Author Archives: Larry Janis

Why your startup needs a fractional leader

 

 

 

 

Story by Yakov Filippenko
Every founder wants top-tier talent. But when your company is young, two obstacles loom. The first one is that no one knows you. The second one is that, likely, you can’t afford a full-time senior hire. The irony is that this is when you most need experienced leadership, because without it, you risk mistakes that cost more than the salary you were aiming to save.

Why startups should consider senior leaders part time

Bringing in a seasoned executive on a fractional basis is often a better answer than stretching for a junior full-time hire. A senior leader working part time gives you sharper decision-making, clearer priorities, and fewer detours. You get the benefit of years of experience without locking yourself into a payroll commitment you can’t sustain. For the right scope of work, five hours a week from someone who has scaled before is worth more than 50 hours from someone learning on the job.

Especially lately, many senior professionals are open to this model. Some want flexibility for family or side projects. Others value variety and like to keep a portfolio of roles. And in a market still shaped by layoffs, part-time income streams feel safer than a single employer. Hence, this arrangement makes sense for both sides, as long as expectations are set early and respected.

How to hire part-time senior talent

The first step is clarity. A vague job description with slogans will not suffice to attract someone experienced. Spell out the outcomes you expect. Instead of “help us drive growth,” say “design and oversee a three-month plan to test five paid acquisition channels.” Define how decisions will be made, the reporting line, and what success looks like. This will help them feel the role as something achievable in the time you are offering.

Next, design the role to be respectful of their level. Senior operators will not commit to open-ended advisory calls or endless Slack pings. Set specific projects with clear deliverables and show them you have thought about how their time will be used and that you understand the value they bring. The more tangible you can make the assignment, the easier it is for them to picture success.

Finally, make it easy to say yes. Offer a paid pilot so both sides can test the fit. Be transparent about budget and timelines. Pay on time and share how their work will be applied. And, of course, acknowledge their contribution. These details signal professionalism, and when you are still unknown, this matters more than perks.

How to work with fractional leaders once you have them

Hiring is only the beginning. To get value from a fractional leader, you need to create an environment where they can contribute without friction. As Jim Collins once observed, “Great people need great things to do, or they will take their creative energies elsewhere.” Even part-time, seasoned professionals will disengage if the setup is chaotic or the work is poorly defined.

That means giving them access to the information they need, assigning a clear decision-maker they can work with, and sticking to a predictable cadence of check-ins. Chaos burns trust quickly, even if the hours are limited.

To avoid this, set super clear expectations on both sides. They should know how you prioritize, how experiments differ from commitments, and who owns which decisions. You should know how they prefer to communicate and how they measure success. When the rhythm is established, their time multiplies the impact of your whole team, and the fractional leader can quickly raise the standard of execution and help you move faster.

The bottom line

For an early-stage company, every hire carries risk. But trying to fill a senior role full time before you can afford it is often the bigger risk. A fractional leader can give you the judgment and experience you need to avoid expensive mistakes, while keeping your company nimble. Start clear, keep the scope focused, and follow through on your commitments. Do that, and you will find senior professionals willing to bet on you, long before the market knows your name.

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com

Want to Be a Better Leader? Master These 4 Rarely Talked-About Skills

 

 

 

by Marcel Schwantes
True leadership isn’t about what you achieve. It’s about who you become.

Two decades of coaching leaders and developing myself as a leader have taught me a key lesson: Leadership isn’t a destination. Just when you think you’ve reached the top of the mountain, look up—you’ll see another peak waiting.

The truth is, there’s no secret sauce for leading yourself or others. Leadership is an ever-evolving process of learning and growing. The best leaders never stop evolving.

Here are four lessons every great leader eventually learns.

1. Humility Is a Strength

Humility is often mistaken for weakness. In one survey, more than half of 5th and 6th graders described humility as “embarrassed, sad, or shy.” Adults often confuse it with humiliation.

But groundbreaking research tells a different story. Bradley Owens and David Hekman found that humble leaders don’t assume success is guaranteed. They test their progress, revise plans, and seek feedback. They empower others to take initiative and celebrate team wins over personal credit.

Far from soft, humility gives leaders flexibility and strength. They avoid reacting from ego or abusing power, and instead lead from integrity, self-control, and emotional intelligence.

2. Great Leaders Learn From Others

Strong leaders know they don’t know it all. They constantly seek wisdom from others and expand their perspective beyond their own experience.

Remember the saying: If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.

The best leaders deliberately put themselves in spaces where they can learn, grow, and connect with people further down the path. They remain lifelong students.

3. Patience Gives You an Edge

Patience doesn’t always get attention and it won’t make any headlines, but it’s one of leadership’s most underrated strengths. (I cover patience extensively in my new book.)

Research shows that patient people make more progress toward tough goals, feel more satisfied when they achieve them, and experience less stress and depression.

Impatient leaders tend to jump to conclusions and act impulsively. Patient leaders, by contrast, are steady and rational. In conflict, they listen first, respond calmly, and diffuse tension. That kind of presence builds trust and resilience in teams.

4. Self-Awareness Is Non-Negotiable

In a study reported by Harvard Business Review, teams with less-self-aware team members made worse decisions, coordinated poorly, and struggled with conflict compared with teams led by self-aware individuals.

Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence. Leaders who cultivate it see the bigger picture, regulate emotions, and empathize with others. As emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman put it:

If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

In closing, remember: Leadership is about committing to the climb. And here’s the real test: You don’t prove your leadership on the easy days when everything goes smoothly. You prove it in the moments when your patience is tested, your humility is questioned, and your self-awareness is the difference between escalating a conflict or inspiring a breakthrough.

Keep climbing. Keep growing. The best leaders aren’t defined by the peak they’ve reached, but by their willingness to take the next step.

This post originally appeared at inc.com.

What to do when your managers lose motivation

 

 

 

 

 

by Jenny Fernandez

 

When Stephen, the SVP of sales at a SaaS company, sat down with his top-performing manager, he expected a routine check-in. Instead, Todd admitted that he felt disengaged and unsupported. With 13 direct reports and responsibility for major clients, Stephen saw firsthand how disengagement at the manager level could cascade into risks for client retention, team morale, and overall performance.

This isn’t an isolated case. Motivation is slipping at a historic pace. Gallup reports global engagement dropped to 21% in 2024, just the second decline in over a decade, draining $438 billion in lost productivity. This time, managers themselves are at the center of the decline. They drive 70% of team engagement, yet they are being squeezed harder than ever—expected to deliver more with less while navigating AI training, role replacement, reorganizations, leaner teams, multigenerational friction, and relentless productivity pressure. The result is burnout, resignations, or “hanging-on” managers, those who can’t quit in a tough job market but are already mentally checked out.

At the same time, expectations are rising. Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends found that 36% of managers lack confidence in their people management skills, even as employees increasingly expect personalized support tailored to their needs. Others experience “quiet cracking,” where they stay in a role but emotionally withdraw, leading to a disengagement that spreads quickly across organizations. Traditional motivational levers are no longer enough.

We have seen it firsthand. Kathryn, as an executive coach and keynote speaker, and Jenny, as an executive adviser and learning & development expert, bring frontline insights from coaching senior leaders and building systems that scale. The five strategies that follow demonstrate how leaders can reignite manager motivation, enabling companies to stay focused and compete at the pace of change.

1. Create the Conditions for Winning—Starting with Managers

Motivation collapses when people feel set up to fail. Managers are often overloaded with unclear priorities, competing demands, and insufficient resources. To reignite engagement, leaders must remove barriers and clarify what “winning” looks like.

  1. Invest in manager training and development.
  2. Equip managers with coaching skills.
  3. Redefine managerial roles with clear expectations and adequate support.

When leaders invest in these conditions, they address managers’ most immediate concerns. The implicit message is that managers are valued enough to be adequately equipped for impact, not just held accountable for outcomes. (more…)

Why being a leader requires more skills than ever

 

 

 

 

by Tony Martignetti

 

 

There was a time when leaders followed a linear path. Pick a lane, specialize, climb the ladder, and stay the course for decades. But that norm is unraveling. Global complexity demands leaders who are adaptive, integrative, and, above all, multifaceted. These individuals don’t fit neatly into one category; they may be artists and scientists, coaches and corporate strategists, or data analysts and storytellers. And far from being a liability, these dualities are now an asset.

To be successful in today’s world, leaders need to connect across ideas, industries, and cultures. To be able to do that skillfully, you must play in more than one arena. It’s no longer just about what you do during your nine-to-five. It’s the sum of your experiences and the unique value you bring to the world.

This requires you to embrace your full complexity, not just for personal growth, but also as a competitive edge. The future of leadership belongs to those who can hold nuance, navigate change, and bring their whole selves to the table.

Less specializing, more integrating

The old story was: Pick a lane and stay in it. Specialization was in favor. But now, as AI handles narrow expertise, what’s left for us? The answer lies in focusing on integration and expression. The leaders who thrive now are those who connect dots across disciplines, sectors, and identities. They see what others miss because they live in more than one world.

Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi didn’t follow a linear path. She studied physics, chemistry, and math. She also played in a band and excelled at cricket. Then she eventually went on to pursue design thinking and innovation at Yale. Her leadership wasn’t just data-driven; it was holistic. She could speak to Wall Street and public health advocates with equal ease. And under her leadership, PepsiCo’s revenue nearly doubled, rising from $35 billion to over $63 billion.

The best leaders integrate diverse skills and experiences to drive innovation and connect more authentically with their teams. This integration not only broadens perspective but also deepens trust, fosters creativity, and empowers teams to operate with greater empathy and cohesion.

Navigating change with agility

Today’s leaders are not only leading through change; they are the change. They embody fluidity, resilience, and the ability to evolve across multiple life chapters. In his book Range, journalist David Epstein writes: “Approach your own personal voyage and projects like Michelangelo approached a block of marble, willing to learn and adjust as you go, and even to abandon a previous goal and change directions entirely should the need arise.”

After a few years of working in finance, Shuo Zhai followed his passion for architecture and pursued his master’s degree at Yale. He worked with Frank Gehry at Gehry Partners—and in parallel, he sings with the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Master Chorale, and works as a world-class chamber music pianist. He believes that his multidisciplinary approach enables better problem-solving, and deeper empathy and understanding, ultimately leading to more effective architecture and music. The ability to pivot and grow isn’t built in one role: It’s built across roles. Leaders who draw from multiple domains are more resilient and curious during transitions.

In his own journey, Tony Martignetti transitioned from a finance and strategy executive in the life sciences industry to a leadership development facilitator and experience designer. Along the way, he reconnected with his identity as an artist—bringing creativity, storytelling, and visual thinking into his work with leaders. That blend of analytical precision and artistic intuition has allowed him to help others navigate ambiguity, reimagine their narratives, and unlock new dimensions of their leadership. Where have you built resilience in one part of your life that could serve you in another?

Why multifaceted leadership matters

Jessica Wan, spent nearly two decades as a marketing and strategy executive at organizations such as Apple, San Francisco Opera, Smule, and Magoosh. Eventually, she transitioned into a leadership coach and venture partner. But she’s continually applied learnings from her lifelong artistic identity as a musician and singer to leadership challenges. This rare blend of analytical acumen and creative sensibility enables her to help leaders navigate change and transform chaos into clarity.

Jessica launched her podcast to spotlight individuals who embody this multidimensional path: a neuroscientist and an Indian classical dancer, an entomologist and a journalist, and a business professor and a Broadway investor. Their message? You don’t have to shrink to fit in. When a young person says, “I want to be an astronaut and a ballerina,” we want to be able to say: “Yes, you can.”

How to embrace being a multifaceted leader

Leaders aren’t just executives. They are also musicians, poets, caregivers, podcast hosts, and community volunteers. And denying those dimensions leads to fragmentation and fatigue. Instead of hiding those parts, successful leaders integrate them—and invite them into the room.

We need to recognize the value of integrating these roles into our leadership approach. But before we can do so, we must first explore them. Here’s a quick exercise to get you started:

  • What is a role outside your professional life that matters deeply to you?
  • What leadership traits have you developed from that role?
  • How could you apply those traits to a current work challenge?

This isn’t just about driving career success; it is about living a more fulfilling life. It’s about giving yourself and others permission to fully live into your potential.

We believe this is the future of leadership: bold, complex, curious, and fully alive. For us, bringing our artistic backgrounds into the leadership space has profoundly shaped our work in the business world. The arts invite presence, reflection, and imagination—three qualities that help leaders break free from rigid thinking and connect with the deeper purpose behind their work.

Our invitation: Audit the dimensions of your identity, find the intersections, and show up fully—not just for your team, but for yourself. You don’t have to choose between your roles. The world needs all of you.

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com

Leaders With Emotional Intelligence Use These Short Phrases to Become Exceptional at Work

 

 

 

 

 

Story by Marcel Schwantes

 

What if you had the inside track into saying the right things at the right moment?

What if the way you handle emotions—yours and others’—is the difference between leading well and missing the mark? Well, that’s where emotional intelligence comes in.

But what if you had insight into saying the right things at the right moment to build stronger connections in the process? Would that be a game changer for you?

Emotional intelligence shows up in the way we talk to people, especially when things get tense, uncertain, or emotional.

Choosing your words with the skills of EQ

It’s not about being perfect or having all the answers. It’s about being aware of what you’re feeling, paying attention to how others are doing, and choosing words that connect instead of shut things down.

Hard to do for some, I know, but if you’re leading a team, the way you communicate can either build trust or quietly erode it.

Here are five core emotional intelligence skills—each with practical ways to show them through simple, everyday phrases you can start practicing today.

1. What to say to display empathy

Empathy means showing people you see what they’re going through. You don’t have to solve their problem or offer advice. Just saying something like “That sounds really tough. Want to talk about it?” or “I get why this would be frustrating” tells someone they’re not alone. These small moments help people feel understood—and that matters more than we often realize.

2. What to say to show self-awareness

This crucial EQ skill is about noticing your own reactions and being honest about what’s behind them. If you’ve snapped at someone or feel off, it can sound like “I’ve been a bit distracted today—there’s a lot on my plate.” Or “That topic gets under my skin, and I’m working on that.” Here’s the thing: owning your emotions doesn’t make you weak; it makes you real. And real earns respect.

3. What to say to show emotional regulation

The skill of emotional regulation is staying steady when emotions run high. It’s not about shutting down feelings; it’s about not letting them run the show. You might say, “I want to respond thoughtfully, so I’m going to take a minute,” or “Let’s revisit this tomorrow when we’ve both had time to think.” That pause gives space for better conversations and fewer regrets.

4. What to say to display relationship management

This is using emotional awareness to navigate conversations in a way that keeps people connected, even when you disagree. It sounds like “I want us to be on the same page—can we talk this through?” or “I appreciate your perspective. Let’s figure out how to move forward together.” It’s about making it clear that the relationship matters as much as the issue at hand.

5. What to say to show active listening

Yes, this is definitely a skill of emotional intelligence. It’s more than nodding while you wait your turn to talk. When someone’s sharing something important, phrases like “So what I’m hearing is…” or “Tell me more about what’s behind that” show you’re actually engaged. People can tell when you’re really listening, and it builds trust faster than anything else.

This post originally appeared at inc.com.