Fractional leadership has become much more common over the last few years. You can bring experienced leadership into the organization without immediately adding another full-time executive position.
Fractional leadership has become much more common over the last few years.
You will see fractional CMOs, CTOs, COOs, CFOs and other executive roles across almost every industry now. For growing businesses, the appeal is fairly straightforward. You can bring experienced leadership into the organization without immediately adding another full-time executive position.
But "fractional" has also become a broad term.
Sometimes a business needs someone to actively lead a function. Sometimes it needs an experienced advisor who can help leadership make better decisions. Sometimes the real need is a specialist who can solve a particular problem.
Those are not necessarily the same job.
Understanding what you actually need is more important than deciding which title to hire.
At its simplest, fractional leadership means bringing an experienced leader into a business on a part-time basis.
Unlike a traditional consultant who may be brought in to assess a particular problem or complete a defined project, a fractional leader usually has an ongoing role within the organization.
The exact structure can vary considerably.
They might participate in leadership meetings, develop strategy, oversee a function, advise the CEO or executive team, manage outside partners, help build internal capabilities, or lead a specific period of change.
The important part is not how many hours they work.
It is the level at which they are contributing.
If the organization needs someone to help make decisions that affect the direction of the business, that is very different from hiring someone primarily to execute a list of tasks.
There is no specific company size or revenue number where a business suddenly becomes ready for fractional leadership.
Usually, the need shows up as a gap between the decisions the business needs to make and the leadership capacity currently available to make them.
Maybe the company has grown beyond the systems and strategies that worked when it was smaller.
The founder may still be personally responsible for an area of the business they no longer have enough time to lead.
There may be several employees, agencies or vendors doing good work individually, but nobody senior enough to make sure their efforts are moving in the same direction.
Or leadership may know that something needs to change but need experienced outside perspective before committing significant money or resources to it.
In those situations, the problem is not necessarily a lack of people.
It may be a lack of senior capacity.
This is an important distinction because not every business problem requires another executive.
If you already know exactly what needs to be done and simply need someone to do it, you may need a specialist.
If you need additional execution capacity, you may need another employee, agency or contractor.
If you are trying to answer a specific strategic question, a consulting engagement may make more sense.
And if your existing leadership team primarily needs another experienced perspective around the table, an advisory relationship may be enough.
Fractional leadership makes the most sense when there is an ongoing leadership responsibility that needs to be filled, but the organization does not need, or is not ready for, another full-time executive.
That distinction can save a business a considerable amount of time and money.
The right background depends on the role, but experience alone is not enough.
A good fractional leader needs to be able to enter an existing organization, understand the business relatively quickly and work effectively with the people who are already there.
That requires judgment.
Can they distinguish between a symptom and the actual business problem?
Can they explain why they are recommending something?
Can they work with technical specialists, leadership teams and outside partners without needing to be the expert in every room?
Can they challenge an assumption without creating unnecessary friction?
Can they recognize when the business does not need their involvement anymore?
Those capabilities can be harder to evaluate than a list of technical skills, but they are a significant part of what you are hiring at this level.
One of the most useful things a company can do before hiring a fractional leader is define what that person is actually being brought in to accomplish.
"We need a fractional CMO" is a starting point, not a mandate.
Why do you think you need one?
Are you trying to build a marketing function?
Evaluate why growth has stalled?
Manage several agencies?
Prepare for a new market?
Develop the internal team?
Give the CEO an experienced strategic counterpart?
Those could all fall somewhere under fractional marketing leadership, but they require very different engagements.
The clearer you can be about the problem, the easier it becomes to determine what kind of experience you need and how you will know whether the engagement is working.
There is also value in considering whether you need fractional leadership at all.
A fractional executive typically takes ongoing responsibility for part of the business.
An interim leader may step into a more defined leadership role for a limited period, perhaps during a transition or while the company searches for a permanent hire.
An advisor may work alongside existing leadership without taking over day-to-day ownership.
A consultant may be brought in to solve a specific problem, conduct analysis or develop a recommendation.
There can be overlap between all four.
The right structure depends on how much ownership you need someone to take, how long you need them involved and what capabilities already exist inside the organization.
At Bishop & Royal, we work across business strategy, technical business strategy, growth, analytics and advisory.
That means we do not believe every leadership problem needs to become a fractional executive engagement.
Sometimes an organization needs ongoing strategic leadership. Sometimes it needs an experienced advisor for the existing leadership team. Sometimes it needs help diagnosing the problem before deciding what to do next.
The structure should follow the need.
For growing organizations, that flexibility can be valuable. You can bring experienced thinking into the business at the level where it is useful without building a permanent role before you actually need one.
If your organization is reaching a point where the decisions are becoming more complex than the leadership capacity available to make them, it may be worth looking at what kind of support would close that gap.
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