Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Senior Leaders Use the Pre-Transition Reputation Audit
Transcript
- Lucas: You've spent years building a reputation. But the moment you start hinting at a move — a quiet coffee with a recruiter, an updated LinkedIn headline — that reputation gets stress-tested in ways you didn't expect. Luna: And sometimes the test reveals cracks you never saw coming. Lucas: Exactly. Which is why a growing number of senior leaders are running what I'd call a pre-transition reputation audit — a structured, three-part check before they formally enter the market. And if this concept helps you think through your own next move, the way these episodes stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's what keeps the show independent. Luna: Yeah, genuinely — if you've gotten value from the series, that's the simplest way to keep it going. No pressure, just a heads-up. Lucas: Anyway — let's get into the audit. The framework has three layers: internal perception, external reputation, and digital footprint. And each one can reveal a blind spot that derails an otherwise strong candidacy. Luna: So start with internal — that's the people you work with now, right? Lucas: Right. And this is the hardest layer to do honestly, because you're asking people who depend on you for their paycheck to give you unvarnished feedback. The trick is to frame it around your development, not your departure. You say something like, 'I'm working on my leadership effectiveness — could you share one thing I do that helps the team, and one thing that creates friction?' Luna: I love that framing. It's not about leaving — it's about getting better. And it lowers the stakes for the person giving feedback. Lucas: Exactly. One Fortune 500 CMO I know did this with twelve people — peers, direct reports, one board member. What she heard was that she was seen as brilliant but politically aloof. She'd skip after-meeting hallway conversations, she'd delegate relationship-building to her VP. That single insight reshaped her entire transition strategy. She spent six months deliberately building cross-functional alliances before she ever approached a recruiter for a board seat. Luna: And that's the kind of thing that would never show up on a resume or in a performance review. But it's absolutely the kind of thing a hiring committee picks up in backchannel references. Lucas: And that brings us to layer two: external reputation. This is what people who DON'T work with you think of you. Your professional brand in the broader industry. Luna: How do you even audit that without tipping your hand? Lucas: You don't do it yourself. You use a third party — a trusted recruiter, a former colleague who's moved to a different company, or a coach. You ask them to make five or six calls on your behalf, without naming you, and just listen to how people describe leaders with a profile like yours. What comes up is often a composite of your industry reputation. Luna: And sometimes the gap between internal and external is enormous. I once worked with a CFO who was beloved inside his company — people thought he was a strategic genius. But externally, the narrative was that he was a micromanager who couldn't delegate. That misalignment cost him two final-round offers. Lucas: That's a classic example. And it's why you do this before you're in the final round. Because once you're there, it's too late to reshape the perception. Luna: So layer three is the digital footprint — which I think a lot of senior leaders underestimate. Lucas: Massively. The digital footprint isn't just your LinkedIn profile. It's every conference panel you've spoken on, every podcast appearance, every quote in a trade publication, every comment you've left on a public post. A 2025 ExecuSearch survey found that 78% of hiring committees reject C-suite candidates due to cultural-fit concerns that emerged from backchannel references — and a big chunk of that backchannel now starts with a Google search. Luna: Seventy-eight percent. That's almost four out of five. So if you haven't Googled yourself recently, you're flying blind. Lucas: Right. And the audit here is straightforward: you run a private browser search on your name, your name plus your company, your name plus a few industry keywords. You look at the first three pages. What's the narrative? Is it consistent with how you want to be seen? If you're a chief marketing officer angling for a CEO role, but the top results are all about your agency's creative campaigns, that's a signal. Luna: It's telling you that your public narrative hasn't caught up to your ambition. Lucas: Exactly. And the fix isn't complicated — it just takes time. You start publishing or speaking on the topics you want to be known for, six to twelve months before you enter the market. You shift the center of gravity of your digital presence. Luna: So the audit isn't just diagnostic — it's prescriptive. It tells you where to invest your time before you start interviewing. Lucas: That's the whole point. You don't run the audit to feel bad about your blind spots. You run it so you can address them while you still have the luxury of time. Luna: What about the timing? When should a leader start this process? Lucas: I'd say at least six months before you plan to be active in the market. Ideally twelve. Because some fixes take time. If your internal reputation is that you're brilliant but aloof, you need multiple quarters of visible behavior change to reset that perception. You can't do it in a month. Luna: And if you're already being approached by recruiters? Should you still run the audit? Lucas: Absolutely. In fact, that's when it's most urgent. Because if a recruiter is calling, they've already done a light version of this audit on you. They've Googled you, they've asked a couple of people. You want to know what they found before you walk into the first conversation. Luna: So you're essentially pre-buttressing your reputation. Lucas: Exactly. And there's a specific technique for that: the pre-reference map. We've touched on it in a prior episode, but it's worth mentioning here because it connects directly. You identify the three or four people a recruiter is most likely to call about you, and you reach out to them FIRST — not to script them, but to make sure they have a current, accurate picture of your work. Luna: Because a reputation is a living thing. It's not set in stone. Lucas: Right. And the audit helps you take control of the narrative. One more thing — don't forget your own board of directors or advisory board. If you have one, ask them the same questions. 'What do you hear about me in the market?' Their answer might surprise you. Luna: So the pre-transition reputation audit has three layers: internal, external, digital. And you start it six to twelve months out. Lucas: And you treat it as a cyclical process, not a one-time event. Reputations shift. You want to take the temperature every quarter, especially if you're doing public speaking or publishing content. Luna: One last question — who are the twelve people you'd trust to tell you the truth? That's a tough list to build. Lucas: It is. And if you can't name twelve, start with five. But the quality of the audit depends on the honesty of the feedback. So you need people who will tell you the thing you don't want to hear, not just the thing that makes you comfortable. Luna: So the real question isn't just 'what is my reputation?' It's 'am I ready to hear it?' Lucas: That's the question. And if you're not ready, the market will tell you eventually — usually at the worst possible moment.