Planks of cork flooring were piled at the edge of Xander’s garage. He punched the button on the door and closed us in. Savvy and Kate had gone thrifting for office decor. My sister-in-law’s new hobby, now that she had a big garage to work in and a home office that cut out commute time, was to repurpose items for home decorations and sell them at booths in the summer.

I stayed behind to help Xander put in the floor of her office. Savvy had liked the look of Xander’s office so much, she’d asked him to do her office the same. I eyed the color. Not quite the same. She’d gotten a deal on stock that had been returned to the supplier. A contractor had ordered the wrong shade of walnut and his customer had been pissed. Sections had been trimmed already, and it was up to me and Xander to complete the puzzle in Savvy’s office.

Just the challenge I needed to take my mind off the dismal talk in my office a few days ago.

Kate had sensed something was off, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her anything other than the meeting hadn’t gone well but that we were going to keep working on it. I’d also said I’d add my support to getting an assistant at the very least, and for implementing a round-robin of VP positions.

During my research, I’d intentionally duplicated Kendall’s attempts. I didn’t second-guess her. I wasn’t micromanaging her. But I’d stumbled across a topic I hadn’t given much thought to.

Leadership styles. The bios of several of the execs in the companies I’d looked through had referenced transitional leadership. Transactional leadership. What worked better in which environment.

At no time did any of the execs claim to micromanage, nor did they discuss the long hours they put in. I didn’t doubt that they did. What I doubted was that they were plugging away after everyone else had left because they were doing the tasks better suited for people under them.

Like I had been doing since Sebastian had been fired.