Our sector itself requires agility. Subsidies come and go, projects have peak and off-peak hours, and opportunities arise with a short deadline. We want to send every euro we can to the content: to the people we work for. We embrace the sharing economy for cars, meeting rooms, accounting packages and joint purchasing centers. We know that we cannot train, monitor and develop someone for every discipline.
And yet we hesitate when it comes to temporary leadership or expertise. Temporarily bringing in an external leader or senior expert is still unusual in many non-profits and social profit organizations, or is considered an emergency measure. That is difficult to reconcile with the logic that we follow for everything else. Time to turn that hesitation into action.
Many manifestations, one logic
Hiring temporary leadership or senior expertise comes in many forms. Sometimes it concerns someone who temporarily takes over a vacant position: the general manager who leaves, the business manager who retires, the operational manager who takes a sabbatical. Sometimes someone comes along for a well-defined sprint: a fundraising profile who sets up a major campaign, a business developer who taps into new partnerships, a financial director who guides an organization through a transition, a specialist who carries out an audit process or translates new legislation into operations. Sometimes someone supports the start of a merger, the start-up of a new line or the roll-out of a new strategy.
And sometimes it involves periodic presence: a senior financial profile who sits in the management team for two days a month and keeps the general manager focused on the figures, and an HR profile who participates one day a week. Same logic, different cadence: full presence for a defined period, or limited presence on a continuous rhythm.
What all these forms share: they are senior profiles, close to the board or management team, with a mandate to participate in decision-making or follow through. Often title holders such as 'head of', director or leading specialist. The content varies per organization and per moment. The shape adapts to what is needed.
Temporary and part-time: both have their place
Temporary presence and part-time presence are often mentioned in the same breath, and it is useful to think of both separately. Temporary means: fully present for a defined phase. Often a few months, sometimes longer. The trajectory has a clear head and tail. Part-time means: limited presence on a continuous basis. A fixed day a week, two days a month, a presence that can last for years.
Both forms are valuable, and organizations regularly combine them. Works temporarily for sprints, transitions and defined files. Part-time work for expertise that you need on a structural basis without full-time recruitment being appropriate, or for a role that will never become full-time in your organization. And a temporary assignment can, provided both parties want it, evolve into a longer engagement at a different pace.
My own practice shows this. I have been working at four organizations for more than five years, with assignments that shrink and grow at the rhythm of what the organization needs. Sometimes intense for a few months, sometimes a few days a month. Officially 'temporary', in practice a long-term partnership. Pretty consistent for someone formally called 'external'.
“I have been working at four organizations for more than five years, with assignments that shrink and grow at the rhythm of what the organization needs.”
What your organization gains
Temporarily bringing in an external leader or expert makes a difference on several fronts.
- Speed of deployment. A recruitment cycle can easily take four to six months. This is unfeasible for a file with an approaching deadline. An experienced external person will be at the table within a week, with a track record that she brings with her. The learning curve about the basics is over, so the attention immediately goes to your issue.
- Pace on deadlines that shift differently. Project strangleholds often arise because the existing team is already overcrowded. The external person focuses attention and time on one specific file, and meets the deadline that has already been extended internally by months.
- Air for the team. Preparing an audit, building a multi-year budget, translating new legislation: it always comes on top. Whoever takes on the burden gives the employees breathing space for the work they have chosen.
- Independence and a fresh critical view. An external state is outside the force field of the organization. As a result, she asks questions that have been avoided internally for a long time, she names what remained unmentioned and she sees patterns that were internally dismissed as obvious. Confidentiality remains strictly guarded.
- Recognizing patterns from other contexts. Anyone who has seen several organizations knows how similar challenges have been tackled elsewhere. This frame of reference often saves months of searching and helps you get to the core faster.
- Knowledge that sticks. A good external person comes in to become redundant on their own. She helps design the process, writes templates, trains internal people, and builds a rhythm that continues after her departure. What used to be personal becomes organizational property.
- Bridge to the permanent solution. If a recruitment later turns out to be necessary, you buy time in the meantime to focus on the right profile. The external person documents what she does, transfers it to the new colleague, and ensures a soft landing.
- Stronger administrative information. An audit process or multi-year budget under external direction often provides the first real management information on which the board and management can manage consistently. That quality remains, even after the process.
No wolf in sheep's clothing
The hesitation I often hear feels like the fear that you will acquire something that appears innocent, but ultimately affects your self-management, drains your budget or leaves your organization disconnected. The image of a wolf in sheepskin. Practice points in the other direction. On one condition: you determine the framework in advance.
The competition in the right perspective
An external expert costs more per hour than a permanent staff member. At first glance that is correct. Doing the full bill paints a different picture. A permanent staff member costs much more than the gross salary on the payslip. Employer contributions, holiday pay, end-of-year bonus, sick days, training budget, laptop, telephone subscription, insurance, onboarding, support from HR and accounting: it's all included. Include the moments when someone starts working, switches back after leave, or leaves again.
An external sends one invoice. That's the whole bill. You pay for what you purchase. What you leave behind remains outside your budget. With the scales that weigh on our sector, that counts twice. And when the expertise is sufficient for two to three months, any comparison is no longer possible.
Loyalty is in the relationship
We automatically link intention, loyalty and knowledge to an employee contract. Anyone who recruits gets someone who "really chooses the organization". Anyone who hires gets someone who will "just come and do it for a while". That reflex runs deep in our sector, and reality points in the other direction. Loyalty is in people, in the relationship, in the work you do together. A driven external person who has been with your organization for years often brings more continuity than an employee who leaves within six months.
The sharing economy paradox in our own ranks
In non-profit and social profit, we are fans of the sharing economy as long as it happens outside of ourselves. For our target groups, we advocate sharing instead of owning, cooperation instead of fragmentation, solidarity instead of every man for himself. At the same time, we want every manager on our own payroll and we find it uncomfortable when a fellow organization shares a director or expert. That paradox contributes to the hesitation, and it is healthy to address it honestly.
A good framework makes the difference
Temporary leadership or expertise yields the most when you clearly define it: a clear mandate, an agreed start and end point, and attention to transfer from day one. Without these frameworks, any good implementation will end up being without obligation, or it will grow unnoticed into a permanent interim solution that neither party wants. A good external person asks for that framework herself, because her business model stands or falls with the value she leaves behind. So not a wolf, but a professional who leaves as soon as the work is done.
The pitfalls I see in practice are always related to a lack of that framework: an assignment that is formulated too broadly, an end date that keeps moving forward, too little connection with the culture, or no plan for what comes after the external one. Anyone who agrees on these four in advance will avoid most of the risks.
What this work brings me
Honestly: this work also makes me better. With every new organization I see different systems, different choices, different pain. I understand more quickly what is organization-specific and where the sector as a whole is struggling. I share best practices where possible; Confidential information remains within the walls where it belongs.
I like to work interim as general manager, business manager, sometimes operational. My bones like to be in the mud. That gives dynamism, speed, and the feeling that I can really contribute. It allows me to make business connections between organizations that need each other.
Why from S&L
The fact that I do this from S&L is a conscious choice. A cooperative place with a group of experts together, where we work for the sector. In concrete terms, this means: learning from colleagues, being able to call on a colleague if the assignment requires it, and checking with someone with different experience. Working strategically and strengthening organizations from within in one movement. I strongly believe in that. Together we help build a different narrative for and with civil society. Today's society shows the need for this every day.
Finally
Which functions require continuity on the payroll? What temporary leadership or expertise is available at full or limited levels? That question deserves an open discussion at the boardroom table. The answer varies per organization.
The internal logic of our sector has been pointing in the same direction for years. We ask for flexibility, we direct every euro we can towards the content, we cannot train someone for every discipline, and we believe in sharing. Hiring temporary leadership and expertise fits the same reasoning. Our inhibitions don't match.
The hesitation can be put aside. Just common sense, and it's high time we dared to call it that.
