When the board is exhausted and answers won't come, don't send a board member into the breach. This article explains why professional interim executive directors—like those in the Interim Executive Network—are crisis managers, not placeholders. Includes when to think of hiring an interim, what to expect and how to find us.
Leadership transition isn't a bug in the system — it's a predictable feature. When something is predictable, we should design for it. This article reframes interim leadership as organizational infrastructure, not temporary coverage, and draws on a 100-practitioner study to show why transition either weakens or strengthens an organization.
Among its twelve recommendations, this article recommends considering “a purposeful interim leader who can facilitate important transition work.”
We are living in an era dubbed the “Great Resignation,” as millions of people worldwide are quitting their jobs and re-examining their priorities and values in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially pronounced within the nonprofit sector, which has always struggled with high turnover rates. Read more in this article from Inside [...]
When a nonprofit Executive Director/CEO leaves, the Board of Directors often faces the question of whether to bring in an Interim Executive Director. Read more in this article from the Moran Company.
What determines a company’s readiness for navigating a CEO transition? Our proposed answer builds upon prior research on CEO succession, viewed through a novel theoretical lens based on generativity theory and the mindset of the exiting CEO. Read more in this article from Nonprofit Quarterly.
The circumstances surrounding most executive director terminations are often more complicated than they appear. I’ll leave the termination process to the legal experts. Instead, this article by Don Tebbe covers how to put the organization back on track after the inevitable trauma of a termination.
As the country grapples with systemic and structural inequality, nonprofits struggle to play the civic role they should play because they struggle with their own internal unequal systems. Read more in this article from Nonprofit Quarterly.
When I left my last full-time nonprofit executive position after nine years, I felt a duty to stay until the last moment. I was approached at the time by a firm that suggested an interim executive as part of the transition process. I quickly declined, determined to finish the job in the way I [...]
We are in a moment of seismic change. The fault lines are both generational and demographic. And nearly every organization has been hit by collapsing expectations and flying debris. Read more in the article from Nonprofit Quarterly.
