months to build the right team, and 19 months to show results. The 100-day deadline is a myth. But the first 90 days set the tone for everything that follows, because that is when the organisation decides whether it trusts you.

What should the first ninety days actually look like?

Three things, in this order.

Listen before you prescribe. Sit with the people who do the work. Not the town halls and the slide decks, but the operating meetings, the depot floor, the branch visit. Ask the same five questions of every person you meet: What works here? What does not? What would you change if you could? What are we not talking about? What do customers tell you that the head office never hears? The pattern will emerge fast. You do not need a hundred conversations. You need thirty honest ones.

Find the unsaid truth. Every organisation has one or two things that sit in plain sight but are never raised in formal meetings. A business unit that should have been closed two years ago. A layer of management that adds cost but not decisions. A customer concentration that everyone privately worries about. Your job is to surface these, calmly, and make it safe to discuss them. That is how you earn credibility: not by arriving with answers, but by naming the right questions.

Pick one or two early wins that matter. HBR research on leadership transitions warns of the low-hanging fruit trap, where leaders chase quick wins that bear no relation to longer-term objectives. The early wins that count are the ones that signal your priorities. Fix something visible that your predecessor could not or would not. Remove a bottleneck that frustrated the team. Make a decision everyone was waiting for. Small, but directional.

What about the team?

A common regret among new CEOs, according to McKinsey, is not moving on people fast enough. But moving too fast is equally dangerous when you are new. The right sequence is to assess first, decide by the six-month mark, and act cleanly. That means having private, honest conversations early. Not waiting until a reorganisation forces the issue.

The real test

The real test of a parachuted leader is not the strategy deck. It is whether, at the end of 90 days, the organisation says: “This person listened, understood our business, and is now earning the right to change it.” If you have that, you have a platform. If you do not, no amount of vision or restructuring will hold.

The playbook is simple. Arrive curious. Listen hard. Find the unsaid truth. Act on it with the credibility you have built, not the title you were given.