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Organizations have situations in which there is unexpected change at the executive level when a leader departs, and provisional leadership is required. Interim executives serve organizations for brief periods of time, but often play a pivotal role in leading successful executive transitions, providing crucial leadership while organizations take time to assess and strategically prepare for new permanent leadership. The author served in an interim executive role and did a review of the limited existing literature to help prepare for that role. This heuristic reflection suggests some important considerations for an organization faced with the immediate needfor a new leader and a call for more research.
Keywords: leadership, interim, transition, succession planning, executive search
INTRODUCTION
Organizations are often ill equipped to deal with the abrupt change related to the departure of a senior leader. Many do not have succession-planning processes in place, even though leadership succession is inevitable in an organization's life cycle (Schepker, Nyberg, Ulrich & Wright, 2018). Saporito and Winum (2012) state succinctly, "With the complexities involved in selecting and transitioning the chief executive increasing with each passing decade, the mindset of the past and the methods used then are, in many ways, inadequate for ensuring success..." Often the leadership skill sets needed to continue or advance organizational strategy after an executive departure are either not available within current employee ranks, or an external candidate is desired by the Board or hiring officer. This involves a search for someone not currently affiliated with the organization. The search may be lengthy and complicated, entail the services of an external recruiter or search firm, necessitate unplanned budget expenditures for on-site interviews, and may demand alternative pay and benefits options for the incoming replacement.
As with any employee hire, there are elements of risk associated with either replacing a departed leader with a current employee or with an external candidate. Many organizations do not have processes or procedures to measure, manage or otherwise mitigate this risk. (Bartram, 2012; Cornwall, 2001; Moran & Green, 2009).
Regardless, this situation calls for someone to be selected for a provisional leadership role. Interim executives can be selected from internal employees as well as from a pool of experienced individuals who are available for such temporary assignments. There are even placement...