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Terblanche64 The challenges of career transitions Transitions into senior corporate leadership positions are challenging (Freedman, 2011; Martin, 2015). Many transitions end in a sub-optimal state or even failure. Up to 46 % of transitioning leaders underperform (Sutton, 2008) and as little as 16 % transition successfully (Freedman, 2011). Apart from the negative emo- tional implications for the incumbent and their colleagues, estimates place senior leadership transition failure at several million dollars (Martin & Gentry, 2011). Several studies have investigated the reasons for career transition failure (Avolio & Hannah, 2008; Bebb, 2009; Freedman, 2011; Martin, 2015; Watkins, 2003). These studies found that many transitioning leaders are unable to learn new skills (psychological, behavioural, cognitive, interpersonal) to adapt to the new roles. For transitioning leaders to succeed, it appears that they need help in unlearning unhelpful habits and acquiring new skills. Coaching offers the potential to facilitate this learning, but can it be done in a sustained manner? Transition coaching Organisations attempt to support transition leaders via various interventions such as leadership development programmes, mentoring and transition coach- ing (Freedman, 2011; Watkins, 2003). The jury is still out on the effectiveness of leadership development programmes (Avolio & Hannah, 2008), but transi- tion coaching seems to hold promise due to its individual, one-on-one nature (Kauffman & Coutu, 2009; Witherspoon & Cannon, 2004). Transition coaching is defined as an individual coaching intervention aimed at supporting the transitioning leader by addressing issues that may prevent them from being effective in the new role (Witherspoon & Cannon, 2004). Transition coaching is a relatively new field of research and practice, is in high demand (Bond & Naughton, 2011) but not well researched or used adequately in practice (Terblanche, Albertyn, & van Coller-Peter, 2017). Current approaches to transi- tion coaching focus on aspects such as improved stakeholder management, more effective communication and developing new cognitive and social skills (Reyn- olds, 2011; Sutton, 2008; Witherspoon & Cannon, 2004) but appear to stop short of creating sustained change on a more fundamental level (Bebb, 2009; Freed- man, 2011). Transition coaching is typically started too late and used as a rescue mechanism rather than a pre-emptive support (Terblanche et al., 2017). This sug- gests that there could be scope for designing a transition coaching intervention with a more enduring effect. Understanding how adults learn may hold the key. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND 4.0