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You’ve heard the title before: interim leader or acting manager. I dub this position sudden leader because the need often arises suddenly and is quite often temporary.

Sudden interim leaders often don’t know those they will lead or they know them as peers. They are tapped to fill a gap and thrust with no trust.

They carry the burden of interim status with the challenge of inspiring an unsettled organization or team.

Since so much of what is written is for the full-time leader or manager, I pen this post of 7 do-or-die questions to succeed as the sudden interim leader. I welcome your experience and voice in the comments section below.

1. Why Do They Need an Interim Leader? You may only get the formal answer. Yet if they are closed lipped about the reasons, be suspicious. You may even want to pass on the opportunity.
   
   

2. Why you? Ask why you, specifically, are being asked to fill the gap. It not only gives you confidence in the early days it is also the foundation for initial discussions with your organization/team. In the worst case, it gives you a chance to decline the offer if they say we can’t find anyone else (and yes this does happen)!




3. What is your primary purpose?
   Will your boss want you to:
   Be the temporary focal point for well performing organization? or
   Establish peace in troubled waters? or
   Whip the team into performance shape for the new full-time leader? or
   Rebuild the reputation of the organization? or
   Discover core problems and make recommendations? or
   Stay the course while they decide on new plans for the organization?




4. What does success look like to your boss? This is not a repeat of question #3. When you ask this question, you will get either additional detail or shocking contradiction. Either way, it is a secret to succeeding as the sudden interim leader or acting manager.




5. What Are the Hot Risks? What crises are brewing? Will you and the organization have the tools, experience, and authority to handle them? To succeed as the interim leader, find the quicksand before you step in it.




6. May I Speak With the Team Before Deciding on the Offer? It is a reasonable request and often the answer is yes. If you are not from the organization, you will learn critical information. Hearing the views of those you will temporarily lead allows you to decide if you are the right one for the job and if the job offers enough compensation given the challenges.




7. What is the Picture for Me? If you are from within the organization, what happens to you and your career when the full-time leader is selected? Your future picture impacts your present success and the present success, your future. Better to know than be surprised later.

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What other questions would you ask? What else would you recommend for success as the sudden interim leader or acting manager?


With our shared experience we soar to success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers coaching, workshops, keynotes, and DVDs that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success for customer service, collaboration, teamwork, and leading change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results. Fill the gaps of diversity with business wins!

You see an ad for that job you want. It lists many skill sets. How do you apply for and get that job when you have some but not ALL of the skill sets listed? You must have a mindset beyond the job ad.


Mindset Beyond the Job Ad

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One of my clients was an accountant. There were no accounting jobs available. She saw a job ad for writing grants at a university. The job ad said grant writing experience needed. She had none. She sketched a clear picture of how her accounting experience made her perfect for the job — beyond the apparent money connection. She got the job.

Go beyond your list of technical skills and accomplishments. Sketch a true picture of yourself.

Use this list to honestly assess your strengths. It will help you to apply for that job, interview for that job, get that job, and do that job!

1. Are you the inventive creative type when given freedom? Can you also do it when under constraints?




2. Are you great at seeing the bigger picture beyond individual tasks?
3. Or are you truly better at digging in to the deep details?




4. Are you great at initiating change or better at contributing once it starts? Honest assessment of your mindset will guide you to jobs with a natural fit.




5. If you have great expertise in your technical area, are you also good at explaining/teaching it to others?




6. Do you have experience in quickly rotating on/off critical project teams?
7. Or do you have a special knack for building long term relationships within a team?




8. Do you learn very quickly?
9. Or is your talent persistence in figuring out confusing details and explaining clearly to others?




10. What about work excites you? When you dream about happiness at work, what is that picture? This is a critical question. Your mindset comes across in written and verbal communication.




11. What gives you satisfaction: working with customers, vendors, teammates, or high level executives?
12. Or do you shine at working behind the scenes to build processes and systems that make keep the organization moving forward?




13. Do you have experience with different cultures — in your personal life? Note all the specific ways this would be valuable to the organization. With this mindset, you will start looking at job ads that tap this talent!




14. How well do you give presentations in your area of expertise? Both introverts and extroverts can be great presenters. Businesses get two for the price of one when they hire someone that can do the work and present it to others!




15. What few words would your closest friends use to describe your strongest traits? This objectivity is priceless to help you get that job.

Now sketch a picture of yourself with words. Be concise, punchy, and include the benefits to your potential employer using key words from the job ad. If writing is not your strength, get help from someone who writes well. Even accomplished writers have editors.

Not only will you have a better chance to get that job; you will have a better chance to get a job that fits your natural talents and interests.

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What other questions help sketch a clearer picture of yourself in order to get that job? Do you want my coaching experience to help sketch your picture? Just let me know!


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, inspires change and action through creativity and practicality. Her workshops, keynotes, dvds, and coaching sessions engage all with inspiration to action. Kate turns your interaction obstacles into professional success. See this site for more information.

There is much press today about whether people skills (also known as soft skills) are considered during the hiring process. Do people skills count more than your occupational (aka hard skills)?

Quite honestly, to me the debate is both useless and a bit risky. Your professional career is in your hands. Hiring managers, teams of current employees, HR reps are people. They may consider people skills. Do you want to gamble that those interviewing you don’t consider people skills in making the choice? Whether they do it consciously or subconsciously, why bet that they won’t? Develop your professional people skills. Work on you AND the work. Be workplace ready!

When to start? Yesterday. Developing your people skills can begin in school. In can happen in your everyday life — inside and outside of work. I was lucky enough to have a mother who demanded it of us. So when I graduated college with a BS Mathematics, I had been developing the interpersonal skills of my right brain while sharpening and expanding my left brain.

Is it too late to start? Never. I continue to learn and improve my people skills. You have infinite interactions with people and it costs nothing to learn “on the job” so to speak. Even those who debate whether or not interviewers consider people skills in the hiring decision, agree that people skills are expected and assessed for job assignments and promotions once you have the job.

How to start? The most productive first step is to understand your own personality type — for two reasons.

1. You will interpret what other people say and do based on your own personality type.  It is your reference sheet.
2. Knowing your type gives you limitless potential for adapting to others of a different personality type.  It is the fuel for success in teamwork, leadership, customer relations, and long term professional friendships.

Here is some valuable footage on personality type differences to spur your learning: GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type.

Get Started! Take a well respected personality indicator like The Kiersey Temperament Sorter and then use the knowledge in your daily interactions. People-skills are the conduit to delivering your occupational knowledge to those around you and to the company that employs you.

If you get stuck, you can always call me (or my mother) for help!

Warmest wishes,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach in This Technical World
Masters in Org. Psychology

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Kate Nasser delivers her 20 years of experience and her natural intuition about people in inspirational keynotes, transformational teamwork and customer care workshops, and coaching for your success. Preview her new customer service training DVD Customer Service USA.

Posing questions to job candidates in interviews, no matter how behaviorally based, doesn’t show you what they will contribute.  Perhaps this is one reason temp-to-perm positions became so popular even with the buy-out fee the employer pays.  The employer has seen the temporary staff in action.

Yet you can achieve a similar success by engaging job candidates in action interviews.  If you are looking for candidates with 21^st century skills like creativity, conceptualizing, synthesis, re-invention, and true empathy/customer service, action interviews will get you there.  You can do them in-person or via videoconferencing.

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To find creative problem-solvers …

Hold a mock meeting on solving a generic problem.  Have the job candidate participate.  See if s/he offers out-of-the-box or safe ideas.  Does s/he contribute any ideas or simply listen?  You can assess the people-skills as well as creative problem solving. 

To spot empathetic staff for customer service …

Have your best customer service staff role play true-to-life scenarios with the job candidate.  Use blatant and subtle examples needing empathy and see what the job candidate responds.  It is one thing to discuss how you would handle a customer interaction and quite another to do it. 

To find synthesizers who can see new ideas in disparate details …

Pick a recent example that you solved through synthesis of different ideas. Give the different ideas to the job candidate and see how and what s/he synthesizes. 

To tap the pool of reinvention talent …

Give the candidate 2-3 everyday objects and ask them to make a new useful object out of them.  The useful object can be anything; it does not have to relate to work.  You are tapping innate abilities with this activity that you can later apply to work related challenges.

To find conceptualizers …

Have the team of interviewers and the job candidate play “What If We”.  You can use a hypothetical product or service that relates to your industry or customize it to relate to your organization’s products and service.   State the product or service in question.  Then each person states aloud “What If We …” to conceptualize a new angle or improvement.  This is also a great way to find out what the candidate knows about your industry and company.

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Remember: To find the best talent in the 21st century, engage candidates in action interviews.  Replace the bad surprises you get after hiring with happy surprises about job talent you find during action interviews. Combine them with resume/references and certain skill or interests tests where appropriate to get a fuller picture of the job candidate’s potential and interpersonal style.   

I welcome your comments, new ideas, and questions below. 

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach