Interim Leader as a Steward

By Dr. Brian Simmons

I am in the fourth quarter of my life and career. My goal as I look ahead to the finish line is to finish strong as a faithful steward leader seeking the purposes of the Lord for all He has SO graciously entrusted to my care.

Following my retirement from higher education, I have taken on a new role. I have served twice now as an interim head of school for two different K-12 Christian schools. Prior to my first of two interim experiences, I also witnessed firsthand, as a university VP, the struggles of an interim university president.

To state the obvious, an organization needs an interim leader if it has come through a rough spot. This rough spot may look like a failed search, firing of the previous head with surrounding fallout or similar circumstances. You get the idea.

And, because of the organizational turmoil the interim is brought in to manage (some stakeholders mistakenly expect to fix) an organization that is headed in the wrong direction presents a unique and difficult assignment, albeit a crucial one! The work of the interim takes place at an organizational crossroads… that is at an inflection point.

I was a math major in college, so I have used calculus to find the point on a function’s graph where the second derivative is equal to zero or is undefined. An inflection point is a point on a function’s graph where its concavity changes, meaning it switches from bending upward (concave up) to bending downward (concave down), or vice versa.

From an organizational perspective, this means the organization nearing an inflection point will either move forward or fall backwards. Simply put, an inflection point is a turning point! In organizations, there is no neutral!

And, when an inflection point is identified, it is often a sign that the affected organization must make certain fundamental changes in order to continue to operate effectively. If organizations are not able to adapt to an inflection point, they will fail to keep up with competitors and may cease operations altogether. For those that can adapt, inflection points can be an advantage ie the beginning of a new season of effectiveness.

More specifically, an inflection point represents a critical juncture where an organization must fundamentally change its strategy, structure, and direction to adapt to new circumstances, or risk decline. This means that by serving God and others as an interim CEO, a steward leader can play a key role in helping the organization move to concave up!

Here are a few of the lessons I have learned from my experience…

First, the role of the steward interim falls into four distinct seasons. The first quarter is the hardest because the organization needs the interim CEO to boldly address organizational challenges as a faithful steward leader. This season is characterized by discovering organizational problems and their root causes. Many if not most organizational problems wear a face! So in season one, as the interim leads with clarity addressing organizational problems, some people are moved into new areas where they can be effective, some opt out, some of these stir up discord on the way out, and some are asked to leave.

In season two, the interim builds a new senior leadership team on the foundation of those who themselves are effective and faithful steward leaders. This season is characterized by rebuilding and strategic thinking. The effective interim leader will preserve the mission, core values and beliefs while driving strategic change. They force leadership to reassess and often redefine their initiatives and SMART goals, market position, and future direction, leading to necessary strategic overhauls. Strategic planning is what sets the organization on a concave up trajectory, and an important step in this process is to collect and analyze organizational data to be able, later, to make data-driven decisions.

But leading change is no easy task. People resist change to the degree to which they think the changes will negatively impact them! And some organizational stakeholders aggressively resist change even calling into question the actions, motivations and even the character of the interim! During this season it is healthy and helpful to focus on the will of the Master and seek to please an audience of One!

In season three, the steward interim must begin to lead strategically listening to stakeholders and their thoughts about the current state of the organization. From this SWOT analysis a strategic planning process emerges. Bringing this plan to life is the primary tool the interim uses to revitalize the organization. And by this time the permanent head has probably been identified, so this person can take an active role in the new strategic planning process.

Season four looks like an intentional passing of the baton from the interim head to the permanent head. Likely some key organizational roles were purposefully left vacant for the permanent head to weigh in on. After all, as an interim as you hire people you are building the permanent head’s team! This final season is the time to fill in organizational gaps and create new and effective systems and processes. Finally, the permanent head can launch the new strategic plan and claim some early wins!

Second, the worst thing an interim can do is put their hand up for the permanent role. The reason for this is that an interim who decides to raise their hand for the permanent role will constantly be in the vice of pressure for every decision weighing what the best decision is for the organization vs what decisions most likely will result in being chosen for the permanent head role. This is a lose-lose scenario. So, when an interim raises their hand, they mess up the entire search process!

Third, the steward must regularly seek the Lord’s will concerning how deep of a scoop to take in order to correct organizational problems resulting in wrong organizational direction. More needy organizations require a deeper scoop!

Fourth, effective interims focus on people, programs and places in that order. Stakeholders will push the interim to identify and solve problems quickly and unilaterally. This is absolutely the wrong action for the interim to take, however, because only what is done collaboratively will stick after the interim leaves!

Fifth, realize you did not create the problems you were hired to help solve. Some disgruntled stakeholders will blame the interim for the problems he was hired to address and ultimately solve. Just realizing this helps the interim ignore noise and focus on the tasks at hand.

If the board has breathed the learned behavior of allowing these stakeholders to go around the head and come to them expecting intervention, the interim must correct and train the board in effective governance. Or if the board during the rough patch became operational, the interim must help the board back to doing “board stuff” so the CEO can do “CEO” stuff. It is often difficult helping board members back to their proper roles once they have sucked on the fumes of operational leadership.

Finally, remember that your primary job is to successfully work yourself out of a job. It is not about you! And to the degree to which the permanent head is embraced and does a great job, you can be thanked for a job well done in paving the way! When you leave, you will carry with you the knives in your back you willingly took so the permanent head would not have to!

In conclusion, depending on the organization, the job of an interim head can be extremely rewarding or very challenging. In any case, the faithful steward leader looks past the organization and the organization’s stakeholders realizing that we love and serve God by loving and serving others. At the end of the day what matters most is the lives of those we have touched with the good news of the Gospel. My deepest desire is to one day see ALL of those I have loved and served in heaven and spend eternity with all of them! They will be my crown and joy. What does not matter at all in light of eternity are the failings of various aspects of the organizations I have served or the fallible people in each along the way!