Interim executives can play a vital role in steering organisations through challenging transitional periods. Though they may only be there for a limited period, they can prove instrumental in laying the foundations for future stability and success.
However, to be effective as an interim executive, you need to have a particular skill set that equips you for the sort of challenges you’re likely to encounter. Employers will be looking for these skills when recruiting interim leaders, so you need to be clear about what you can expect.
Whether you’re a seasoned veteran who’s served in interim leadership roles before or you’re considering an interim management career, you must understand what will be needed from you. Here’s how you can go about promoting yourself as an interim leadership candidate.
- Prove your problem-solving skills
- Emphasise your adaptability
- Demonstrate your strategic vision
- Don’t forget networking
- Making the right impression
Prove your problem-solving skills
Interim executives are often recruited by employers to solve specific challenges. This requires them to get up to speed quickly with the situation facing them, hit the ground running and devise a strategy that’s up to meeting those challenges.
As an interim executive, therefore, you’ll need excellent problem-solving and crisis management skills. At interview, you should emphasise your ability to think analytically, develop solutions and implement changes successfully, preferably with real-world examples from your previous experience.
Employers will look to interim executives to provide specific outcomes within a stated timeframe. As a candidate, you will need to demonstrate that you can offer problem-solving skills with a clear orientation towards results and making tangible improvements whilst meeting deadlines.
Emphasise your adaptability
Because interim roles are usually for a specified period of time – typically lasting for a few months, though sometimes for more than a year – it takes flexibility to shift from one job to another. Interim executives may work within one industry or across several depending on their experience.
Therefore, interim leadership candidates must prove to prospective clients that they’re able to adapt quickly to new working environments, cultures and challenges. Interim executives are often brought into organisations facing major change or even a crisis, so they should expect to be plunged in at the deep end and relish that opportunity.
When hiring interim leaders, clients are looking for candidates who are flexible, open-minded and sufficiently able to handle change effectively. At interview, you’ll need to demonstrate instances from your previous experience where you’ve adapted successfully to new situations or challenges, making informed and astute decisions in unfamiliar surroundings.
Demonstrate your strategic vision
Both interim and permanent leadership candidates must be able to bring a strong and clear strategic vision to the table. Interims may often find themselves grappling with a wealth of challenges in an organisation in urgent need of effective leadership, and here a more strategic mindset is likely to prove indispensable.
Interim executives must have the ability to look at the bigger picture, putting an organisation’s challenges in their wider context. Short-term actions must therefore be consistent with the longer-term needs and objectives of the organisation as a whole.
When you come to be interviewed for an interim leadership role, you must showcase your ability to set concrete, measurable goals while also articulating your strategic thinking. Outline previous instances where you’ve developed organisational plans consistent with strategic goals.
Don’t forget networking
The ability to network and build good personal relationships with colleagues at all levels is a crucial one for any leader, but especially so for one who’s been brought in on an interim basis. As an interim executive, you might not have too much time to get to know your colleagues – but you need to be able to win their trust quickly.
This requires good emotional intelligence – including, in particular, the ability to navigate interpersonal relationships – as well as excellent communication skills. These abilities are essential if you’re to foster good working relations with colleagues, resolve any conflicts that might arise and ensure that everyone is fully signed up to your strategic vision.
One of the benefits of being an interim is that you don’t get embroiled in office politics, but employers will be keen to ensure that interim candidates can offer good networking and relationship-building skills. This is why you need to provide examples from your previous experience of where you’ve solved conflicts, built good working relationships and provided teams with capable and approachable leadership.
Making the right impression
Finally, you must know what it is that motivates you to become an interim executive – because this is something that employers will almost certainly ask you. It may be, for example, that you thrive on challenge and variety, or perhaps you simply want to share your experience and talents as widely as possible.
This needs to be coupled with a memorable narrative about how your experience and skill set can provide an organisation with the kind of leadership it needs. You need to give prospective employers real reason to be confident in your ability to help them in what might, after all, be a tricky situation.
It’s important to remember that the client will be paying a day rate, which must be considered to be an investment and a value-add rather than a cost. Therefore, early stakeholder engagement and management is critical in order to ensure a successful assignment outcome.
At Intuitive, we specialise in connecting talented leadership candidates – both permanent and interim – with forward-thinking employers in the UK transport industry. To find out more about what we can do for your career, get in touch with our friendly and helpful team of experts today.
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