Right Leader, Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company - Hardcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Robert Jordan is CEO of the Association of Interim Executives. He has been launching and growing companies and helping other entrepreneurs do the same for 20 years. His first company, Online Access, put him on Inc. magazine’s Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies. Online Access, the first Internet-coverage magazine in the world, ran for 10 years and after its sale Jordan launched RedFlash, an interim management team that specializes in corporate development work. Robert Jordan is the author of How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America (www.HowTheyDidIt.com). He lives in Illinois.

Olivia Wagner co-founded InterimExecs and directs the organization, matching growing or troubled companies with top tier executive talent around the globe. Wagner previously built the interimCEOinterimCFO network from a home-grown website to a robust social network with thousands of members. She directed publication of various ebook, website, and marketing initiatives and edited "How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America". In conjunction with the book she led a national event series, the Entrepreneurial Bash, which drew hundreds of attendees and over 30 co-hosting organizations. She lives in Illinois.

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                                    Introduction to FABS Leadership Styles

Think of a time you felt completely in your element leading an organization, team, or project. You were energized by the work and by the challenges in front of you. You knew you were the best person for the job and your results proved it.

Maybe you are in a role that gives you that feeling right now. Or you might feel a bit uneasy and have a hard time coming up with an answer. Maybe even envious of people who have been able to get in that zone or reach that high peak in their work. No matter what your reaction, if you desire to become a better leader, we tell you this: you are in the right place. We are going to help you discover how to magnify your strengths as a leader so you can be more effective in your career and the companies you lead.

Leadership is at the core of how organizations succeed or, more often than not, fail. So how is it that some leaders succeed brilliantly and repeatedly, while many others fail to deliver the goods? This question has been the driving force in our quest to work with and invest in only the best leaders and organizations, culminating in our research, interviews, and in the writing of this book.

A little bit of background about us, your coauthors, first. Robert Jordan launched his first company at the age of twenty--six, when he set out to create Online Access, the first magazine to cover the quickly evolving world of online services, computer bulletin boards, and the internet. It was a bumpy ride. Running out of cash. Sleepless nights. Going bust after just two years, then showing up in federal bankruptcy court to bid and buy back the assets to start again. The magazine ultimately skyrocketed onto the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies before it was sold to a big publishing company.

But even at the best part of that journey, he was a jack--of--all--trades, and it was frustrating being spread too thin. The experience did lead, however, to discovering the exact roles and responsibilities where he excelled, and more importantly—much more importantly—learning the value of partnering and coming to trust other leaders for their unique forms of genius. Following the sale of the magazine, Robert set out to help other owners and investors launch tech products and ultimately sell to strategic buyers.

In 2009 Robert teamed up with a new graduate from the University of Michigan, Olivia Wagner, to launch a worldwide network for what was then an underground community of interim and project--based executives. The concept of leadership--on--demand was new to Olivia, but what began as a job turned into a calling to help organizations tackle big challenges by matching them with great leadership resources. But how to ensure a successful match was made? We set out to discover the holy grail—the secret or elusive qualities, skills, mindset, and abilities that differentiate the ordinary from the extraordinary.

We had to know: What causes off--the--charts great performance, far above the average?

Identifying Inspiring Leadership

Our journey to identify the DNA of inspired and inspiring leadership took us on parallel tracks. We wrote and published How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights from the Heart of America, a book of forty--five Q&A interviews with company founders who each launched from scratch, grew, and sold a company for $100 million or more, or IPO’d at $300 million or more.

In interviewing luminaries for How They Did It including Joe Mansueto, founder of Morningstar; Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter; and Eric Lefkofsky, cofounder of Groupon, InnerWorkings, and Tempus, we learned that core to virtually every company founder’s experience was a tale of surviving their company’s near--death experiences.

At the same time, we continued to seek out and deploy rock star CEOs, CFOs, and other executives into companies around the globe. More than 5,600 executives showed up on our proverbial doorstep hailing from sixty-two countries and forty-six states from which a select few were deemed to be our incredibles, showing both the results and the chops to push reinvention, growth, turnaround, or change.

Screening out the mediocre from the rock stars is not as simple as looking at someone’s track record. Mindset proved to be even more important. Sure, a résumé is telling of someone’s capabilities, but it’s static and like looking in a rearview mirror. We needed to determine how someone would jump into action—how they are wired for the challenge ahead.

Introducing the FABS Leadership Styles

Sit four friends down—an architect, a chef, a graphic designer, and a financial analyst—around a table on launch day of the hottest new restaurant in town and ask them what they think. Chances are, here’s what you’ll hear:

  •  The architect might comment on the structure of the building, its space, how the light streams in, and the look and feel of how its configuration serves and welcomes you.

  •  The chef might focus on the presentation of the meal while identifying the unique flavors and spices at play.

  •  The graphic designer may first notice the menu and design elements around the room.

  •  The financial analyst could visualize how much investment went into the restaurant and what kinds of returns success means for the investors.

Your frame of reference colors your perceptions. Likewise, accomplished leaders have a frame of reference that results in a strong suit—an elemental quality or leadership mode—that defines their highest and best use.

In our quest to define what separates successful leaders from the rest, we identified four modes or styles of leadership, each with a unique mindset, skill set, process, approach, system of operation, and drive: Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist (FABS for short). The match between an organization given its particular needs, stage, and size, and a leader operating in their favored FABS mode is vital in understanding how some leaders produce genius results time after time, while others suffer in frustration and defeat.

The Four FABS Leadership Styles

THE FIXER

This leader sees what’s broken and one or more ways to fix it. Fixers are drawn to even the most dysfunctional or toxic situations. They bring order out of chaos, cut through messes, conserve cash and resources, and figure out what needs to be expanded, cut, streamlined, aligned, and organized to create something better. Send a Fixer into a company that is hemorrhaging, and they know how to stop the bleeding. The worse the circumstances, seemingly the better for the expert Fixer. It’s not that this leader lacks sympathy or caring for the team. Far from it. It’s the innate desire to seek maximum challenge, taking on firefighting that other leaders would run from. Once the fix is complete, it’s a dopamine rush only satisfied by the next crisis.