Interim Executive Leadership with Jane Garthson
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Have you ever seen this in an organization? Maybe the executive director or founding executive director leaves and they hire someone to replace them, but that person may last six or eight months because the transition is just too hard. It's too hard to take over from long standing ED or a founding ED or maybe you are the ED and you're really struggling with how to create a succession plan where your organization can be in really good hands after you leave.
In today’s podcast, Jane Garthson, President of Garthson Leadership Centre and experienced interim executive director, will talk about how interim leadership can help nonprofits navigate change and organizational transition.
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Myths that Jane wants us to walk away from:
Internal promotion is always beneficial for the organization. Most small organizations do not have a lot of people who are ready to step into an executive director role, and promoting someone without enough skills and experience to handle an executive role can be overwhelming for the person and can have a negative impact on the organization.
Interim leaders are just like consultants. Executive consultants always give advice to organizations, but interim leaders not only give advice to the board but also become part of the management team that implements the goals and objectives of the organization.
Jane’s thoughts around Interim leadership
Navigating change. An interim executive’s role is to help any organization have a smooth transition when there’s a need to recruit a new executive. Interim leaders make sure that the organization continues to operate and do its mission, that board members have the time to make decisions on the changes and to make the new executive successful in the role.
Managing relationships. Being hired externally, not all people in the organization will like the interim executive. If the leader speaks the truth about an issue, it should be related to how it is affecting the mission and how it reflects the organization’s values.
Success Measures. It is important that the board member and interim ED be always on the same page. It is the role of the board to make sure that the ED understands what is expected of them, but also listens when the interim ED has any suggested changes.
Favorite Quotes from Today’s Episode
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“Most small organizations do not have a lot of people who are ready to step into an executive director role, or it doesn't have to be the executive director, it could be the director of development or the CFO or whatever, but they just haven't got any depths, but may not even have a senior management team at all. And if they do have one person, well, does that one person wants the job of what does that say to everybody else? If that person is acting, why would anybody else apply? That's just a temporary thing till they get the paperwork done and that person's guaranteed the job.”
“An interim executive forces them basically to accept change and be resilient and ready for more change. New person comes, they're not fighting that same level of we've always done it that way. They've seen change and they've seen that some of it is at least starting to work. ”
Resources from this Episode
https://garthsonleadership.ca/
jane@garthsonleadership.ca
