Was it the person, or the seat they sat in?
When two successive holders of the same role have disappointed, the role is the suspect. Look at the design before the field: a span of control assembled by accretion rather than logic, accountability for outcomes whose levers sit in other functions, a mandate the executive team never actually agreed, or two powerful stakeholders wanting opposite things from the same chair. Recruiting a more impressive person into a broken design produces a more expensive disappointment. The diagnosis takes a few weeks, not months: interview the departing executive's peers and direct reports about where the role fought the organisation, and rewrite the specification before anyone drafts a flattering version of the old one.
The organisation is reading everything you do
A senior vacancy is watched more closely than any announcement that accompanies it. The team beneath the role examines the handling for evidence: whether the internal candidates are serious contenders or courtesy interviews, whether the departure was punished or rewarded, whether the function still matters to the strategy. Ambiguity gets filled with the worst available interpretation, and the departing executive's strongest lieutenants take recruiter calls in precisely this period. Decide early what the internal candidates will be told, tell them the truth, and give the team a named, empowered owner for the interim, because a leaderless function does not pause. It develops its own politics.
Questions to answer before any search begins
- What must be different eighteen months after the hire, stated as outcomes rather than qualities, and does the executive team agree on the list?
- Which parts of the last holder's record were the role's design, which were the person, and which were the market?
- Is there a credible internal candidate, and if the honest answer is no, what does that say about how the function develops people?
- What does the departing executive know that exists nowhere on paper: commitments made, deals in flight, relationships that are personal rather than institutional?
- Who decides during the vacancy, and which decisions wait? An unowned decision queue is how interim periods do lasting damage.
The interim option is not a delay. Used well, it is the diagnosis.
An experienced interim executive changes the shape of the decision. The seat is filled within weeks, permanent candidates are no longer assessed against an emergency, and the organisation gains a senior operator with no stake in the history who can tell you what the role actually requires, because they are doing it. The interim is also the honest test of the redesign: if the rewritten role defeats a capable interim, better to learn that before the permanent hire. The option fits badly where the team needs a long-term commitment signal, and interim quality varies widely. But dismissing it unexamined usually means the search timetable is being driven by discomfort rather than judgement.
Continuity is a plan with named owners, not a hope
Executives who have handled several senior transitions converge on the same priorities. Capture the departing leader's knowledge in the first fortnight (commitments, risks, the true state of the plan) while goodwill and memory are both intact. Ring-fence the two or three people whose exit would turn a vacancy into a crisis, with clarity about their place in the future rather than generic reassurance. Keep customers and partners informed by a person, not a press line. And put someone with no attachment to the outgoing regime in the room when the new specification is agreed, because the internal draft always contains more of the past than anyone inside the building can see.
