Why Interim Professionals make good coaches and mentors for your C-Suite

With many businesses facing significant financial challenges, some which will be new even to an experienced C-Suite, the option of taking on an Interim Professional comes with many benefits. What should not be overlook is the business ‘lived experience’ that these individuals bring puts them in the unique position to be a valuable coach and/or mentor to your business leadership team. Offering up a safe space to work through the 'how to' when it comes to tackling and approaching potential complex and emotive issues before putting them into practice.

1.  Business ‘Lived Experience’

Hire an Interim Professional with experience in delivering change in your sector and they come with a wealth of ‘know-how’ and can get up to speed quickly. Their careers will have been spent successfully tackling not only the economic issues that your business leaders need help with, but also the practical and people issues that are a consequence of significant change. They have the business ‘lived experience’. They can therefore give business leaders a unique perspective, one they could only get from someone who has years of their own experience of successes, failures, and everything in between.

2.  A safe pair of hands

Interim Professionals are used to walking into high pressured, challenging situations with tight timeframes AND expect to have their actions scrutinised, whilst reporting regularly into senior management. Bringing both the experience from working in other organisations and detailed understanding of specific financial scenarios is where an Interim Manager becomes invaluable as a ‘safe pair of hands’. Mentoring business leaders on how to quickly assess the ‘as is’ and present viable solutions that allows organisations to respond rapidly to opportunities and take big decisions, fast.  

3.  Tell it like it is… and the trust will grow

As commitment phobes Interim Professionals are not out for your job!  They have not come into the organisation after a long- term career which means they do not need to be as political i.e. there is the freedom to tell it like it is….they can have the difficult, open and honest conversations that your senior team need to hear— even if they may not want to hear it.  This transparency builds trust and when you have trust you are creating psychological safety which is a key ingredient to a successful coaching relationship.

4.  A psychologically safe space

An Interim Professionals objective is to make your company thrive — and not in some 80s cutthroat ‘at any cost’ way . The best results when delivering rapid change are when your people are bought in to the process and the data drives your decisions. Good Interim Managers are adept at delving into the detail, identifying what and who can be relied upon and bringing together these two critical factors.

As a trusted advisor (see above) Interims bring emotional intelligence and people skills which make them great sounding boards to bounce ideas around. As well as knowing the right questions to ask to tackle often complex or emotive issues they make good listeners too. By creating this trusted, psychologically safe space where business leaders, who are often expected to know the answers, an Interim can be the perfect foil for C-Suite to work through issues without fear of judgement.

For more information on Interim Management, Change Management or Turnaround please email simon@fortitudelondon.com