Menai Owen-Jones, consultant interim CEO of LATCH Welsh Children’s Charity shares her reflections on the role of interim chief executive officer. (Follow Menai on Twitter and Linkedin)
In a leadership role it is important to take time to reflect, time to think. Carving out this time is often difficult with the diverse demands of the day-to-day clamouring for your attention as CEO. This is particularly the case as an interim CEO where you are expected to hit the ground running from day one.
Attending #ACEVOFest recently, however, gave me some space to reflect and look back over the past nine months since starting my current interim consultant CEO role. What have I learned during this time?
Regardless of tenure, CEOs have an impact
The word ‘interim’ may mean temporary but as interim CEO your actions can have a longer-term impact on the entire organisation. It is also your responsibility to make decisions that you think are best for the organisation in both the short and long term.
LATCH Welsh Children’s Cancer Charity is a fantastic charity supporting children and their families who are undergoing cancer treatment; being appointed as their first-ever CEO, on an interim basis is a privilege, a duty and responsibility.
Mindset matters
Why did I choose to go for an interim CEO role over a permanent position? It was partly for the new challenge, the cause itself attracted me of course and the opportunity to influence the future of the charity.
Undertaking an interim CEO role is very different to a permanent CEO role – your frame of reference is not the same. For example, knowing that you have a fixed, short timeline, often less than a year, to make an impact as CEO for me meant going into the role with a project management mindset, defining clear priorities, goals and timelines.
Invest in getting to know people
Leadership is about people and building relationships. To lead successful change and transformation, you need to bring people with you and include them on the journey. Building relationships though can be complex and often takes time, as does building the trust of your Board, team, and stakeholders. As interim CEO you must fast-track and adjust your approach to gain support and buy-in in a very short space of time.
It’s often an unsettling time as well for an organisation, adjusting to a new leader, and so though time may be short in an interim CEO role, high levels of communication and spending time with people so they get to know you as a person is still vital.
Cultivate the working relationship with your chair
One of the most critical relationships for any CEO, permanent or otherwise, is your relationship with the chair of the board. We often hear of the considerable challenges created by a fractious chair and CEO relationship.
How you work with your chair, and vice-versa, sets the tone for the organisation and if that relationship is difficult then it can have much wider ramifications. Fortunately for me at LATCH Welsh Children’s Cancer Charity I have an excellent chair whose leadership, support and constructive challenge have been invaluable whilst navigating my interim role.
Operating in a fast-paced and uncertain environment
A lot, of course, depends on the situation you inherit as interim CEO. For me it has been a fast-paced nine months and from speaking with colleagues in the sector who are also interim CEOs, the quick pace, high energy, and stamina required comes with the territory of interim ‘CEOing’ it seems.
It has been a real learning opportunity and a chance to apply my previous experience in a quite different context. I have developed deeper skills such as operating in an environment of high ambiguity, (as your contextual knowledge of the organisation is limited), problem solving at pace and making decisions in a short space of time. There are few comfort zone moments!
Developing skills for the future
Would I recommend being an interim CEO? Undertaking an interim role is not for everyone and does not suit everyone’s circumstances either of course, particularly in terms of job security. However, if the opportunity presents itself, I recommend trying an interim CEO role to broaden and diversify your experience.
For some, interim management is their career of choice, offering benefits such as flexibility, autonomy, and variety, whilst at the same time making a real impact on the organisations they work with. Indeed, in this post Covid-19 era there is growing interest in interim management roles, alongside new working methods and portfolio careers.
Adaptability, continuous learning, creativity, embracing change and leadership are often cited as some of the top skills for the future of work. Undertaking an interim CEO role will help you to expand these skills for the future and you will certainly gain plenty of experience in ‘how to hit the ground running’.
