Interim Leadership

In the context of what we can offer, ‘Interim Leadership’ is defined as providing a service that temporarily fulfils an operational leadership role such as Operations Director, Managing Director, COO or similar for a period of, typically, between 3 and 24 months.

The need to bring in some leadership capacity on an interim basis usually arises from one of three scenarios:

1. Your organisation needs to manage a transition period such as meeting unplanned demand, embedding a new team, physical expansion, onboarding new customers or resulting from a management takeover; or
2. There is a need to temporarily fill a role during a recruitment or restructuring programme resulting from a new role requirement being identified but subject to long recruitment lead-times or not yet budgeted for or, perhaps, an unplanned departure from an existing role that will take time to backfill; or
3. There is a need to cover a temporary absence arising from, for example, maternity/paternity leave or secondment of an existing team member.

In the first two scenarios it’s likely that the incumbent team are being presented with something new to them and it’s important for the interim leader to provide a degree of mentoring to show what good looks like and ensure that the teams are equipped for success at the end of the interim period.

It’s also likely that results are needed to be delivered relatively quickly and whilst other team members are developing.

In all three scenarios you’ll want to be sure that whoever takes on the interim role has the experience, integrity and gravitas to take responsibility from day one, gradually relinquishing over time so that, at the end of the interim period, all dependency has been appropriately devolved.