Introduction: The Value of Experience
Modern workplaces often treat “experience” as something people acquire slowly, like a fine wine. Typically, businesses hire graduates and expect them to become useful over time, which usually makes sense. However, a crisis, a change programme, or a leadership gap quickly proves this approach ineffective. When urgency strikes, leaders buy the experience they need, use it, and then move on. Therefore, interim executives exist to deliver this value.
Why Choose Interim Leadership?
The case for interim leadership is practical. When a business faces transition or uncertainty, it can either build capability internally or hire someone who has already completed similar work many times elsewhere. The second option usually costs less, delivers results faster, and avoids costly mistakes.
Experience That Is Pre-Tested
Interim executives bring a proven track record, not just potential. Still, many organisations optimistically promote from within instead of hiring based on evidence. Previous employers have already absorbed the risk, so interims offer immediate value.
Minimal Management Overhead
Experienced interims require little supervision because they have completed enough assignments to know what “done” looks like. As a result, the business gains a senior operator and avoids the usual need for oversight or hand-holding.
A Bias Toward Leaving, Not Staying
Permanent hires often build empires, while interims get paid to make themselves redundant. Their incentives align with the client’s long-term interests. Indeed, the more knowledge they transfer, the more they enhance their reputation for future assignments.
A Relentless Bias Toward Action
Interims do not observe or theorise—they execute. Once they receive a mandate, they move with the brisk efficiency of someone paid by the day.
Speed Above All
Perhaps the most underrated feature of interim leadership is speed—or, more accurately, velocity. This is speed with purpose and direction. While a permanent search might take months, an organisation can place an interim in days. When a board faces sudden departures or uncertainty, they often find such speed essential. To be clear, this argument does not diminish the value of permanent leadership, which remains the backbone of organisations. Instead, it makes the case that leaders can rent experience as well as own it—and that renting it at the right moment often proves the smarter move.
Nick Diprose MA has been introducing interim executives to businesses for 20 years. His firm Holdsway, the fourth interim firm he has either led, built or founded, has been a UK Top10 firm for over a decade.
