Executive Impact: Turning Transitions into an Enterprise Advantage

Article

December 10, 2025

By Elizabeth Cook, Chris Thornton and Michelle Mahony

Against a backdrop of AI disruption, geopolitical and supply chain pressure, employee and stakeholder challenges and investor scrutiny, leaders are expected to deliver impact fast. Nearly half of executive transitions are judged as failures or disappointments within two years. Yet despite these pressures, most organizations still treat executive transitions as a sequence of announcements and introductions — and the shallowness of this approach is more evident than ever.  

Transitions aren’t PR moments. They’re enterprise moments. The difference shows up in results. Handled well, a transition can unlock energy, clarify priorities, and accelerate operating performance. Handled poorly, it drains trust, distracts teams, and invites scrutiny. The difference in outcomes isn’t driven by the number of interviews or town halls conducted or the addition of a few more executive LinkedIn posts. It’s dependent on a complete re-think of the support that executives receive in transition and a laser focus on how leadership skills, change management principles and communications can come together to drive success.   

As we head into 2026 expecting the pressure on new leaders to only grow, the Global Executive Advisory teams for FleishmanHillard and Daggerwing Group have formalized an integrated approach to transition that moves from executive visibility to Executive Impact. Executive Impact is a new way to manage leadership transitions as critical, ongoing business processes that shape reputation and future performance. Success isn’t measured by optics but by outcomes: how quickly a leader earns trust, sets strategic direction, and delivers results.  

Because real impact depends on more than narrative, Executive Impact includes the underlying mechanics that determine performance: clarifying how the leader will shape structure, decision rights, operating rhythms, and processes so the organization can deliver measurable business results at speed. 

Our Five As for Executive Impact transition framework offers a practical path for new executives to follow from the moment they know they’ll be taking the seat—but it also can be entered at any point by an executive who begins to feel that their organization isn’t fit for the challenges ahead. We help executives create and operationalize momentum—making it easier for their team to believe, act, and deliver together: 

Announce with intent: Focus executive appointment communications on establishing credibility and setting expectations, align communications across audiences and regulations, and prepare leadership teams and champions to carry consistent messages. 

Align through understanding: Balance listening with diagnosis and the setting of leadership expectations, and operationalize early shifts in roles, rhythms, and decision forums. 

Activate the agenda: Articulate a visible purpose and strategy, define early choices and symbolic moves, and connect communications to execution. 

Accelerate the system: Equip the leadership team to deliver at pace, close gaps, manage moves decisively, and embed cadences that create urgency and ownership. 

Amplify what works: Codify new norms, keep stakeholders updated, reconnect to purpose, and prepare for the next inflection point. 

This system targets real business outcomes: Faster trust and alignment across executive and employee teams and boards of directors, quicker strategy adoption and execution, and reduced risk of derailment in the first 180 days. 

Our experience includes Fortune 100 leadership transition consulting and coaching; turnaround, transformation, integration and culture programs; CEO and C-suite positioning and visibility programs; employee, investor and stakeholder engagement; and counseling companies across issues, crisis, and C-suites in duress. 

Leaders don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Every transition carries risk; the right design turns that risk into resilience. Executive Impact helps leaders set a credible course, accelerate execution, and sustain momentum beyond the early window. If you’re anticipating a change — or need to course-correct — FleishmanHillard and Daggerwing Group can partner with you to make this transition your advantage. 

Elizabeth Cook is part of the FleishmanHillard U.S. corporate affairs leadership team and directs regional executive positioning offerings.

Chris Thornton is Senior Principal at Daggerwing Group and works with leaders to build the mindsets, skills, and confidence needed to lead transformation and embed change across complex organizations.

Michelle Mahony is the President of Daggerwing Group and works to bring together the science and art of transformation to life for clients.