Please don’t get us wrong. If a Board of a cause-based organisation decides to engage an Interim CEO and they instruct that person to “simply hold the fort” while they decide on a future direction, it is entirely their prerogative. And we are sure that there are many Interims who are prepared to take on such roles.
From our perspective, however, we would see such a course of action as a tremendous opportunity lost for an organisation.
Most Interims are highly experienced and professional people, but unless a Board gives them a firm direction to take the organisation forward, the value of this resource can be considerably diminished. So to assist Boards in this regard we have developed the Janus CEO Transition Program.
The Program provides both a Board and an Interim CEO with a framework to operate within during the period which commences when the permanent CEO announces their departure right through to the on-boarding of a permanent successor.
Within our model, the Interim CEO or Transition CEO as we refer to the positon, is specifically tasked with:
Assembling a transition team and developing a transition plan with clear action steps.
Drawing on their experience and skills to provide objective feedback on what is right with the organisation and what needs urgent fixing.
Quickly and effectively resolving existing problems.
Providing an assessment of the organisation’s strengths, capacity, critical needs and current and future goals.
Assisting the Board to create a fresh new vision for the organisation through strategic planning and input from stakeholders.
Developing a clear position profile that accurately describes the current status, needs, plans, and expectations of the organisation.
Conducting a deep and broad search to generate a diverse candidate pool.
Developing performance objectives and an evaluation plan for the new CEO’s first 12 months.
Providing mentoring to the new CEO and ensuring that appropriate support mechanisms are in place to smooth the transition.
Clearly, this is not a role for caretakers but for people with genuine desires to take an organisation to another level and to lay the platform for a new CEO to take it to another level again.
If you can see your next career step involving sharing your abundant leadership experience and skills with a cause-based organisation in a truly positive and constructive way, we would love to hear from you.
And, of course, if your CEO is planning to leave and your organisation could benefit from the injection of some short-term visionary leadership, we would be thrilled to hear from you as well.
By Chris Gandy - Founder of Cause & Effective. We help cause-based organisations open the door to opportunities when their CEO departs
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