Designing Government to Think Like a Team
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About the Leader
Robert Golob
Prime Minister of Slovenia
- Maximizer®
- Strategic®
- Achiever®
- Learner®
- Activator®
Robert Golob, Ph.D., prime minister of Slovenia, is a leading expert in power engineering. He earned his doctorate from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana and studied as a Fulbright Scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He began teaching at his alma mater in 1997 and has published widely on energy markets and power system planning. Golob led major research projects for Slovenia’s power industry and served as State Secretary for Energy, helping shape key legislation. In 2002, he founded Strela-G, later GEN-I, which became Slovenia’s first independent electricity and gas supplier. Under his leadership, GEN-I grew into a global player focused on green energy and sustainability. In 2022, Golob entered politics, becoming president of the renamed Freedom Movement. In that year’s elections, his party won a record 34.45% of the votes and 41 seats in the National Assembly, propelling him to national leadership.
"That's how we have fuel to get going."
Golob believes people need to have a mixture of goals. "We need to have a set of small goals and at least one of them is achieved every day. We need that because that's how we have fuel to get going. On the other hand, we are also very ambitious when it comes to long-term goals, so I'm always doing both." Without the long-term goals, Golob wouldn't have direction, and without the short-term goals, he would be unhappy on the longer journey and wouldn't be able to finish it, so he balances both.
"Every team needs an Activator, but it's very important to know when to activate."
For Activators like himself, Golob recommends learning patience and how to get the timing right. But he also says, "Once you know that the timing is right, just do it."
"Strategic is how you look to go around these obstacles that are inevitable in everyone's life."
Golob uses Strategic to find and evaluate multiple pathways to reach his goals. He stresses the importance of being willing to shift routes to avoid obstacles, instead of trying to go through them.
"You need to look ahead 10 years from now and be as optimistic as possible."
But even while looking well into the future, Golob plans concrete steps primarily for the short term. He finds that, using this approach, he achieves much more than he would have had he focused solely on the distant future.
"No matter how good you are, there's only one of you."
Unless you can unleash the potential of others, you cannot really achieve big things. Golob uses this as a personal leadership philosophy to maximize the development and results of his team. He understands that as a leader, he's only as good as his team is.