A new generation of top execs has come into power over the last few years that don’t look much like their predecessors, at least in terms of skills. They aren’t necessarily the most technically brilliant at preparing a forecast, nor are they Zen masters of the supply chain.
Sure, those capabilities helped them rise up in the organization, but it’s not what got them to the C-suite, according to an article in the March issue of Harvard Business Review. What skills need to be in your toolbox to make it to the very top?
Soft ones.
“Technical skills are merely a starting point, the bare minimum,” write authors Boris Groysberg, L. Kevin Kelly, and Bryan MacDonald in The New Path to the C-Suite. “To thrive as a C-level executive, an individual needs to be a good communicator, a collaborator, and a strategic thinker — and we think the trend toward a general business orientation over a functional orientation will continue.”
Relying on interviews and examination of hundreds of executive profiles developed by the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, the authors lay out the new job requirements for seven positions: CIO, chief marketing and sales officer, CFO, general counsel, chief supply-chain-management officer, chief human resource officer, and CEO.
For example, here are the new requirements to take the chief information officer position in your firm.
- Ability to view the business holistically, across functional, unit, and regional boundaries
- Process orientation and comfort with organizational design
- Information analytic knowledge; ability to help companies sort through and use information
- Expertise in investment allocation and using ROI to make decisions about future IT expenditures
Are these three skills in demand and recognized as critical to reach the top in your organization? What are other skills that you see as important?
These three skills appear to be high in demand in my organization - the thing I feel should also be in there is long-term vision of the organization's role in the societal infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteWith new technologies and rapid information-to-knowledge-to-market that has changed the face of business in the past 25 years, the perception around business professionals is shifting too.
With easier access, it seems there is more competition than ever, but that's good from a selection point of view. Business is not just about abstract mechanical and somewhat impersonal processes of demand/supply with a bunch of "suits" make decisions while quite removed from the societal needs of the average person.
Business to me at least, means bringing the best benefit from the integration of people and processes in the social matrix to meet the shifting tides of a new generation emerging.
When looking to my own leaders and mentors, I want to see that in their strategy - their long-term vision to keep a sustainable model for the future generations of the organizations' executives.
Is that too perhaps too naive?