Renata Bernarde
Know your leadership style
Episode 180 - Find the right leadership style for you and learn how to use it. Interview with Robert Jordan.

Knowing your leadership is a critical component of any successful job search, rather you are a junior professional or a senior executive. Great leaders and team workers inspire and motivate their teams and colleagues to achieve their goals and help companies reach new heights.
But not all leaders are created equal, and different styles of leadership can be more effective in different situations. In this episode of The Job Hunting Podcast, we'll take a closer look at four leadership styles and explore some examples of who embodies them, and where they can be useful.
My guest for this episode is Robert Jordan, the CEO of InterimExecs, an organization that matches top executives with companies around the world to work on short-term projects that are impactful and need excellent leadership support. Based on his work at InterimExecs and his research with thousands of leaders and companies, he and his co-author, Olivia Wagner, wrote Right Leader Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company. In this book, they describe four leadership styles, Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist.
So, if you have struggled in the past to explain or identify your leadership style, let's say, at a job interview, then this episode is for you. This episode is also a great listen if you are in the process of getting used to the new world of work, and the new ways employers want to borrow, not buy your expertise. Project-type work, short-term contracts, and part-time retainers are becoming more and more common at every level, including senior execs and c-level.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Episode 78 - Portfolio career: What is it, and is it for you? Featuring Jacinta Whelan
Episode 167 - You need to know your leadership style. Feauturing Gary Ryan
Other resources from RenataBernarde.com :
About the Host, Renata Bernarde
Hello, I’m Renata Bernarde, the Host of The Job Hunting Podcast. I’m also an executive coach, job hunting expert, and career strategist. I teach professionals (corporate, non-profit, and public) the steps and frameworks to help them find great jobs, change, and advance their careers with confidence and less stress.
If you are an ambitious professional who is keen to develop a robust career plan, if you are looking to find your next job or promotion, or if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of the job market so that when you are ready, and an opportunity arises, you can hit the ground running, then this podcast is for you.
In addition to The Job Hunting Podcast, on my website, I have developed a range of courses and services for professionals in career or job transition. And, of course, I also coach private clients
Timestamps to guide your listening
4:47 - Robert Jordan's career story
7:43 - Interim executive work: what is it and how it works
18:21 - Fixer leadership style and examples
19:41 - Artist leadership style and examples
21:06 - Builder leadership style and examples
28:36 - Strategist leadership style and examples
Transcript of this episode
Have you ever struggled in the past to explain or identify your leadership style? It's a common question at job interviews. What's your leadership style, which I know most of my clients need help with to nail it and not to waffle on for minutes to the point that they lose their audience. If this is you or if you're curious to know about which leadership style you have, then this episode is for you.
This episode is also a great listen. If you are in the process of getting used to the new world of work and the new ways employers can and want to borrow you and not buy your expertise by hiring you in a permanent position. Project type work. Short-term contracts and part-time retainers are becoming more and more common at every level, including senior executives and sea level.
In this episode, we will also address this because my guest for this episode is Robert Jordan, the c e o of entering esx, an organization that matches top executives with companies around the world to work on short-term projects that are impactful and need excellent—leadership support based on his work at entering as ex.
He and his partner, coauthor Olivia Vagner, wrote Right Leadership, right time. Discover your leadership style for a winning career and company. In this book, they described four leadership styles, fixer, artist, builder, and strategist. If this is a type, if this is the type of podcast that can help your career, please consider subscribing.
Hit the follow button below wherever you find this. And if you are a long-term follower on Apple Podcast or Spotify, I'd love if you could please take a few minutes. Leave us a review with a five-star rating. It means the world to us to have your support. It's a great marker of the success of podcasts, and it helps us reach out to more listeners and interesting guests.
Finally, I'd like to remind you that, yes, I am a career coach, and I can work with you if you want to work with me. Many professionals reach out to me asking this question, and it's a bit odd for me because I feel like I talk about my career coaching services all the time. The best way to learn more about my services and engage with me as a coach is to go to my website, Renata barnard.com, r e n a t a B E R N a r.
de.com. You will find all my services there and also ways to connect with me. There are links that you can follow in the episode. Show notes if you didn't get that spelling before. Okay. Without further ado, here is Robert Jordan and I discussing leadership and entering work.
Okay. Without further ado, here is myself and Robert Jordan discussing leadership and entering work.
Thanks so much for listening. If you're interested in leadership and entering work, I have other episodes you may want to listen, like episode 1 67, what great leadership looks like in episode 78. Portfolio career. What is it, and is it for you? I will link them below in the episode show notes. So have a look.
Remember to subscribe to this podcast, and if you're ready to take the next step further in investing in your career, please check out my website, Renata bernardi.com. Bye Fornell. See you next time. Bye for now. See you next time.
Renata: Have you struggled in the past to explain or identify your leadership style? It's a common question at job interviews. What's your leadership style, which I know most of my clients need help with to nail it and not waffle on for minutes to the point that they lose their audience. If this is you or if you're curious to know which leadership style you have, then this episode is for you.
This episode is also a great listen. If you are in the process of getting used to the new world of work in new ways, employers want to borrow, not buy, your expertise by hiring you on a permanent role or project-type work. Short-term contracts and part-time retainers are becoming more and more common at every level, including senior X and C levels.
In this episode, we will also address. this is Because my. Because my guest for this episode is Robert Jordan, the c e o of InterimExecs, an organization that matches top executives with companies around the world to work on short-term projects that are impactful and need excellent leadership support. Based on his work at InterimExecs and his research with thousands of leaders and companies, he and his co-author, Olivia Vagner, wrote Rightly, the right time, discover your leadership style for a winning career and company.
In this book, they describe four leadership styles, fixer, artist, builder, and strategist, and we will address each one and give examples in this episode. If this is the type of podcast that can help your career, please consider subscribing to it. Hit the follow or subscribe button wherever you find us.
And if you are a longtime follower of Apple Podcast or Spotify, I'd really appreciate and love it. If you could please take a few minutes to provide us with a five five-star rating. And if you are a longtime follower on Apple Podcast or Spotify, I'd love it if you could please leave us a five-star rating or a short review.
It means the world to us to have your support, and it can help the podcast in ways you cannot even imagine. It's a great marker of success, and it helps us reach out to more listeners and more interesting guests, and it helps. It can help the podcast in ways you cannot even imagine. It's a great marker of success, and it helps us reach out to more listeners and interesting guests for you.
Finally, I'd like to remind you that, yes, I am a career coach. And you can work with me if you want to. Many professionals reach out to me asking this question, and it's a bit odd for me because I feel like I talk about my career services all the time on this podcast. The best way to learn more about my services and engage with me as a coach is to go to my website, renatabernarde.com That's renatabernarde.com You will find all my services there and also ways to connect with me if you have questions. There are links to this website in the episode show notes as well. Okay, without further ado, here is Robert Jordan discussing leadership and entering work.
Thank you so much for listening. If you are interested in leadership and entering work, I have other episodes of the Job Hunting podcast that you may use. Thank you so much for listening. If you are interested in leadership and entering work, I have other episodes you may want to listen to, like episode 1 67, what great leadership looks like in Episode 78, portfolio Career.
What is it, and is it for you? I will link them in the episode show notes as well. Remember to subscribe to this podcast, and if you're ready to take your career a step further, please check out my website, renatabernarde.com Bye for now, and I'll see you next time.
There we can do all we want. Usually, I -record this episode live on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. But I don't know if you can tell, I have covid at the moment. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, and I'm little bit of a sore throat, and I decided it was, you know, and a step too far for me to do this live. Who knows, you know, I could have been coughing a lot, and you know, I can still talk to you and edit things out this way, so it's better.
And I didn't want to postpone it again because we postponed it once, and I didn't want to postpone it again, so. Well, I appreciate that, but health comes first. So if at some point you're feeling no-go, no, I'm fine. Well, well, it's. No, my friend, I'm, I'm really fine. This is, in fact, a really weird situation because I had COVID, and then I got better, and then a few days later, I started feeling worse again, and I tested positive again.
It's called the Rebound. Apparently, Joe Biden had it, and a few people, famous people, but it's not very common. So this is the Rebound Covid. And it's a little bit milder than the first time. It's, it's the same infection. I haven't been reinfected; it's just it comes back. I don't know. I had never heard of it.
So I feel I got it once, and it was enough. It was; it was enough. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's been. I'm probably the only people I know that didn't get it early on. And now, you know, I'm the last person in Australia.
Oh, see; bless you. We get it for sure. Everybody else I know already. Well, how many shots have you had? Oh, I think four. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm, but still. Yeah, four or five. And I work with clients, so I know when things are going around because they start getting sick. Thankfully we, we do everything we do via Zoom.
Yeah. I'm like, no, no, it's not just me. There are a lot of people here in Australia catching covid again. And yeah, so it's such a pity because I have a son visiting from England, and he's not here for long, and I can't see him. Oh. Oh yeah. That's not good. It is not good. No, no. Yeah. But Robert, where are you in Lincoln?
Sorry? Your son, where does he live? In England? In it's a small town called Lincoln. But he's hoping to establish himself in Nottingham, which is about 20 minutes away from Lincoln. And it's a bigger town. Yeah. Do you know England well? Well, my daughter is at the moment in London studying at the London School of Economics.
Oh, lovely. And so, and, and, and I, I, I love England, love London. So, you know, When I went great place. I'm in Chicago. I'm, I'm in the Midwest. Oh, I love Chicago. Yeah, I knew that. I, I, I remember that I, when I go to London, this the two times I've been there for work, I stay right next to l s e, you know, where, where you have the lovely buildings, and it's nice to go to cafes and see the academics having catchups with their students.
You know, I'm, I'm assuming they're like Ph.D. or master supervisors and having catch-ups with students. Normally, they would be there, and they're on strike right now for the second time this school year. Oh really? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. The second time, these teachers are on strike. England is, is not in a good position economically, and they're really struggling.
My son is not very happy being in England. He has had the worst time trying to establish himself there with all the strikes and everything that's going on. Does he work or a student? What? What's his he has his own business. Yes. He has a business with two partners, and he was running it from Australia whilst there was one business partner in the UK and the other one in France.
So it's, you know, the time zones weren't really compatible. Mm-hmm. And now they're all in the same time zone and, and he's going to marry an English girl. So it makes sense. Yeah. Four. Huh. Sorry. What kind of business do they have? Oh, he's he has an investment research business called Viceroy Research.
If you Google them, you're going to be very impressed or very horrified. So they're, they do a lot of short selling reports. Mm-hmm. On businesses that are fraudulent and then wait for, you know, things to tumble so that they can, yeah. It's like Hindenberg. Hmm. Very, yeah. Very much like Hindenberg. So they're usually ranked with re hindenberg and a few others amongst the top five short-selling research firms in the world.
Yeah. Wow. They're called Vice Roy. Yeah. They put people in jail. It's really quite something. It's really scary, too, for parents. Yeah. You gotta get your information right. I mean, what? Yeah. Hindenberg did with what's his name in India? Oh, God, yes. Do you know who that was? A yeah, Gabby, Gabby was aware of what was going on but never would have chosen to publish a report about it.
Because you have to pick your battles and make sure that you're doing something that, yeah. Is safe. And you know, those people can get really angry very quickly. You're implying that they will take vengeance on the person? Oh yeah. No, it has happened to our family a few times. What do you mean? Like someone shows up and says, stop writing.
Someone shows up to spy on us. Yes. Oh my God, that's yes. Terrible. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Lord. So they're fighting back. Yes. Yeah. Especially when they came out publicly because they were anonymous for a few years. They were very young. The two boys that started this were my son and his best friend, Aiden.
And then a few years later, an older, more sort of experienced short seller with a bit more cash joined them. But they, they started off doing reports just out of curiosity and weren't putting their names to it. But, a journalist figured out who they were and published their names, and that was pretty, you know, it was a big business in South Africa that went under because of what they did call Steinhoff.
They're big everywhere. They're probably big in the US as well. They sell mattresses and furnitures and things like that. They went under. They did. Yes, they did. Yeah. So but is your son, he's he's safe. He's never been attacked. He's fine. No, no, he's fine. He's fine. He really enjoys doing this. He works together with human rights and not-for-profits as well, based in New York and in the UK.
Because once you start uncovering these things, there's a very big correlation between fraud and abuse in the workplace. And, you know, whistleblowers come up with, you know, things like sexual harassment or some sort of issues they face at work. So he works together with these foundations to support the employers, and yeah, it's, it's big.
Hmm. That is fascinating. Yes, it is. Yes. Yes. I am good for him. Yeah. How old was he? He was supposed, he was supposed to be a normal, boring accountant. No, no, no. And it, and, and then, you know, he, he's wiring. Yeah, yeah. But you need accounting bones to do that kind of work. Accounting at uni, you have a shift. Yeah.
Yeah. He was a cadet. So he, what, what that means here in Australia is that you start off doing university in working for a accounting firm at the same time, it's called a cadetship, and it's very rare. It used to be more common in the past, but. now, accounting firms just don't have the time to train students.
And he started working for a group that was doing insolvency. They're not part of K P N G, but they were Australian-based before. And, you know, his first assignment was to fire some Truckee because the firm had been under there and then closed down a brothel or, you know, like with so weird jobs like that.
So unfortunately, he started off in the deep end of the accounting business working with insolvency, and very quickly understood some, you know, frauds and the ho hallmarks of what that looks like. And yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. Weird kid. Weird kid. No, that's, that's a remarkable kid. Yeah, that's, he's only 28, so he's fairly young, but yeah, he's, he's doing well.
And you know what, what you need to have when you start off like this is some investors. So yeah. Private equity that backs you up and that wants to support you and, and, you know, invest in the, the, the sort of re-research that you're doing. So you may have money in some fund that is investing in them, but you don't even know.
Mm-hmm. , because a part of that high-risk investment is short selling. We don't even know what they invest in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Anyway. Yeah. Interesting. Well, if your daughter is interested in doing short selling, tell her that it's a business. Yeah. Let me, let me tell you, Renata, I encouraged her to go because her undergraduate degree is from Trinity College, Ireland, in English literature.
Wow. And I am, I am an example of a scrappy business entrepreneur my whole life. None of that. None of that rubbed off, rubbed off on her. She, mm-hmm. She doesn't have a commercial bone in her body. Yeah. She's good at doing research and writing. Mm-hmm. , which applies broadly in the business world, but I have no idea what is going to happen this fall when she finishes her little dissertation and gets out of there.
I know she wants to stay in London for a year or two, but beyond that, it's like, I'm just like, kid, you must get a job. Just, what is her, what is? What is she studying at L S C? Public policy and media.
Interesting. She's very passionate, cause-driven, like many young people. Yes. Yes. Deal, you. This is front and center for you dealing with people all day long, right? Yes. And, my wife just says, keep the faith. It'll be okay. Yes. She's going to figure this out. Yes. And also, I give them credit.
The first week they were in classes. Mm-hmm. , it is mandatory to meet with a career counselor mm-hmm. , and immediately start thinking about after you get out of here. Yeah. And their first piece of advice is you start looking at every alum from lse. Mm-hmm. that works somewhere that intrigues you.
Yes. So, you know, like they're LSE alums at the b bbc. Mm-hmm. And I know that would be a big turn-on for her. So it's. Call them up, take someone to coffee, you know? Yeah. So, no, that's fantastic. I mean, well, you're from Chicago. Chicago has amazing support like that starts right at the beginning of master programs at, you know, the Kellogg Kellogg and uc booth.
Yeah, they're fantastic. I, I actually visited them when I was managing the MBA career program here at Monash University, and I was asked to go and visit some universities and. I went to see both of them and Illinois Institute as well, and I learned so much from them. And, and, and you think, I think that you know, the good universities will do that for the students because it's such a big investment to continue and do postgraduate studies, and people have an assumption that just by doing them, you get better jobs.
But it's not really the course itself; it is the maturity and the career readiness, and yeah, I learned a lot from visiting Chicago. I love Chicago. My husband worked in Chicago for 12 years while I lived in Melbourne, Australia. So he worked for United Airlines. I kid you not, from 2000 and one to 2012.
And even before then, when we were still in Brazil, he al he was already working for United, but it was United, Sao Paulo. And then when we moved here, they said, oh, we don't care where you live. You're going to report to Chicago now. So he used to spend months in Chicago and leave me alone with the kids.
Was, was he the business side or a pilot? No, no. Business side, definitely it, mm-hmm. And, yeah. And all of that. So designing systems for them and usually systems to do with combining different systems from different countries into one spreadsheet or a program or, yeah. So that was that was the beginning of our journey here in Australia, was him staying in Chicago for months on end, and he loved Chicago.
Yeah. Yeah. We both do, but I'd love to know more about you. Are you from Chicago originally? Yeah. Mm-hmm. ? Yes. Born and bred. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and you know, Chicago is obviously, it's a big city. It has mm-hmm. It's challenges. And despite the challenges, I, I kinda it's in. It's in my DNA. Mm-hmm.
And so I'm not leaving. You know, you find a lot of people, it's also cold in the winter. And so, you know, I have a lot of friends where it's like, oh, go to California, go to Arizona, go to Florida. And I'm like; I'm not moving. No, I don't mind. I love the weather down there, but yeah. Now it's your home. Tell me about your career story.
You were saying before that you're a scrappy entrepreneur, but how did it start? Well, I was in business school at Kellogg, and I dropped out to start the first magazine in the world that covered online services and internet and Wow. Okay. When was this? What year was that? 1986. Okay. Wow. Early, early beginnings.
Oh yeah. And that was five years before there even was a worldwide web. Yes. Yeah, so I did that. I, I was in magazine publishing in the beginning. I made every mistake you could possibly make in business. I mean, some really boneheaded moves. Hiring one of my best friends to head up sales. That was not a good move because, you know, what happens if it doesn't work?
Running out of cash every month not a good move. Have to keep going back to investors and, and so, so lots of, of initial failure. But eventually, of course, you know, online came around. Mm-hmm. and in the end, I could do no wrong. And, and the magazine was called Online Access, and it put me on the Inc 500 list, which are the fastest growing businesses in the us.
And then I looked like a genius. Yes, I remember online access. Yes. Really? Yes. Yes. Because my father was in the business and I think my husband too. So I lived in Silicon Valley in the eighties when you were sort of starting up. So there you go. Oh, great. Yeah. It, it, my dad was sold. Yeah. It's sold on new stanza all around the world.
Mm-hmm. Anyway, so, you know, when the internet completely overrun the world, having a print source of information wasn't necessary, I didn't think. And I sold it to a big publisher, and I was, you know, the zen expression when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Mm-hmm. Well, I sold it. I was kinda like, what am I going to do with my life?
And the online world was a very small community, pre-world wide web. And there were only like one, one, or two conferences a year. And there was a guy who came to these conferences, and every time he showed up, he had a different business card. And I was trying to make a joke when I saw him. He was coming up to me.
He had a new card, like, you know, dude, can't you hold down a job And mm-hmm. , he said, he said, no, you don't get it. He said he had this team, and he would parachute in with venture funding because a lot of we're in Silicon Valley at this meeting, and he said a lot of venture capitalists we're not gonna give a rookie entrepreneur a check for five or $10 million and just, you know, right off into the sunset.
And so he said he had this team, and he would parachute in with the money. That blew my mind away. Mm-hmm. , I was. I loved early-stage tech, was around a lot of entrepreneurs. And then he handed me the card, and the card said, c e o of Yahoo. Oh wow, So in the online world, we all knew Yahoo was going to go public on zero revenue, not zero earnings, zero revenue.
Yes. And so my friend who became my mentor, he literally, in a 180-day span, went from incorporating Yahoo to taking it public and at a multi-billion dollar valuation. And I was transfixed, transformed. I said I said to him, you're now my mentor. Hmm. I'm doing this. This is going to be my career. You know, you know, he had a weird job title.
He was an interim c e o, and I said, I'm now an interim c e o. I went and bought two domain names, interim ceo.com, and interim cfo.com. And started doing projects, doing gigs. Mm-hmm. and did that lots of failure. I was mostly working with early-stage tech, but also some incredible successes. I've been in three IPOs.
I was the lead person for a number of companies that sold to strategic buyers for very high multiples, right? So, so it was a great ride. Social networks came around Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. And I thought I wonder how many people in the world are like my mentor and I with these weird job titles.
And I've been approached because I own these primary domains in the world. Interim ceo.com, interim cfo.com, interim cio.com, and a lot of you know, hundreds. Executives kind of showed up on my doorstep, kind of raising their hands, saying hello, and, so we launched a business called Interim Execs, and that turned into what it exists now, which is a kind of global matchmaker between organizations and whether you want to call it project-based interim fractional leadership.
That's so interesting. Where did you recruit people from to to become those entering exec executives? It's a great question, and part of the answer, Renata, is that we've been doing this so long mm-hmm. and our search ranking is so high around the world that anyone interested in this from the executive side in terms of career will find us probably before they'll find anybody else.
Mm. It, it, it's become its own source of gravity, if you will. I see. In the beginning, we launched as a free search engine for anyone to find an executive. And we were doing our own original research. But at this point, it's just, we, we've become a bit of a magnet. And, and so every day, executives show up from around the world who either are already experienced as mm-hmm, interim executives, fractional, project-based, however you wanna call them, or they're new, and they're exploring it.
And we have hundreds of pages of content on the site in both at corporations so they can learn more about how to use these executives and tons of material for executives, on, on how to do this. At one point, we had recorded 10 hours kind of a program for executives who were new to it, going over every aspect of what it is to be an interim executive.
W we interviewed about 25 veteran leaders who were career-dedicated doing interim and ask them to talk about every aspect of the career. What, what's the, what's in it for you? What's your business model? Are you the matchmaker? We get paid to make great matches. Mm-hmm. Because we are part of the fee structure of the contract, right?
So we're not like, you know, head hunters, you know, the permanent recruiters. They, you know, typically you sign a retainer, the corporation signs a retainer, and then they go out and search. We don't do that. We, we do not accept retainers. We choose. organizations show up, companies show up, public, private, small, large, we're choosing, you know, where we think we can make a great match.
Mm-hmm. and if we can, we're introducing one or more executives to a company, and if they hit it off, we are writing a contract between ourselves and an organization and then a contract with the executives. And so we collect the funds, and we act as the agent for the executive and collect the money and then turn around and pay the executives.
Yes. Robert, is it sustainable for executives to opt into entering work, or is it something that you should choose to do once your career has run most of its course and you are in a privileged position where you can be without work for months on end, and then eventually find, you know, a contract that brings you not only money but energy and fulfills you?
Is that how it works for the people that work for you? That is a great question. Mm-hmm. And historically, it has been the latter in that you, you are well established in your career and your level of confidence and and then you can do this, and you can sustain not working all of the time. You don't need to work all of the time.
The way we practice this, you can't be retired and work with us. So just to be clear, this has to be career calling, right? For the executives, you work with. We are not interested in, in working with retired folks, and we are not interested in working with people who are much more predisposed for permanent roles, and they're just trying this out, or we'll do it on the side.
This has become its own career calling around the world. That's that that ship has sailed. That this is this is the way the world is now organized is that there are many project-based roles, and they now go all the way into the C-suite. Mm-hmm. , you know, it used to be it was lower level, and then you see work that got farmed out or outsourced around the world.
And then you see project-based, especially in technical fields and coding and architecture and programming and financial. Well, now it's in the C-suite. Yes. So to, the direct answer to your question is, is you, you would be hard pressed to do this, you know, if you really need a paycheck this, it's, it's not time for you mm-hmm.
to go do this career-wise. I would say, though, that because the entire world is becoming kind of a gig economy. Mm-hmm. the line is, is is not very sharp, you know? Yes. What, what the important thing is, is that you have to go into the marketplace with the distinct you this, this thing that makes you distinct.
And the more you do that, it will turn into leadership roles. And so, at some point, it may be indistinguishable. Take the progression of someone with technical talent, right? There are many people in the world who are essentially project-based, and they're great at. At programming, they're great at coding, they're great at architecture, and they're good at it.
And they're confident enough that they can move from organization to organization, role to role. It could look permanent for a year or two. It could literally be that it's outsourced projects. While that progression at some point can lead into roles where now you're called the chief technology officer, now you're called the chief Information Officer.
Now you're called the C, the ciso. Right? The Chief. Mm-hmm. Information Security Officer. And you can grow into it. And the beauty of the modern world is they can all be project based now. Right? That kind of progression didn't exist for any of us 30 years ago. Yes. And so people find you because, you know, the amazing work you've done in securing those URLs and establishing your brand.
Do you accept everyone, or do you have a selection process that they need to go through to be part of the the team of enterings that you can then showcase to your clients? It's a highly rigorous process. Mm-hmm. , I, I'm, I'm not going to fool anyone listening to this, I don't know, admission, you know, around the world.
The joke we would make in the United States is it's, it's harder. Then, the highest designation we have is called Red Team. Red stands for Rapid Executive Deploy. , there's red team, there's red team ready. It's harder to get on the red team than to get into Harvard or Stanford. Mm-hmm. It's incredibly selective.
However, if you own a company, if you're on the board of a company, you think about how high the bar is, where you're actually going to take in some form of outside leadership. You have, you have a real need. Could be something bad's occurred, could be something great is on the horizon. Mm-hmm. But the bar for you, when it's your company, this is your sacred asset.
That bar is so high. Mm-hmm. that the only thing that's gonna convince you to get over it is you are gonna see someone who's so remarkable, so extraordinary that you're just like, sign me up. Right. So that's the only way we can be as a business. It's, it's not fair. It is not equal. It is what it is. I will say, you know, I know we were gonna talk about this, that because of that ranking, scoring screening we've done over the past 15 years, it's, it's over 7,000 executives, 50 countries.
That's what led us to write the book, write leader, write time. Mm-hmm. . Because in doing all of that ranking, scoring, screening, and then having this ringside seat, because we own the contract. And so while a project is going on, we're talking to the board, we're talking to the owners, talking to the executives and asking, how's it going?
Everybody happy? Everybody firing on all cylinders. We, we saw this pattern, which is the majority of executives showing up. we're having career experiences that you would describe as, okay, maybe pretty good, but you would never say, oh my gosh, extraordinary. Yeah. Then at the top end, you look at the top two, 3% exceptional leaders just crushing it in everything they do.
And and we saw this pattern of these four different leadership styles, each of which would lead to success, but where those leaders tended to have a dominant thing we called leadership style, style, referring to somebody's process and approach, and system. And, oh, I'd love to talk about the different styles that you identified.
Would you mind going through the the four different styles with us? Sure. So the four styles we label fixer artist, Builder, and strategist, F a B S, fabs for short, fixer artist builder, strategist. And and so we've seen this pattern repeated hundreds of times. And so, you know, this, this research initially came out as a book interviews with lots of of executives and where we could see these patterns.
And now there's also an assessment, which is lo launching called fab's Leadership Assessment. Mm-hmm. . And it's about a three-minute assessment you take and, and you get a result in instantly, and you can agree or disagree with it, but it, it hopefully, gives somebody some insights into their own wiring.
What does the fixer style looks like? Fixer is the energy that sees the world. sees burning buildings and, and the fixer has to keep running into them. Mm-hmm. . So when you think about yourself and your career, and if you're in any form of leadership, problems happen all the time. I mean, I've owned companies for many years.
I have to solve problems constantly, but I don't get my energy off of it, and I don't go, oh, goody, another intractable problem. As you and I are talking, Renata, there's a thing that occurred in the world called ftx. It's a crypto exchange that's blown up and there's, they're at least a million creditors.
And when it blew up a couple months ago, the US Court appointed a c e o guy named John Ray, who's a veteran fixer. It wouldn't surprise anybody to learn that prior to F T X, John Ray had been an N run, and Ron was a massive blowup in the early two thousands. John Ray is wired with fixer energy. He needs crisis to thrive.
Right. And, and when that organization, division, team, client relationships, when that's all solved, the best thing for the fixer to do is to move on to the next crisis. Right. You give a fixer something that's steady state or not going wrong, they're either gonna go crazy or they're gonna break it just so they can fix it.
Yeah. I'm assuming then that the artist is more of a creative leader. Yes. The artist views the world as a blank canvas or a piece of clay to be molded stand out person in the world that everyone thinks of. You don't even need to say his whole name is Elon. Elon Musk. Right. And I'm specifically refer referring to Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company.
Those are acts of innovation that are truly world-changing. And, and in the beginning, where, you know, you look at what he was doing with EV and launching a a car, and everyone thought he was crazy, and how was he going to make money? And, and mm-hmm. now look where we are. There, there's essentially a global movement, which is no more gas combustion engines.
You got one guy to thank for, for creating the tipping point there. Yes. So, so it is the creative energy, the artist is the renegade on your team. Mm-hmm. , they're not the most, like, they're, they can be disagreeable. They cannot help but continue to create. And yeah, it's not easy. I'm, I'm very strongly wired artist energy, and, and the way we write in the book is the artist leaders to your peril.
Right. Because you can't turn it off. Right. And you shouldn't, and you shouldn't turn it off. It's just, you need, you need to be very aware of how you form or exist on a team. When you have that energy, I'm, I'm still trying to find myself. So let's go to the third one. What was it called again? Builder. Builder.
Okay. So for it's fixer, artist, builder, strategist. Builder. Okay. Builder is the energy that takes the small team, nascent product service, offering client relationships, and takes that to scale. Mm-hmm. to market domination. Sometimes it's world domination, but in most cases, builder energy you see can be like dominating a local market.
If, in your town, you've got one dominant real estate developer, that's builder energy, right? There's a, there's a pastry, a bakery. I go to Boston, a Fairmont, and there's a, a bakery chain there that is unbelievable. They're great and. , they dominate Boston in the suburbs, and I'm not sure they're in any other city, but at the heart of that business, there's a builder who says, I'm not only gonna have the best product I own Boston.
This is it. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . That's builder energy, which you tend to see with Builder is that somebody launches product service company and they do something great, like they dominate a city. They go public. And for a lot of builders at that point, they need to move on. This is how you see people at companies where they go public and that challenge is gone and they will now move to a new organization, a new team, a new startup.
It's not necessarily entrepreneurs, but Builder Energy has market domination on the. That's me. I'm a builder person for sure. , and I was well known for being a builder. I think I still am, you know, even now, from time to time I do get job offers, even though I have my own business and I'm, I'm not sort of accepting anything, but it's because of the reputation that I can build.
Interesting, isn't it? It just stays with you, doesn't it? Yes. And there are key traits to successful leaders in terms of what they do with this ability they develop over time, which is they keep reinforcing it. Mm-hmm. , and it keeps, it keeps deepening and reinforcing their success and their confidence.
And the flip side, the danger here is, is that there are those folks who do not focus, they do not concentrate. There's too much of trying to be all things to all people. Yes, the majority of executives fit into this category. If you confronted them and you said, you know, you're kind of all over the place to a man and woman, they would deny it.
Yes. And yet, it's easy to see from the outside that, that they do not have the demonstrated measurable success that you see among exceptional leaders. Yes. I had this, I had this spill, you know, part of my pitch was to say that I could take a project in to a fully-fledged organization. So I can take something from being a project or early beginnings to something that was fully fledged and established and build a reputation.
So that was part of my shtick. I don't need to do that anymore, but that was it. I want you to give us an example of a strategist so that I can then ask you more questions about it. So, who, who would be an example of a well-known example? Example, first of a builder. Oh, yes, yes. Let's forward builder too.
So builder is interesting. In a lot of cases, they're not necessarily on the radar in the same way as like a Elon Musk or a fixer because they're not necessarily all that public. You know, for example, the dominant real estate developer, developer in your town, that's classic builder energy, and everyone in the town knows them.
But outside that town, maybe not one standout example in the world of Builder Energy is Sheryl Sandberg. She was the number two at Facebook, now Meta, for 14 years. So a lot of people have heard of Cheryll Sandberg because she also wrote a book called Leanin. Mm-hmm which became very popular around the world.
Sheryl Sandberg is also a cautionary tale. So here's the builder side of what she did. She goes and joins a young company called Facebook with a very inexperienced c e o. Mark Zuckerberg, they had a couple hundred employees. Even with just a couple hundred employees, the revenue was already a hundred million.
But she was the veteran and he was not. And in seven years of being the number two the c o o at Facebook, she grew that organization to 70,000 employees, to 70 billion in revenue, to just being dominant around the planet. Mm-hmm. I, I'm not sure anyone can come up with an example in, in modern times of a builder that extraordinary.
But here's the thing, it's interesting because when she started, I think she had stated publicly that she was essentially signing up for a five-year tour of duty. That's really typical for builder to think Yes. In that kind of increment. Well, seven years. again. How are you going to compare that success to anything else anyone else has produced?
Problem is she stayed. What happened in the next seven years? Cambridge Analytica scandal, election interference. A pivot to VR called Meta that I'm not sure really engaged her. Mm-hmm. a lot of distraction from having published Leanin. I think she was courageous for doing it. I think she had ended up with a lot of arrows in her back.
Mm-hmm. from becoming a target. And so she's a phenomenal leader. A cautionary example, I think, for a lot of builders, which is understand, you know, in the book we have this phrase we love, it's called highest and best use. Mm-hmm. . And for all of us, all of us, you, me, We need to come to some understanding over the course of our careers about what our highest and best use is.
Yes. That's a very hard thing to do. It's very easy for me to say it. It's incredibly hard to do the, the real way we put it, talking about exceptional leaders in the book, is that exceptional leaders reject more of what is not for their highest and best use. Mm. So hard when you're early in your career, so hard if you're looking around for a job.
But if but if you, if you look at other folks who are having career success, which you tend to see is there are a lot of decisions made. You know, decision comes from the Latin word, which is to kill off. Mm. And what's the modern age? It's fomo. The fear of missing out, right? Yes. But the reality of it is, is that you have to kind of collect yourself.
turn off your phone, get away from the distraction to this, you know, this expression, the still small voice. Mm-hmm. , there's, there's that thing in you, that internal g p s gyroscope, which is trying to steer you in a particular way. And your friends may not like it and your family may not like it, but it is you.
And, and that is kind of hopefully inexorably getting. Highest and best use. Yes. That's such a good point. And so true. I can, as somebody who has now identified herself as a builder, i, I, I can tell. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me. That f frankly, you, you, you get bored if you stay for too long, if you're a builder, because if you've built it, then the the day-to-day is not as exciting for you.
The management of the, just the maintenance of the, what you've built is not as exciting or as the, the early years of building it itself. So, yes, that's a very good point. And what about the strategist, then? Who is Strategist is? Yeah. Strategist is the leader at scale. Mm-hmm. Strategist is the leader at.
Complex, vast, large organizations. The styles we call fixer, artist, and builder tend to be within roles, organizations, teams that are within what Stephen Covey called Personal Span of control. You know, Stephen Covey, Covey, famous author of Seven Habits of Highly Successful People in, that phrase, personal span of control.
You'll find fixer, artist, and builder energy and, and you've got a team of five people. You have 10, you have 50, maybe a hundred. But the key distinction is, is you know each other. Yes. And you're relying on personal relationships, and you're developing trust. And it's very key to how that leader leads strategist doesn't have that strategist.
You know, one of the strategist leaders we interviewed for the book, Dr. Janine Davidson, she had been the under secretary of the Department of Defense in the us. You're talking about over a million people? Mm-hmm. And the language that Janine used to describe leadership. Oh my gosh. This has nothing to do with fixers.
Artists and builders. The language was about systems of systems. Yes. Strategist, leaders, you hear lots about loyalty. Loyalty to an organization, longevity within an organization, cross-training, becoming cross-functional gratitude. Gratitude to an organization, mentoring, being mentored, all of that language.
You don't hear that from fixers, artist, and builders, that their mantra is totally different. The mantra of the art of the fixer is velocity. Velocity is life. You've got a patient to be saved. The artist, the mantra's, creation is all about an active creation. The builder, they got market on the brain.
Yeah. For the strategist, no, it's about cadence. It's about cadence that, that inside complex organizations, there's a heartbeat. There's a heartbeat, there's a syncopation to the board, to the marketing function, to the sales team, to operations, to delivery. Everything has this cadence, and successful strategist, leaders, you, you, you feel that heartbeat, you're quickening the pace of that organization.
Mm-hmm. , it's a different energy. No, no. I, I I love how you explained it. Do you find that people can develop themselves to become a strategist? I'm just thinking about leaders that have. Had a career in a small or medium size organization, for example, and, and have, you know, always had the ambition to scale.
Can they access tools to their leadership repertoire that makes them more of a strategist? Well, well, we're all, it's a great question. We're all on the journey, and yeah. And so we're all growing in into hopefully what we're supposed to grow into. Mm-hmm. . We're not this model, you know, we call fab's leadership styles.
This is not trying to pigeonhole a person to saying you are just the builder. You are just, that's all you are. That's not the case. All of us, anybody in the leadership role. You're bringing every capability you have to bear to win however you wanna go, define that. And so it's going to be a mix. The thing that I think it's akin to the way we described it.
In the book is like dna. Yeah, dna. N a, they're just four proteins. They're called nucleotides. Four proteins make up all of biological life, whether it's your Aunt Mary, you know, your, your, your pet dog, whatever. It, it's just infinite variation of those four proteins. Well, it's the same with leadership.
There's infinite variation. And for you, there is you or I, there's that one particular style that you are going to evolve and grow into. Strategists, in a lot of cases, is, and, and we're not saying that, that leaders don't employ strategy every day. This is a label we gave, we could have called it conductor, pilot, captain, quarterback.
It's, it is an energy that tends to grow over time. So a standout example in the world of strategist is Fred Smith, the recently retired founder and c e o of Federal Express, FedEx, FedEx. He was, he led it for 51 years. It started as a paper he wrote when he was in school. Mm-hmm. , if that's not an artistic endeavor, this crazy idea, we should deliver packages overnight by airplane.
I, I think the rumor is, you know, the myth is he got a C on it. He starts FedEx, he runs outta money. I mean, he's, he's, you know, this is famous Laura about Fred Smith. He went to Las Vegas and gambled to win the payroll to, to meet payroll. If that's not fixer energy, what is, well then there's building the organization, achieving dominance in the country.
Got it. Check the box. But the enduring thing about Fred Smith is that he thrived as a strategist. Mm-hmm. as this leader of a vast, complex organization hundreds of thousands of employees, a level of complexity that is beyond any single human being. Mm-hmm. that, that he could. Be a part of the leadership of that organization?
Yes. It's very interesting. I'm just thinking about my own career and also some of my clients where that transition from being, let's say a builder to, to having to scale has burnt them. And it may be what happens there is that failure doesn't mean you shouldn't try again. That failure just means you need to acknowledge the difference between being Somebody who created a, a reputation and a career on a builder leadership style that now needs to be more of a strategist if they want to continue to career advance.
You don't have to, you can be a well-known builder who then jumps from job to job because of, of that reputation. But I can just think of some examples in my own career and in other clients' careers where that that switch just didn't work, at least not at first. And you, you need to keep on trying if you want to, to scale.
Would you agree? Is that how it happens? Yes. I, I agree a hundred percent. This is reminding me you know, we, I had heard this wonderful phrase at one point, and, and so we put it in the book, which is, just because you have a song to sing doesn't mean you don't have to learn how to sing it. . Mm-hmm. . And so we're, we're, we're going on these journeys, we're on this career journey, and it's not, it's not all uncovered at the age of 22 or 24.
It is, it's this journey of self-discovery that you're going on and, and you are determining what that path is. But it doesn't mean that it's, it's self-evident immediately. It is something that, with hindsight, becomes 2020. Yes. And you know, I've had this conversation and we presented this model, fabs, fixer, artist, builder, strategist, and it was new to all of the leaders, interviewed in the book, and we had this set format of asking questions.
It was almost like a podcast, but it was not for public consumption, but it was asking these leaders about why, why this move? Why that, why did you go in this way? Why did you reinforce here? There was a certain point. In the interviews of saying, this is the premise, this is the thesis for the book. Mm-hmm.
picture, artist builder, strategist, does this make sense to you? Do you think there's an application in your life? And if not, you know, they could say, oh, it's crazy. Very interesting kind of revelations from these highly successful leaders, you know, who, who now had this context, this framework in which to think about their own career journey, as well as people around them.
Mm-hmm. one of the leaders we interviewed, we said this and kinda like, what do you think? Are we crazy? And he said, you know, he said, you know, I was an investor in a company, and it was in trouble. And when it was in trouble, we had the greatest c e o. He said, but, you know, once the problems got fixed, he wasn't so good anymore.
I thought there you have fixer energy. Mm-hmm. and you're making the exact point. The organization needed to move on, and that leader needed to move on to his next highest and best use. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. When, when organizations come to you looking for entering executives to step in, do they have a preference?
I mean, in your eyes, I mean, of course, they don't come and say, I need a builder, or I need a fixer. But from what you've observed, is there usually a bias towards a specific type of leadership that organizations look for in project type? Is that work? Well, it's a great question and, and this model of fabs, we don't just apply to project-based.
Mm-hmm. , I think. Applies more broadly in, in, in work. I would not apply this model like in politics, you know, elected office. I don't, I don't want to go there with it. Got it. At all. But when organizations show up for us, it, it's, it's kind of, it, it's glaringly, you know, the lights are going off because we're in a different position from them.
The organization that shows up, they're in the situation, they're in hard to see it. When you're looking at it from the outside, you have fresh eyes on it. Mm-hmm. . And, and that is one of the advantages to bringing in an outside leader to any organization that's having an issue, which is they're coming at it and they're, there's no legacy.
There's no ax to grind to figuring it out. Organizations are all smart, though. They're all sophisticated. And so even though you can't solve all the problems, you know what they are. And so, you know, an organization in crisis. They're, they're good reasons. They're, they're showing up. And, and the, and this actually, you know, is, is how you can distinguish these leadership styles or not.
For example, fixer, one of the things that draws fixer leaders to this as their, their chosen work is that in crisis, it's much easier and more obvious to the stakeholders around that something needs to be done. Mm-hmm. . That, that may sound easy, but if you just think about it, you, you know in, in crisis, the board, the customers, the employees, the contractors, the community, everyone drops all of their, their their biases and prejudices in order to do something.
And those other styles and other organizations you don't have, it's a luxury in a way. It's weird to say it's a luxury in crisis. Give you an example. As you and I are talking, there is a war going on in Ukraine, and it caused energy shortfalls throughout Europe and Germany. Imports a lot of energy and including liquified natural gas, l n g, and they have no terminal.
The planning for a terminal is 15 years. Yeah, it's billions of dollars. It faces so many hurdles in, in the developed world, environmental and engineering, and just everything. Well, last year, I don't know if you saw the stories, but Ellen, you know Germany got its first L n G terminal. How long did it take to build?
200 days. Wow. Why? Because a community, the country came together and said, let's put everything else aside other than the sheer laws of physics. Mm. Can you build a terminal in 200 days? , can you set all the cement out? Will it cure? I mean, every decision of, of tens of thousands of decisions, and they built it.
Yeah. That is fixer energy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It seems more important now than ever for us to understand those different types of leadership styles because, you know, the past three years since the pandemic started seems to have shaken up the world, you know, in a way that we, we were just kind of dormant, went way in the way that we were leading our lives and thinking about life and, and thinking about our future now it, it's shaken us to the core.
How has the idea of I'm going back to entering exact work now. How is the idea of entering executive changed for the past three years since the pandemic for you. Have you noticed a more interest or, or or less interest? Oh, clearly more. I mean just our own business. Mm-hmm. has this, this exists everywhere.
It is just now completely all around the world that this is its own career calling. Yeah. And that the awareness among many companies is, and, and this is good news for a lot of companies, you know, the largest companies in every country, they don't, they don't lack for money. They don't lack for manpower.
They're, they're, they've got tons of it. For the rest of us, you know, the, the next 95% of the world, mid-sized companies, small companies, they're always constrained, always. , they never have enough money. They never have enough people, manpower, talent to get done what they want to get done if they're ambitious.
Well, the good news is, is that because the world has become so project-based, all kinds of resources are on call around the world for all of us. So you look at one of the biggest use cases around fractional contract, interim, whatever you wanna call it, is the c f O role. It used to be chief Financial Officer.
Boy, you had to hit a threshold, your company 10, 20 million. You just, you couldn't swing it, you know, to have that level of talent, you might have wanted it, you might have sophisticated problems and challenges in finance and accounting. You couldn't swing it. Now, that's a global resource, which is, which is that there are many.
CFOs who are dedicated to fractional in their own work. So even a small company now that says we just need that kind of, that level of strategic leadership. But for three hours a month, five hours a month, a day, a week, you can have it. Yeah. It's not full-time. It, it's not, it's not going to break your budget.
Mm-hmm. . And that is a real change. Mm-hmm. from the way that work used to be organized. You know, there are models where this has been going on. You look to movie making, you know, I'm in the US Hollywood, right. And Hollywood for a hundred years has been a project-based model. You think of your favorite actor or actress and think of all the hundreds of people that working on making a great movie or a streaming show on Netflix or Amazon or whatever.
Mm-hmm. . It is the coming together of hundreds or thousands of people, producers. , actors, directors, cinematographers, key grip, you know, lighting, blah, blah, blah. They all come together, they make a production, and when it's done, they disband. Yeah. No one got fired. Nobody, nobody's career ended. They do what they are experts at and then move on to their next project.
And this is what, this is the way they want their careers, and this is the way the world expects it to be. And there's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. This is still, you know, it's not easy because, you know, anybody who's been around for a while knows that their parents or their grandparents lived in a world where the expectation was you were going to have lifetime employment if you went to a big corporation.
Mm-hmm. . And the world doesn't exist that way anymore. Yes. And, and got it. That doesn't mean the world has ended. No. Or that it's bad. It's a mind shift, isn't it? And I think it's a mind shift. We're, we're in the in-between generation, you and I and my clients and the listeners. Our kids believe differently from us.
They're not as, as they, they didn't buy into that old-fashioned way of thinking. I don't know what we did when we raised them , but they seem to be fine. I, I'll tell you, Renata, I need a better metaphor because the other day I was, I was reading about this, and it used to be that career was everyone had the image of the ladder.
Yes. And you climb up the ladder step by step and rung by rung, and I'm at the top, right? Yeah. And a young person was quoted in a story about career and said, I think it's more of a jungle gym. Yeah. I think you're kinda navigating around. And I thought, . It's a good, it's somewhat of a good picture, but I'll bet that metaphor for a lot of people is scary because they hear that word jungle.
Mm-hmm. and jungle sounds impenetrable. Yes. And, and it's going to be a long career of, of experiential and different waypoints on your job. And so, anybody has a better metaphor. I want to hear it because ladder is, is outdated. Yeah. It can still apply in the sense of being ambitious and upward thinking in your career, but there's nothing wrong with it being a delightful journey that.
It's an exploration. Well, listeners pay attention. If you have a better story to tell, just tell, tell us. Let us know. Message me, and I'll let Robert know. . Robert, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for making the time to do this with me. Thank you so much that it's been a pleasure.
My pleasure. That's it. That's us. Done. How'd we do? Ah, I think we did fine. I think it was fun. Oh, I'm, I've learned so much, and I'm, I think I'm going to use that with my coaching as well. You know the, I have to read your book now for sure. , which I haven't done yet, and well, that's okay. So I have a couple questions for you.
Sure, go ahead. Here, I'm going to show you why I'm asking you this. Hold on one second. We had a book launch party, and the book launch party, we did these mugs. Oh, okay. Rightly the right time. And then everybody at the party. Oh, picked out one of four mugs. So I'm gonna send you a builder mug. Oh, thank you.
I'm gonna send you a t-shirt and I just need to know the size of the T-shirt. Oh, I don't know. I think I'm a, I'm a a large, this is a large All right. Large. I have a big What's your address? It's PO Box 5 1 52 Mork. I can send it to you by, we don't, I, we on LinkedIn or do I have your email or something?
I don't, I don't, I think we're on LinkedIn. If you want to send it over a message on LinkedIn or email, that'd be great. Cause I need to spell LIC for you. . Okay. And that would be great. Thank you. That's very nice. Absolutely. and, and the description on the podcast will have the link to by the book, the link to your website, the link to your LinkedIn.
Is there anything else that you'd like me to include? Thank you that, that's terrific. I appreciate that. Okay. I mean, if you wanted to put a link to the assessment, fab's leadership assessment, it's, it said well, if you email me or message me, I'll put you, I'll, I'll send the link to the assessment.
All right. Perfect. Robert, thank you so much. If you're ever down in, in Melbourne let's catch up. Do you, in your so high on my list of travels. I have never been, I have never been. It's, you know, with the US it's just that that's a real, you gotta have a dedicated plan. Yeah. That's not a hop, skip and a jump away and no.
I've just never been, no. I would do like something somewhere in Texas and then. Sydney or Melbourne. That's, that's a, a good way you could fly from Miami. You can fly straight to Brisbane, which is north really. And then do the Great barrier reefs and, and all of that. Yeah. Great. Barrier Reefs is a great place to go.
Ah. And then come to Sydney of course. Cuz it's so beautiful there. I love Australia. It's pretty here. Pretty. Yeah. And it's, it's on the list. And I forgot to ask during the podcast, do you have executives as part of your list of entering people from Australia as well?
Or is it just us? You mentioned 50 countries. Oh no, it's 50 countries. It, it, there. There are some from Australia. Mm-hmm. , there have not been a lot. Yeah. Okay. And my guess is the way that Google Search works. Yeah. Geographically, we, we will get a lot of inbound inquiries from the US and Europe, some from Asia.
Mm-hmm. . My guess is, is that the way that, that their algorithm works with searches that an Australian organization is gonna get directed to someone in Australia, because we don't really see that. I mean, we send executives around the world, but effectively, I think Google is, is kind of deciding, okay, wait, you're a US based company.
You have a lot of execs here, so we'll show you us, we'll show you Western Europe. But it could also be the fact that Australian is quite provincial in its leadership and, and career, executive career decisions and, and they tend to go more for permanent roles. I have been interviewing people about entering work for a little while and, and there are recruiters here that work specifically on entering, but it's a very small part of the market still.
And Australians don't really understand it, not as well as they do in the u I think UK is very established in entering executive work and, and of course big cities in the US as well. . Yeah. Europe started it, it started in the Netherlands. So, so it's, it's very well established. Oh, okay. I didn't know it was the Netherlands.
Wow, okay. Oh yeah. They, they actually was interesting because it's not like American companies, it started in Netherlands because you have a few very large corporations and you had managers who were very worried if they got assigned a project that they thought was gonna derail their entire career.
Uhhuh. . And they started bringing in these temps in management roles because they figured those people had nothing to lose and if they screwed it up, yeah. Okay. They weren't on a career track anyway. Mm-hmm. . And, and that's how we heard that it started, this is going back 50 years. Right. It's so well established in Europe that it exists in government as well.
Mm-hmm. . And, and so I don't think the US is gonna develop the way Europe. Europe did though. . Okay. It's just a much larger market. It, it's the US is in some ways an infinite market because you have so many millions of, of companies, small companies mm-hmm. And, and so many that are even mid-sized. Yeah.
Yeah. It's just different from Europe. Europe's a more limited Yes, yes. Interesting. Well, I'll keep an eye on how things are progressing and let you know when the podcast is out. Thank you so much. And so you'll email or or message me on LinkedIn so I can get your address? I will, I will. I'll do that now.
Great. And then I'll have my breakfast . It's breakfast time. Excellent. I'm gonna go home. I dunno if you heard it's raining. And did you hear the thunder? Good . I was worried it was being picked up some, some of the times my, my desk was even shaking. I don't know if you noticed. Wow. It's the rain outside.
Yeah. Very tropical. Dunno what's going on, Melbourne. It's different from this. Oh. Usually it's dry town. It's like California. Okay. Well rain is not a bad thing though. That's good. No, no, no. It's suitable for my plants. Yes. Bye Robert. It's so lovely to meet you. Let's keep in touch. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.