Why its evolution reflects a profound transformation of work and leadership.
For a long time, interim management was perceived as a tactical response to an exceptional situation: a crisis, a sudden departure, an operational emergency. The interim manager was then summoned to “hold on”, to decide quickly, to restore a minimum of order before handing over the reins.
This representation is not wrong. But it is currently insufficient to understand the reality of the profession — and especially its growing place in contemporary organizations
Because the evolution of interim management tells a different story: the silent transformation of work, leadership and the relationship to time in the company.
A profession historically indexed to economic cycles
Interim management is an excellent indicator of economic cycles.
In the 2000s, it was mainly used in contexts of industrial crisis:
site closures, major restructuring, redundancy plans. The interim manager then acts
as a high-level executor, mandated to lead difficult decisions, often
in a short time and under strong constraint.
Then, as the economy recovers, the nature of the missions changes. Interim management is not disappearing: it is moving.
Companies use it to support:
° phases of hypergrowth,
° Organizational transformations,
° changes in governance,
° complex projects requiring immediately operational expertise.
Even more recently, in a context of sustained uncertainty, missions related to treasury, resilience and transformation are coming back to the forefront. But this time, the framework has changed.
From emergency management to complexity management
What distinguishes the current period from previous ones is not only the nature of the crises, but their systemic and permanent nature.
Organizations are no longer going through a one-off crisis followed by a return to normality. They evolve in an environment where:
° the landmarks move continuously,
° economic models are being questioned,
° Employee expectations are changing,
° and the long term is fragmented.
In this context, interim management can no longer limit itself to “solving a problem”.
It must deal with complexity, that is:
° acting without having all the information,
° decide without certainty,
° transform without disrupting in the long term,
° and above all, to embark without coercion.
The core competency is no longer just technical mastery or functional authority.
It becomes the ability to create a temporary framework of stability in an environment
unstable.
The emergence of transitional leadership
This evolution gives rise to a specific form of leadership: a leadership of
transition.
Leadership that by nature accepts:
° impermanence,
° transmission,
° and the non-appropriation of power.
The interim manager is neither an established manager nor an external consultant.
He is both inside and outside.
Close enough to understand human dynamics.
Distant enough to decide without being a prisoner of internal history.
This positioning gives it a special responsibility: not to produce dependence.
His success is not measured by what he controls, but by what the organization is able to achieve
continue after his departure.
The human being as a strategic lever, not as an adjustment variable
Another major change concerns the place of the human.
Where interim management has historically been based on authority and expertise, it is
is now increasingly based on:
° listening,
° the ability to adapt,
° emotional intelligence,
° and a detailed understanding of corporate cultures.
Companies continue to recruit interim managers for their technical skills.
But experience shows that failures on missions are rarely technical. They are most often linked to shifts in posture, communication or reading of the human context
In a world of work marked by the quest for meaning, the mistrust of traditional hierarchical models and the permanent acceleration, the interim manager becomes a conductor more than a soloist.
A more demanding, but more structuring job
This transformation makes interim management more demanding than before.
It demands:
° great personal maturity,
° an ability to constantly question oneself,
• emotional strength,
° and a peaceful relationship with transmission and erasure.
But it also makes it a profoundly structuring profession for organizations.
Because the interim manager embodies, by his or her very posture, another way of thinking about leadership:
Less based on duration, more on impact, less on status, more on usefulness.
It is in this logic that players such as Manag-in are part of it, with the ambition of making interim management more accessible, more readable and more aligned with the transformations of work — both for companies and for managers who choose this path.
Interim management has not only evolved.
It has become a laboratory for contemporary leadership.
In a world where stability is the exception, he offers a pragmatic and humane answer to a central question:
How can we act effectively without freezing the future?
This is not only good news for the profession.
This is one for organizations that must learn to transform themselves without denying themselves.
