Projecting an impression of competent leadership is crucial for newly appointed CEOs. Hence, they have a strong incentive to impress boards and other stakeholders with bold and visible strategic decisions, such as divestiture and downsizing, early on. But how will those decisions affect their career later? Combining insights from the behavioral theory of the firm and the literature on impression management, we propose that new CEOs’ proactive impression management—their effort to boost expectations for future performance outcomes—can have an unintended consequence by shifting boards’ attention toward different performance aspirations. Using a large sample that includes most listed U.S. firms between 2003 and 2018, our analysis shows that new CEOs’ proactive adoption of restructuring shifts boards’ attention toward the CEOs’ performance records but away from the past performance of their predecessors. In this way, while proactive impression management may help new CEOs reduce the risk of unfavorable comparisons with their predecessors, it can further increase their risk of early departure when they underperform compared to their recent performance levels. We discuss how our findings can contribute to the ongoing research on the dynamic relationship between restructuring and executive turnover, impression management, and the multiplicity of performance aspirations.