Who are interim managers?
The interim manager intervenes in companies for interim management, mentoring or transformation missions. At IMT Partnerswe recruit experienced profiles who must have a goodstate of mind. So you're probably wondering what qualities these managers need to have to succeed. Here is a profile of them.
An expert
In the context of interim management, managers must be able to share know-how and apply it in record time. It is therefore necessary that they be experienced to engage in interim management.
For Jacques van Robais, "you need a minimum of 15 years of experience, but with the development of tech start-ups, some less experienced profiles should not be ruled out".
The most interesting profiles are those who, beyond their long experience, have built their career on a solid foundation of management and consulting, but who have also had the opportunity to get their hands dirty. This gives them a double competence: strength of proposal and strength of action.
In short, the ideal interim manager must have the requirements of a manager and the humility of a team member, with a real desire to share his or her knowledge.
A federator
Today, the interim manager no longer intervenes only in crisis situations where he has to shoot employees on sight and decide who deserves to stay and who, on the contrary, should leave the company. The interim manager is a driving force that must enable an organization to transform and restructure itself. To do this, he or she must succeed in establishing himself or herself and gaining the trust of the team in order to be able to unite all the stakeholders around the same project. This requires listening. Indeed, the interim manager must be able to get to know each member of the team in order to convey the desire for change.
Overall, the interim manager is expected to have an assertive managerial temperament, because even if he or she has not chosen his or her collaborators, he or she will have to show leadership and guide everyone in the same direction, that decided by the company.
A knight at the service of the company
Let's talk about the company. By accepting an assignment, the interim manager agrees to lead a project that he or she may not be the instigator of. As an outsider to the company, he or she has to pledge allegiance without necessarily knowing where he or she is going and grasp the nuances of the hierarchy and the way things work in record time.
"Interim managers only have a week or two to adapt to their new environment, their new position and the company in which they carry out their mission," explains Jacques van Robais, founding partner of IMT Partners.
Reactive to accept an assignment as well as to carry out the tasks requested, the interim manager must have a taste for deliverables and a successful project. If the interim manager intervenes with the team as a coach and leader, he also intervenes with his temporary hierarchy as a practitioner.
"At IMT Partners, we make it a point of honour to ensure that the interim managers we recruit are service-oriented, adaptable, pragmatic and reliable, and know how to listen to the client's needs. It is always the client who has the last word, that is the very principle of these accompaniments. Jacques van Robais, founding partner of IMT Partners.
Interim management firms
"I would say that it is necessary for interim managers to go through a structure like IMT Partners to integrate into an efficient network, to facilitate the administrative part so that they can focus on their missions and benefit from the support and advice of IMT Partners throughout the mission," says Jacques van Robais, founding partner of IMT Partners.
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We have great confidence in our network of professionals and the companies we work with. Many of the members of our incubator have come from the connections we have made since the firm was founded in 2013.