Two years ago, a nonprofit group asked Pat Nichols to take over as its interim executive director.
Contributions to the organization had been dropping for more than a decade.
Employee turnover in its financial department was rapid, so the organization wasn’t able to produce reports in a timely manner. The board had ordered cuts in the charity’s staffing, and other employees were voluntarily leaving. It needed some new operating procedures and a new strategic direction before it would be ready to hire another full-time leader.
“The organization went from roughly 25 staff to about six or seven, which was really debilitating,” says Mr. Nichols.
By the time Mr. Nichols’s tenure was through, about a year later, the group had systems that worked, a stronger staff, a new strategic direction, and a new permanent executive director.
In his 10 years as an interim executive, working at seven organizations, Mr. Nichols — who lives in Washington but takes jobs around the country — has come to specialize in bailing out groups that are in trouble.
“What usually precipitates my arrival is that the CEO departs abruptly and the board realizes that there are more severe issues than they thought,” says Mr. Nichols.
Interim executives who simply keep the organization running while the board looks for a new executive may stay at an organization only three to six months, he says. “But in my case, I’m there several months before the executive search is started,” he says. His average stay is a little over a year.
‘A Certain Mind-Set’
A growing number of people make a living as interim executive directors, getting jobs by word-of-mouth or through management support organizations such as CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, which serves the San Francisco Bay area.
Though it is important to have the background as a top-level nonprofit executive, doing the job of temporary leader requires somewhat different qualities, says Tim Wolfred, who manages CompassPoint’s executive-transitions program.
“It takes a certain mind-set for somebody who’s agreeing to be an interim executive to realize it’s not about taking full ownership or setting their own agendas for the organization,” says Alan Salzenstein, the coordinator of the performing-arts management program at DePaul University’s School of Music, in Chicago. “It takes someone who has the knowledge base of being an executive director, but a different approach and different perspectives.”
Says Daniel Y. Mayer, an interim executive and management consultant who lives in Seattle and has served as a temporary leader at local charities including the Photographic Center Northwest and Rebuilding Together Seattle, “I’m there to wipe the slate clean, to give the organization an opportunity to grow and develop in a natural way that leads to new leadership.”
Temporary leaders don’t get to know the organization in-depth like a permanent executive does, he adds: “They don’t have the luxury of time to understand all of the inner workings of the organization, and they have to hit the ground running.”
Some people find that exhilarating, he says, and love doing the work without having the long-term stress.
Others find it frustrating. “Some people have difficulty with that because it’s human nature to take ownership and make changes,” Mr. Mayer says.
Serious Troubles
T. Scott Smith, a management consultant in Golden, Colo., who sometimes serves as an interim executive, also thrives on taking tough cases, but he and his partners take a team approach. For example, one works on the organization’s finances, the other on its programs.
“We take organizations whose programs are important and valuable but the organization is in serious trouble,” he says. “We had one where almost the entire board was gone, and there were lawsuits and IRS problems.”
When they start out at an organization, he says, “we go to visit all the funders immediately, and that’s reassuring to them.”
But they try to move quickly to get the group back on track, he says, because if enough time passes, people begin to wonder why the organization can’t get a permanent executive director.
Before he came to CompassPoint, Mr. Wolfred served as an interim executive director, logging 16 such assignments at groups including the Names Project, which oversees the national AIDS memorial quilt. “You develop a certain proficiency in doing it — zeroing in on what the key issues are and taking them on in 24 to 30 hours a week,” he says.
Interim leaders sometimes seek out organizations of a specific type, such as arts groups or social-service organizations. Some recruiters specialize in placing interim leaders at certain kinds of groups. At Interim Museum Services, in San Francisco, people who have retired from nonprofit work are often chosen for the job, says Charles L. Frankel, a principal at the company.
“We have a roster of 40 or 50 people who come out of everything from aquariums to zoos and whose backgrounds run from the curatorial side to human relations to finance,” says Mr. Frankel. “Some have worked at museums that have always been in good shape and others in turnaround situations.”
Other interim leaders specialize in groups that have some specific problem, such as financial troubles. Still others take a broader view and work for a variety of organizations. “We’ve done social service, education, arts,” says Mr. Smith. “We did a Hispanic museum once, and all of us are Anglos.”
The key to succeeding at an interim assignment is to have a high tolerance for chaos, says Mr. Wolfred, and to have the ability to reassure anxious staff members and get them excited about the future.
“It’s important not to get hooked on the drama,” he says, “but rather to be the antidote.”
Has your organization relied upon interim executives during times of transition? Or have you served as an interim leader? Tell your story in the Executive Session forum.
