In this week’s episode, Anna Lundberg explores the concept of fractional leadership. If you’ve been yearning for more autonomy while still wanting to contribute at a high level without the pressure of a full-time role, this episode is for you. Discover how fractional work can offer stability, meaningful impact, and the benefits of being embedded in a team without compromising your independence.

Key moments:

[01:56] What is Fractional Work?

[02:53] Why Companies and Experts Benefit

[04:32] Determining if Fractional Roles are a Fit for You

[06:28] Potential Challenges and Hybrid Models

[11:42] Final Thoughts on Fractional Work

Resources mentioned:

• The Intentional Business Audit: onestepoutside.com/intentionalbusiness

• The Business Accelerator Programme: Learn more about supporting your transition with this tailored programme and join the waitlist OneStepOutside.com/accelerate.

• Connect with Anna Lundberg: Reach out for personalised support on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Fractional leadership model

So if you are in this space, the space of working for yourself in some form or another, if you’re on LinkedIn, if you work with anybody in business, if you haven’t been living under a rock, you may have heard the term fractional work. Some people love it, some people hate it, but it is a reality. And look, it’s not just a buzzword. I guess that’s the key message here. It is one of a number of different flexible models that we can choose as an independent expert, you know, sometimes as a bridge from going from full time corporate work to maybe doing another model, and sometimes as long term fit, like any model, it’s not going to be a one size fits all solution. And so it’s really important to come to it with your eyes wide open and clear criteria as to what’s going to work for you. But let’s unpack what it really is, what it means to be fractional, and how to know if it’s the right model for you. So first of all, what is it at its core? A lot of people say, oh, it’s just consulting, it’s just freelancing, contracting with a different label.

Maybe, maybe not. But at its core, it does mean holding a leadership role part time, right? You’re not just doing tasks, delivering a project, but you’re owning a function. So you’re the cmo, you’re the cpo, you’re the coo, cfo, and you’re the head of something on a part time basis. You’re embedded enough so that you do understand the team, the business and so on, but you don’t have the expectations or constraints of being a full time employee that Means of course for the company, often a startup, a smaller organisation that perhaps can’t afford yet and doesn’t need yet full time cmo, CPO etc gets the benefit of your expertise and you also get the benefit of having more flexibility. It’s not the same as freelancing, delivering tasks or short term projects. It’s not consulting, providing strategy, but staying external. It’s also not interim or it could be interim, just as any role could be interim. It’s not just a full time temporary fill in.

You know, what it is is really ongoing strategic embedded leadership, usually maybe one to three days per week per client and it’s really relationship driven, not TAs. So I guess wondering why it’s on the rise. As I said, certainly for companies, they’re getting senior talent without committing to yet another headcount and they really also benefit from the external perspective alongside inside knowledge. So it’s a really great combo for them. They’re getting someone who’s also seeing other companies and organisations and bringing that external perspective in as well as somebody in the same person who is embedded inside the organisation. For the experts, it can offer purpose if you’ve chosen obviously a company that you align with partnership and pay lots of P’s without the full time pressure, without that P. So it really allows you to go deep with a few select clients instead of constantly chasing new ones. Right.

It gives you more stability to some extent, more security and that sense that a lot of us might miss of being part of a team, really being embedded and seeing something through, not just popping in and out and you know, not getting that fulfilment of feeling like you’re really embedded and doing something substantial and long term. Okay, so that’s what it is. Pretty simple. When might it be a good fit for you? Well, you can definitely thrive in a fractional role if you’re one of those people who likes being in the room, right. You want to help shape the decisions, not just deliver them. Also that, as I mentioned, you like the continuity, right? Working with a team over months, not weeks. We’ll talk about when it’s not the right fit in a moment. Lot of the clients I work with are, you know, lovers of variety, multi passionate, multi potentialite.

So they might not so much enjoy that continuity. So. So it’s really understanding and having that self awareness of what you do want. So that continuity is a plus or can be if that’s what you want. Also, if you’re craving more of a grounded, stable rhythm, I suppose that can really anchor you versus the Freedom that of course we dream of when we’re starting a business. But it can also be a two edged sword because you’ve got the one side of freedom, which is our creativity and autonomy. The other side is that we might feel sometimes like we’re flying too freely because we don’t have that team. Every week is different.

We’re constantly looking for more clients and we don’t know where we’ll be next month and so on one day I can have 10 projects on the go, the next. And in fact half term back in February I had like three projects go. Oh, actually no. Which you know, is a fun. Yeah. Effect on your bank account potentially, if you haven’t really planned for that, but you’re missing that or at least you’re evening that out. If you have the grounded, you know, income as well as the rhythm of working in a fractional role. And again, you want meaningful impact in a bigger sense with a bigger organisation, but you don’t want another 40 hour week in particular.

Perhaps if you’ve been struggling and you’ve hit a point in your business where, you know, consulting project work just, it feels really fragmented and you’re constantly chasing those clients and the roller coaster is getting you down more than it is up, then this could offer a more stable, more satisfying alternative. But this is not always the right fit. And that’s the case for all of these models. Right. It’s so important and this is one of my core sort of flags I want to fly, that you really get clear on what you want and whether or not this is the right fit for you. So let’s talk about some of the pitfalls and misconceptions. Time leakage. That sounds nice.

So it’s easy for, let’s say two days a week to spill into three or four. You know, are you going to turn off your email outside of those couple of days? What’s the agreement? Whether the client expects and demands it or you just feel, you know, compelled and you want to be in the room where it happens. As Hamilton would say, I won’t sing it for you and you want to be involved. I spent some time with a friend a few weeks ago and she said you just can’t leave the work because what if she’s not there for a really important meeting? So if that’s you, if you can recognise yourself in that description, you can become more of pseudo employee. Right. And without clear boundaries, the two days equally will very easily become full, weak, potentially affecting your other work. Another challenge of course is context switching and which is a benefit, you know, if we, if we like that, if we enjoy the variety. But if you’re juggling multiple clients, it can get a bit messy.

You’re trying to hold a pretty high level of strategic headspace across possibly different industries, certainly different leadership teams. So you really need to be quite organised and be able to compartmentalise also bringing insights from different areas, but really knowing, okay, this is what the challenge is here. This is, you know, this is the stage I’m in here, I suppose. So a benefit could be, or rather a smart strategy could be that you’re choosing organisations that are at a similar state, similar stage, so that the switching isn’t too dramatic. If you go from, you know, this totally different industry over here to that one over there, limited scalability is another one. So effectively you really are selling time here, right? You’ve got, which is a lovely thing, the benefit of having this stable income potentially, but it’s linked to the days per week, right? So that model doesn’t really scale unless you build an agency and have lots of fractional people under you. But for many of you that defeats the point. And that’s now no longer a solopreneur expert business and also possibly cultural misalignment.

And that can of course be avoided through filtering and learning from mistakes as well, and finding the right clients for you that are aligned with your values and how you like to work and so on. But if the company doesn’t understand this fractional term and just sees you as kind of a glorified freelancer or a cheap discounted executive, then it’s not going to be a very fulfilling relationship for you. So that’s really important that you’re super clear. They’re not just jumping on the bandwagon of, okay, perfect, we all have this fractional freelancer person. They, you both really understand what the relationship looks like. Possibly, as ever, the best model is a kind of hybrid model, right? You get the best of both worlds. So some of my clients I’m working with at the moment are landing on this kind of blend approach and it might resonate, especially again if you’re multi passionate, you want that variety and control. So for example, you might do two days a week embedded as a fractional CEO or a head of people, and then the rest of the week you’re dedicated to independent work like consulting, mentoring courses, writing, or simply spacious time for creative thinking working on other projects.

So that model really offers financial stability from the kind of retained work, but also leave space for freedom creation and other Client types. It gives you the satisfaction of leading and having that kind of the elements, I guess, of corporate potentially that you do still enjoy without giving up your independence. And it’s not perhaps always marketed this way, but it is worth knowing that you can design your own mix. Right? This is the beauty of stepping outside the 9 to 5. You don’t have to choose that, just one box. So really leaving you with a final thought on this one. Fractional work, you know, I don’t think it’s just a fad. I think certainly it’s here to stay.

There are reasons why it’s a really attractive model both for the employer, for the company and for you as the expert. No better or worse than consulting, freelancing, coaching, building your own ip, etc, it’s just another path. It requires a certain set of skills. It, you know, it materialises, I was going to say it looks like a certain thing. As I said, strategic leadership support, being more embedded and so on. More stability, more security perhaps, but also being tied, less flexibility, etc. So there’s always those two sides of the coin. It’s more nuanced than some people would have us believe.

So it’s a model that suits some people beautifully, others not at all. And again, that hybrid model could be really interesting, especially as you’re transitioning out of the corporate world. So you really have a couple of days of retainer work, fractional work, and in the meantime you kind of build what perhaps is more exciting that you’re more passionate about. So what matters most, I guess, is this. The question to ask yourself is does it give you the impact, the income, the lifestyle that you want, on the terms that you’ve defined for yourself? If it does, amazing, go forth and be fractional and if it doesn’t, then design something that does. Okay, so it’s a short episode today, but packed full of information, so you might want to listen to this again if it is something you’re considering. Fractional work, really attractive for some people and could be really interesting in terms of having that, that hybrid model, as I said, having a bit more stability and also the freedom. And it also feels like it is a.

I’m putting a value judgement here, but it feels like it’s a higher level, you know, for those of us who are more senior in our professional careers, coming in as that C suite leader is really attractive rather than, as I said, sometimes unfortunately being relegated to being kind of a glorified freelancer. A lot of, again, my clients say, I don’t want to just be there to like post the social content, right? You want to be there defining the strategy and this kind of fractional role really allows you to do that. So I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is this something you’re doing? Is it something you’re thinking about doing? Are you stuck on whether it’s the right thing for you? Let me know. You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram and you can email me at podcastnestepasci.com thanks so much for listening and I’ll see you next week. Bye for now.

All right, so if any of this resonates and you’re ready to build a business that truly works for you, without the overwhelm, without the hustle, all that constant second guessing, then I’d love for you to join us in the business accelerator. I’m bringing together a small group of like minded experts, coaches, consultants, solopreneurs who want that personalised support, clear action step and above all, real accountability. If you want to get in early, then head on over to onestepoutside.com/accelerate to register your interest or join the waitlist. Let’s create the business and the life that you have always wanted. Can’t wait to see you inside.

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