The first 90 days of a new manager — why most fail before they've started

You were handed a set of keys, a rota due tomorrow, and zero onboarding. That is how most hospitality managers begin. And it is precisely why most of them fail — not for lack of competence, but for lack of the structure in which competence could have taken root.

The problem

Manager turnover in hospitality is one of the least discussed and most expensive problems in the industry. Operators talk about operational staff turnover — servers, chefs, kitchen porters — as a natural feature of the sector. They rarely talk about management-level turnover, because acknowledging it requires admitting that the problem may lie not only in the person who left, but in the system that received them.

Michael Watkins — author of one of the most widely read management books of the last two decades — spent years studying leadership transitions across industries. His conclusion was direct: the first ninety days of a new leader's tenure are disproportionately important. Mistakes made in that window are harder to recover from than mistakes made later. Foundations built well in that window compound over months and years. The first ninety days are not just a beginning — they are a negotiation about what kind of leader this person will be permitted to become.

In hospitality, those ninety days are compressed, chaotic, and almost entirely unsupported. The new manager does not get ninety days to observe, learn, and build trust. They get forty-eight hours until their first solo Friday night service.

To avoid being unfounded, I recall that when I started one of my recent leadership roles, for the first few weeks I was largely on my own, trying to understand the team hierarchy and how the place actually operated. Fortunately, this story had a positive outcome — I eventually understood the team dynamics and even met my partner, with whom I later started a family. Perhaps, however, that part is a story for another Wednesday.

Three mistakes

Drawing on Gabarro's (1987) research and operational experience, I identify three patterns that appear consistently in unsuccessful management transitions in hospitality. Each is understandable given the pressure under which a new manager operates. Each is predictably destructive.

• Mistake #1 - Moving foo fast

  A new manager arrives, observes for a few days, and identifies problems — often correctly. They have fresh eyes, an external perspective, and a natural impulse to demonstrate their value through action. They begin implementing changes in the first two weeks. The logic is sound. The timing is devastating.

  Why it doesn't work: the team has no trust with this person yet. Without trust, change is experienced as threat, not improvement. The resistance that follows is not about the change itself — it is about the relationship that hasn't been built yet. Gabarro (1987) documented this pattern precisely: managers who reorganised before establishing credibility consistently faced higher resistance and took significantly longer to reach full operational effectiveness than those who invested the first thirty days in listening and relationship-building.

• Mistake #2 - Managing by authority 
  The title "manager" or "floor manager" provides formal authority. In a kitchen or on a restaurant floor, formal authority has limited traction. The hierarchy of competence runs parallel to the hierarchy of title — and sometimes overrides it.

  A new manager who cannot demonstrate that they understand service, know the product, have been in the weeds and know what it feels like — will not be followed in the moments when it matters most. Not because the team is difficult or disloyal. Because trust in a hospitality environment is built through demonstrated competence, not through a job description written into a contract.

• Mistake #3 - Misaligned management focus

  New managers under pressure focus on satisfying the person above them — the owner, the general manager, the area manager. They report, update, and execute. And they neglect the lateral relationships that actually make the operation work.

  The relationships with the head chef, the reservations manager, the senior servers who have been there longer than anyone — these are the relationships that determine whether information flows freely, whether problems surface early, and whether the new manager is supported by the operation's informal networks or quietly undermined by them. A manager with excellent upward relationships and weak lateral ones is effectively managing on paper.

   

  The first ninety days 

  Watkins' framework (2003) translates to hospitality more directly than most operators expect.

  Days 1-30 - Listen — don't change

  Observe every service without intervening unless operationally necessary. Ask questions rather than offering solutions. Meet each key team member individually — not to assess them, but to understand their experience of the operation. What works? What frustrates them? What would they change if they could?

  The information gathered in these conversations is operational gold. And the act of asking — genuinely, not performatively — begins to build the relational foundation on which everything else rests.

  Days 31-60 - Build shared understanding

  Begin identifying two or three specific, visible, low-risk improvements. Not sweeping changes — small ones, selected because they address something the team themselves identified as a problem. Implement them with the team, not at the team. Make it visible that their input shaped the decision.

  This is the moment credibility shifts from "I've heard you" to "I act on what I hear." That is a fundamental difference in how leadership is perceived.

  Days 61-90 - Establish a sustainable operating rhythm

  By day ninety, the manager should have a consistent weekly structure: brief one-to-ones with key reports, a standing format for pre-service briefings, a clear protocol for how feedback flows up and down the operation.

  Not bureaucracy — structure. Structure is what allows the operation to function without the manager being physically present at every decision. That is the measure of operational maturity — not how good the manager is at managing, but whether the operation runs well when they are briefly absent.

   

  The responsibility

  Most conversations about management failure locate the problem in the manager. They weren't ready. They weren't the right fit. They couldn't handle the pressure.

  The research says otherwise. Ciampa and Watkins (1999) documented that the single strongest predictor of successful leadership transitions is not the individual's capability — it is the quality of the transition support provided by the organisation. Managers who received structured onboarding, clear expectations, and active support in their first ninety days significantly outperformed those who didn't — regardless of prior experience.

  In hospitality, where the standard onboarding is a set of keys and good luck, we are not selecting for the best managers. We are selecting for the ones who can survive the worst possible conditions for becoming one. That is a structural problem. And it has a structural solution.

  A minimum viable system: clearly formulated expectations for the first 30, 60, and 90 days, delivered before the first day of work. A designated contact — not the owner, because the power dynamic blocks honesty — for a weekly thirty-minute conversation through the first three months. And explicit permission for the first thirty days to be devoted to listening and observation, without pressure for immediate visible results.

  The cost of this system is minimal. The cost of its absence — in the form of management-level turnover, operational chaos at every transition, and the consistent loss of capable people whom the conditions destroyed before they had the chance to prove themselves — is one of the largest invisible costs in hospitality.

   

  References

  Ciampa, D., & Watkins, M. (1999). Right from the start: Taking charge in a new leadership role. Harvard Business School Press.

  Gabarro, J. J. (1987). The dynamics of taking charge. Harvard Business School Press.

  Groysberg, B., McLean, A. N., & Nohria, N. (2006). Are leaders portable? Harvard Business Review, 84(5), 92–100.

  Watkins, M. D. (2003). The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press.

   

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