Breadth of knowledge and long-term performance
It’s the breadth of what you know that counts, not the path you took. You used to be able to count the rungs of the corporate ladder to the top, and you could see what you had to do to get to each one.Nowadays, it doesn’t matter your discipline.Rather, it is how you distinguish yourself through your performance.
If you’re the CFO of a company, forinstance, you have to demonstrate you are more than the manager of finance you have to demonstrate you can lead people, understand the basic busuness, handle marketing and customer relations. Without those skills you can’t be CEO.Not all CFOs can or want to do that. You can be the most distinguished CFO in an industry, but that dosen’t qualify you or give you a shot at being CEO of a business.
CONTINUAL LEARNING
Continue developing your own skills. A leader’s most important skill todayis technology, technology, technology. If you’re not computer literate, if you’re not able to figure out how to manage information today effectively, you’re probably not going to be a good leader. It’s another major difference between now and the past. Instant communications today expedite decision making and analysis, and at the same time open the door for a huge increase in communications.
PEOPLE SKILLS
You have to focus on people because building a strong team of managers and employees is very critical. It relates to the shortage of workers. Employees today have multiple choices for opportunities; it wasn’t that way 10 years ago. So you have to focus on creating a dynamic work environment to keep employee retention up.
STUDYING WHAT LEADERS OF OTHER COMPANIES DO
You can’t pick this up on your own. In 1982, before I became president here, I went through the Harvard Executive Management program. That taught me one important thing: There is no one and only right answer. As we studied three to five case studies a day, I came to appreciate that there are always two or three possible approaches to any challenge or program. Figuring out the best one for your company at any particular time is the CEO’s job.
EARN TRUST
People’s values are different today. Loyalty to a company, for the most part, dosen’t exists as it did in the past. But that’s okay because today you can still find plenty of loyalty. It’s just different. today loyalty is attached to a project or an objective.
An important element of building trust is building ownership. I don’t mean stock ownership, through we have that, too.We want people to be accountable for what the company is doing and where it’s going. To do that, we have to make them part of our strategic planning team. Having a piece of the plan helps assure they will buy into it. Socommitment goes along with it. Instead of sitting on the bench watching the game, our people plan the plays, then help execute them. That’s pretty exciting. We carry that all the way down the organizations----for instance, to our business units.
……..to be continued next week
: Compiled by PMI Colombo Chapter in association with AMA studies.
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