You've been offered an Interim Manager role? Here's why 'NO THANKS' might be your best response...
The team manager has left with no replacement yet lined up. It happens. A lot. You’ve been approached by senior management to ‘step up’ in the interim.
Wonderful! This is your chance to progress in your career. You may have put your hat in the ring for the permanent role and the interim role is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate your suitability for the position or even secure it.
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Here are some points to consider carefully:
Double-jobbing
You will most likely be double-jobbing. In my experience, this rarely works well. For a few reasons. If you are set on the new position, your energies will inevitably bias in that direction. And there are consequences of this that will be felt hardest when you step back into your former role full-time.
Interim positions can go on for months. Your power in your former role will inevitably diminish during that time. Other team members will have stepped up to plug the gaps and it is impossible when juggling two roles to maintain the productivity, focus and even enthusiasm you had previously.
Don’t underestimate the strain that comes with wearing two hats. Yes, clear boundaries must be set and agreement made on reduced deliverables (and these should be shared far and wide).
However, people are people, they just….well….forget. In those meetings, when you show up in a role capacity, you need to deliver in that capacity. Especially when the pressure is on.
No back-up
When you start a new role under normal circumstances, announcements are issued across the organisation. You have authority in that role, accountability, a structure, a ramp-up period of meetings where ‘everyone gets to know the new boss’ and you - in your new full-time shiny focused capacity - can go about setting the world on fire.
Not so as Interim.
You will still have to perform, but without that infrastructure, recognition and power. It matters. I’m not convinced any Interim Manager can possibly be set up for success under these circumstances.
Team dynamics
The dynamic, as Interim, of managing a team of your former peers comes with its own set of unique challenges. Not insurmountable, and you have been identified as someone with the relationships and skills to make this work. However, it’s not necessarily easy. You can expect a certain amount of stress from that situation (let’s not forget the ‘poison apple’ I wrote about previously!).
If you do not land in the full role, you are back in the team as a peer. Again, an interesting dynamic. As is your relationship with the new manager who gets the role after you spent several months holding the space.
We are professionals and of course we can navigate this terrain - but worth thinking about whether you even want to.
A loss for the organisation
If you have been asked to interim you are likely to be a high potential individual. But what companies fail to consider is your experience. After months of the above situation, you might decide the role isn’t for you after all. And, you might have been exactly the right manager for the team.
If you are back in your former role, how likely are you ever to progress in that hierarchy? There is a high probability that you will move on.
If you do get the role and want it – maybe it worked out. But I must ask whether the 9-month interview was worth it!
To summarize, Interim positions have ramifications for the whole team and should be assessed carefully and considerately. Ideally, companies should fund an external Interim Manager on a contract basis and let everyone in the team focus on their roles with excellence. Or perhaps allow an Interim from a separate part of the organisation, as a growth experience, but arguably not in line for that role itself. Food for thought.
You may feel you have no choice but to take the Interim role, to support the team, be a good corporate citizen or maybe you welcome the stretch. But be conscious of the above - create very clear expectations and remember nothing is worth more than your wellbeing.