Leadership strategy is at an inflection point. The speed of disruption—from market volatility to organizational change—is outpacing traditional workforce planning. When leadership requirements can change in weeks, annual succession reviews and rigid talent pipelines simply can’t keep up. Companies need an approach that is as agile and dynamic as the environment they operate in.
To meet the challenge, forward-looking organizations are pairing scalable leadership assessments with interim executives—an approach that delivers visibility and insight on leadership depth, insight into at-risk functions and business units, and immediate access to high-caliber expertise.
That was the focus of a recent Heidrick & Struggles webinar that explored how scalable digital assessments and interim executive talent are enabling organizations to identify capability gaps, respond in real time, and future-proof their leadership strategies.
Watch the webinar on demand or keep reading for highlights from the conversation and key insights for leadership teams navigating today’s volatile business environment.
Why Static Leadership Planning Fails in Today’s Market
The gap continues to grow between traditional leadership planning and the pace of today’s business environment. Even companies with sophisticated HR functions often rely on processes designed for more predictable times—and those processes are buckling under the pressure of constant change.
“Our Heidrick search team places over 300 chief people officers per year,” said Brad Warga, Partner and Co-Head of Heidrick & Struggles’ Global CHRO Practice. “And there’s no doubt that HR leaders are being asked to be more strategic than ever before.” This isn’t just about filling roles; it’s about guiding organizations through cultural transformation, workforce planning, and operational resilience while delivering measurable business impact.
Yet, the way most organizations plan for leadership hasn’t caught up. “The vast majority of companies are still only doing succession planning for the top 5 roles in the company,” Warga noted. What’s more, over 70% of those plans are static and do not connect to individual development plans—a major disconnect between HR and the board.
Heidrick & Struggles Partner Melissa Lind reinforced the point, calling out the risk of narrow planning: “Organizations can’t plan for the future using yesterday’s data.” She added that “Succession pipelines are not keeping pace” with the changing nature of roles—particularly as new executive-level positions emerge to address transformation agendas, digital enablement, or expansion into new markets.
Warga and Lind agreed that the world in which these leadership models were created no longer exists. The pace of business change, coupled with rising expectations for leaders, demands a more flexible, data-driven, and continuous approach to succession planning—one that reaches deeper into the organization and anticipates needs before they become urgent.
Strategic implication: Organizations that fail to expand and modernize leadership planning risk being caught unprepared when the next shift—whether market-driven, operational, or regulatory—hits.
How Scalable Assessments Deliver Enterprise-Wide Visibility
If outdated planning models are the problem, scalable, digital assessments are proving to be a critical part of the solution. Too often, companies rely on gut instinct or outdated competency models, leaving them unsure who is truly ready to lead or where capability gaps exist.
Lind illustrated the shift with a client example: a successful professional services firm that had been holding annual, insular succession discussions. Seeking an outside-in perspective, they first defined future-forward role requirements, then assessed their leadership population against those benchmarks. This role-based, data-first approach revealed readiness by role, pinpointed at-risk areas, and uncovered capability gaps.
The result was a revamp of development programs—both their design and who was enrolled—grounded in clear insights rather than assumptions. By moving from “guesswork to visibility,” the company aligned its leadership planning with future needs, using assessment data as an active tool for succession, promotions, and targeted development.
Strategic implication: Scalable, digital assessments give organizations the ability to anticipate leadership needs, make faster and more confident decisions, and align talent strategy directly with business priorities. When combined with the right follow-through, they shift leadership planning from reactive replacement to proactive readiness.
Interim Executives: From Stopgap to Strategic Asset
If scalable assessments give organizations clarity on readiness and capability gaps, interim executives provide the means to act on those insights immediately. Once seen mainly as a stopgap for unexpected vacancies, interim leaders are now a deliberate component of forward-looking leadership strategies.
Sandra Pinnavaia, Partner and Global Head of On-Demand Talent Strategy and Innovation for Heidrick & Struggles, spoke on how interim leaders can now help companies address fast moving challenges and opportunities while not experiencing a delay in advancing the strategic priorities for the longer term.
Defining interim leadership today as an innovation that enables companies to bring in “outside talent that has deep experience and critical skills not only for the role, but for the moment—the specific moment in time,” she clarified that these roles are not solely limited to formal seats on the org chart. They can also be “a project-based or advisor role to a sitting executive or CxO”.
To illustrate the momentum, Pinnavaia noted that Business Talent Group, a Heidrick & Struggles company, has seen a 310% increase in the use of interim leaders at all levels in the last five years, while in Fortune and Axios noted that up to one-third of CEO placements this year in the United States are actually interim CEO placements. Pinnavaia suggests that this signals a real-time evolution in leadership strategy, with boards, “being a little bit more flexible around what they’re going to need long term while covering in the short term”.
Strategic implication: Interim executives are no longer just a bridge between full-time hires. They are a high-impact lever for adding specialized expertise, accelerating initiatives, and maintaining momentum through periods of uncertainty—all without adding permanent headcount. Organizations that integrate interim talent into their leadership strategy are constructing built-in resilience.
When Interim Leadership Delivers Impact
Pinnavaia pointed to four recurring situations where interim leaders have become an essential strategic tool today. The first involves what she called “the atypical nature of challenges and opportunities” companies are facing, where sudden, unexpected issues disrupt existing plans. As an example, she cited the recent tariff situation which has led multiple clients to put opportunities on pause as they rethink supply chains and pricing strategies. In these moments, interims with experience in these areas are able to help leadership teams pivot quickly and effectively.
A second driver is the need for optionality in uncertain conditions—as companies adopt a “wait and see” posture when long-term decisions aren’t yet clear. One client in the luxury goods sector, expecting to be acquired later in the year, lost its CMO at a critical juncture. “It was going to be really hard to recruit a permanent CMO,” Pinnavaia explained, knowing a transaction was likely. Instead, they brought in an interim who “was able to exploit the current moment very successfully with a set of partnerships that significantly advanced the revenue line.”
A third scenario stems from headcount sensitivity, even at the executive level. In the healthcare space, Pinnavaia noted, some clients are ready to launch major digital and data-based initiatives but are not yet ready to commit to permanent hires. By “using interim leadership to keep moving the ball down the field,” they can make progress while waiting for the right timing to build out a full team.
Finally, she highlighted transformation execution as a major growth area for interim leaders. Noting that transformations are extraordinarily difficult, and almost always on top of a day job, Pinnavaia pointed out roles created to lead them frequently should be designed to “actually go away at the end.” Bringing in interims avoids the challenge of placing permanent hires into positions with no long-term fit, while also allowing companies to “mix and match the set of skills and experience that’s explicitly needed in each phase of transformation.”
Across all of these scenarios, Pinnavaia emphasized a common shift: interim leaders are being deployed not just to fill gaps, but to make leadership teams “stronger and more fit for the moment now,” evolving capabilities in real time.
Strategic implication: Interim leadership gives organizations a decisive advantage in volatile environments. It ensures they can seize opportunities and navigate crises without compromising strategic priorities, while also protecting and developing their permanent leadership team.
Key Takeaways
1. Static succession planning isn’t enough
Limiting succession planning to the top few roles leaves organizations vulnerable to leadership gaps in a fast-changing environment.
2. Scalable assessments reveal the full talent picture
Evaluating leaders at scale creates a data-driven view of capabilities, gaps, and potential—informing development, promotion, and succession decisions.
3. Interim executives bring immediate capacity
Temporary, high-impact leaders can address urgent needs, lead critical initiatives, or fill unexpected vacancies without slowing strategic priorities.
4. Pairing the two tools builds agility
Assessment insights pinpoint where capacity is needed; interim leaders deliver it on demand, creating a dynamic, responsive leadership model.
The Bottom Line
The days of once-a-year leadership planning are over. Today’s most competitive organizations are using scalable assessments to see their leadership landscape clearly and interim executives to act decisively. This combination builds strategies that are fluid, fast, and resilient—ready for whatever the market brings next.
There’s no better time to integrate scalable assessments and interim executives into your talent approach. As business conditions shift and leadership demands evolve, these tools give you the agility to respond quickly and confidently. By working with Heidrick & Struggles, you’ll tap into our expertise, global network, and proven strategies for building resilient, high-performing leadership teams.
Watch the full webinar for more insights!
