By Jason Atkinson, Managing Director, Russam Interim & Search

I remember reading an article in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago saying that “new leaders” should “move slower than you think you should”; discarding the pressures to make quick changes without thinking it through or getting others input. The point being that colleagues you have come into lead will sense if you are making change happen too quickly and will rebel and block!

I disagree with this especially when we are talking about Interim Management assignments. There simply isn’t time; business has become “short – termist”; no 100 day honeymoon periods. My model below gives you 5 working days! Now, that is pressure!

The fact is that the permanent tenure of c-suite leaders is coming down all the time – CEO’s down to below 5 years and a median tenure of 3.75 years – indicating that many CEO’s have shorter tenures than the average due to a few long-serving leaders skewing the data. And COO’s (again FTSE 100) down to an average of 4.2 years and median of just 2.7 years; with AI, trade disruption and complexity driving rapid turnover. A 36% decline in a year through until end quarter 1, 2025.

And the average days worked for an interim leader has dropped 20% in a year – down to 133 days which is only about 6 months; not a lot of time to delivery a major transformation, reunite an organisation, manage a carve-out, launch a new product or drive a complex project; or other things that need doing. The point being that all leaders have to move quickly or they risk losing the locker room with key stakeholders whether they are employees or investors.

At Russam if we look at our last 50 interim assignments then 49% are CEO or Transformation Director; followed closely by CFO. About 20% of all our interim placements go “Interim to Perm” [this is a big trend and we even offer it as a service now – https://russam.co.uk/services/ip-interim-to-permanent/]. I mention these stats as I do see convergence between Interim and Perm; though when we receive an interim brief we are always thinking transformation, pace, immediacy and experience.

I like recycling thought leadership and old research; and I prepared the below chart about 15 years ago. I think it still holds true though contradicts the thought of moving slowly and having time to relax into your new leadership role.