His appointment could have been temporary and quickly abrupt and was caused by a necessity to command a group of forces at other portions of military front or tactical direction, similarly to the "field hetman" of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
There were incidents when acting hetman was chosen among colonels (a regional leaders) such as Yakym Somko.
On a territory of the left-bank Ukraine the office often was a counteractive to the righteously elected hetman.
At times of Bohdan Khmelnytsky such hetmans were Stanislav Krychevsky (1649) and Ivan Zolotarenko (1654–1655).
Among other appointed hetmans were such prominent colonels as S. Podobai (1652), Y. Voronchenko (1654), D. Yermolaienko (1665), H. Vytiazenko (1665), Yakiv Lyzohub (1696), Ivan Obydovsky (1700–1701), I. Myrovych (1704), M. Myklashevsky (1706) and others.