When the Calumet Lutheran Camp and Conference Center lost its executive director last year, the charity opted not to replace her right away. Instead, board members at the nonprofit retreat in West Ossipee, N.H., took a different tack. They hired an interim executive who could provide temporary leadership while the board began the process of reviewing the charity’s mission and searching for the right candidate to lead Calumet into the future.
“It was time for us to do some rethinking,” says Diane Stevens, a board member. “We needed to evaluate what kind of leader we wanted and take a hard look at the camp in a way that hadn’t been done for 30 or 40 years.”
Through Third Sector New England, a Boston nonprofit organization that places interim leaders, Calumet found Thomas Colligan. When he took the helm of the charity last month—this is Mr. Colligan’s seventh short-term stint—he immediately set to work conducting an operational audit: examining Calumet’s facilities, finances, human resources, and programs.
“This is an opportunity to strengthen the organization in an efficient way. If I do my job well, then the new executive will be able to hit the ground running,” says Mr. Colligan, who expects to serve as the group’s interim leader through October.
As a wave of retirements hits the charity world, the practice of hiring interim executives to steer the ship until a permanent leader can be found is becoming increasingly popular. One indication of the trend: the growing number of search firms that place interim candidates. Tim Wolfred, senior project director at CompassPoint, a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that provides management assistance to other charities, argues that the demand for transitional leadership will grow further as its benefits are better understood.
“Typically we’ve thought of an interim as a short-term step: Somebody who can step in when a group has fallen into disrepair. But a good interim can make the organization stronger in the long term,” says Mr. Wolfred, author of Managing Executive Transitions: A Three-Phase Guide for Nonprofits.
The Right Stuff
Charities that are looking for short-term leadership may find the process little different from any other candidate search. (Calumet board members interviewed four potential interim leaders before settling on Mr. Colligan). But finding the right person to serve as a temporary steward for a charity, particularly when the organization has recently faced some sort of crisis, can be a challenge, argues Mr. Wolfred. He notes that the most effective interim executives tend to share several key traits: experience (most have served as executive directors in their own right), an enjoyment of problem solving under pressure, and perhaps most important, the ability to stay cool.
“This is not a time for learning on the job. You’ve got to have the skills to bring order to chaos and not get hooked into the drama,” says Mr. Wolfred. He suggests that charities begin by identifying what they hope to accomplish during the interim period, then seek out candidates with skills that match these goals. “It’s just like hiring a regular staff person,” says Mr. Wolfred. “Check references and take a good look at what resulted from the candidate’s previous interim experiences.”
Listening is another skill that can often prove vital for an effective interim leader. “The staff will tell things to an interim that they might not feel comfortable telling an executive director,” says Peg Birk, a consultant in Minneapolis who has held three interim leadership positions, most recently at Minneapolis’s George Family Foundation. Such information gathering can help the interim leader identify and begin to address organizational problems. Says Ms. Birk: “This is a time to look at values—mission and values. Your job is to lay the groundwork for a fundamental shift of leadership.”
Short but Sweet
There are no hard-and-fast rules regarding the duration of interim positions—they typically last from a few months to a year—but advocates of the practice argue that their limited length is part of what can make the interim period a fruitful time of change for a charity.
“Organizational shifts can occur more quickly because there is a limited time to get things done,” says Ms. Birk. “There is a sense of urgency that can give rise to a real sense of optimism.”
Whatever length of time a charity decides upon should be made explicit at the outset, along with the goals and expectations the organization seeks to meet during the interim period. Carol Weisman, who advises charities through her St. Louis consulting group, Board Builders, says that both parties benefit from frank talk about the nature and length of the commitment.
“It’s like dating. You get your best results when everybody is in agreement from the start about what they want,” says Ms. Weisman, who says that she encourages roughly half of her nonprofit clients to hire an interim executive director during a transition time.
Going Steady
But not every situation calls for a short-term leadership strategy. Ms. Weisman argues that organizations that aren’t in “change mode” and have a strong internal candidate who is ready to take the helm don’t really need the operational pause that an interim period represents.
“If your revenue source is stable and you’ve got a second in command who has been groomed to take over, that’s not a time to bring in an interim,” says Ms. Weisman.
But even when a strong internal candidate exists, it may make sense to hire an interim leader as part of the succession-planning process, says CompassPoint’s Mr. Wolfred.
Case in point: when an internal candidate shows promise and a desire to lead but doesn’t yet have the skills to take the helm.
“The interim period basically buys you time during which the charity can bring the designated successor up to speed with the skills he or she needs,” says Mr. Wolfred.
Sticker Shock
Even organizations that are won over by the idea of hiring a temporary leader often balk when they consider the cost, however. Interim executives, particularly those with lengthy résumés, do not come cheap.
Mr. Wolfred encourages charities to think past the sticker shock, however. While the interim leader’s hourly rate is typically higher than what a charity pays his or her executive director—rates can run as high as $100 per hour, say some experts—they can often be hired for less than a full-time work week, without the holidays and benefits that a full-time executive receives.
“It can look expensive in the moment, but ultimately it’s more cost-effective,” says Mr. Wolfred. He cautions against a common fix for a leadership gap, in which a charity selects a board member to serve as an interim to save the organization money.
“The needed corrections never get made because the person doesn’t have the skills for the job,” he says. “A really good interim will leave behind a stronger organization than the one they came into.”
Tips for Hiring a Good Interim CEO
- Look for experience, problem-solving skills, and grace under pressure.
- Place a premium on listening skills: The interim leader will need to gather information to help the next, permanent CEO.
- Be candid from the start about expectations and goals for the interim leader.
