An interim appointment already contains a departure. Before accepting, ask what the organization expects you to leave behind and who will receive it. The answers shape the work you can promise.
Steadying daily operations and preparing a department for a permanent leader are different assignments. Each needs a clear outcome, operating authority, and a receiving owner. Bring those questions into the interview while the organization can still adjust the offer.
Define the condition you will leave
Have the appointing leader explain what must be true when the assignment ends. A department might need a current work queue with owners assigned. A permanent leader might need unresolved commitments brought forward for decisions. Establish which result belongs to your assignment.
Give words such as stabilize and rebuild a practical meaning. Which decisions do they include? Which services continue while the work happens? What will the organization postpone to make room?
Discuss the starting condition with the sponsor. A larger backlog or an unexpected vacancy can change what you can deliver. Agree when you will review that assessment and who can revise the assignment.
Check the authority behind the title
Identify decisions you can make about schedules, assignments, spending, and vendors. Establish whose approval is needed for the rest. For a nonprofit, clarify the board's retained decisions and the executive's daily authority.
Supervision is a duty of the interim seat. If people report to you, establish the standards you maintain and who resolves competing departmental requests. The organization's interest should decide that conflict.
Follow the cost beyond your own team. A changed priority can move review time, delay another department, or create rework. The company carries those consequences. The sponsor needs to decide the tradeoff when it exceeds your authority.
Receive existing promises
Learn which commitments have already been made to staff, patients, customers, partners, or funders within your scope. Establish which are funded, which you may change, and which require the original decision maker's approval.
Include proposals that remain open. A team may believe a change has been accepted while the departing leader knows it still awaits review. Resolve that difference while the relevant people are available.
Recurring deadlines and approvals also need owners during the assignment. Identify the person covering them when you are away. These obligations will continue while you work on the larger transition.
Build a handover the recipient can use
Stephen Deason's What Gets Lost in a Handoff examines how the receiving form shapes which information survives. He distinguishes that hypothesis from the limits of the evidence he discusses.
Test your handover with the intended recipient. Can they identify the commitment, current status, next action, and person authorized to decide? Can they see which conclusions remain provisional?
Give continuing work a useful stopping point. Explain what the successor receives and what remains unresolved. Include why a decision is waiting. If the permanent hire is delayed, the sponsor must appoint someone to carry that work. A vacant receiving seat still leaves obligations that need an owner.
Make the sponsor's first review a decision meeting. Bring assumptions that changed, approvals still needed, and work that should move behind a more urgent duty. Ask the sponsor to choose the next action within its authority. A handover becomes easier when these decisions are settled during the assignment. Your successor can then spend time on continuing work instead of reconstructing why the original plan stopped moving.
Set the departure terms now
Clarify what ends the appointment: a date, completion of agreed work, or arrival of the permanent leader. Discuss extension authority, notice, and transition time. If the organization expects questions answered after departure, settle the scope and terms of that work.
Ask whether you may apply for the permanent role and how that process works. Say whether staying would interest you. The search and operating plan need the same understanding.
The recipient should have time to review open work before your final day. For an interim opportunity among the open roles, establish who will accept that handover before agreeing to a start.