The C suite is the highest level of management in a company. Typically, these executives oversee major functions and departments. They also have the final say on almost everything, from the budget to company strategy.
With so much power and influence, it’s no wonder that so many people aspire to be part of the C-suite someday. These jobs come with great responsibility, prestige, pay, and benefits.
But how do you get there? And what skills do you need to advance your career toward this leadership role?
Kee preading for information on what it takes to succeed in the C-suite and tips for developing an effective plan for your career growth, also read a survey report findings where social skills are utmost important for CEO.
Develop a plan to reach your C-suite goals
When you are on the path to leadership, it’s important to set specific goals. By identifying the skills you want to acquire and the level of your career you want to achieve, you can create a plan to help you get there.
Do some research and find out what skills are necessary for executives in your specific field. Once you have an idea of what you need to do to advance your career, you can create a plan to achieve those goals.
For example, if you want to become the director of marketing at your company, you will need to develop specific skills that will allow you to be successful in that role.
Your marketing plan might include taking a few marketing courses, reading marketing books, or even getting a certification in marketing. Once you’ve identified the skills you need to advance your career, you can create a plan to help you develop those skills.
Be an effective communicator
In order to lead effectively, you will have to communicate a lot with your employees and colleagues. Depending on your position, you might have to communicate company strategy, expectations, or results with your team.
A leader’s communication style can either create a culture of success or a culture of failure. When communicating with your employees, it’s important to be as clear and concise as possible.
Since you will be communicating often with your employees, you should take time to practice and improve your communication skills. You may want to take a communication skills training course, read communication books, or attend communication seminars.
By improving your communication skills, you will be able to effectively communicate your ideas and strategies to your team. This will help you to lead your team toward success.
Be a strategic thinker
As an executive, you will be expected to make strategic decisions on a regular basis. Developing the ability to make strategic decisions will allow you to lead your company toward success. It will also help you to avoid falling into “paralysis by analysis.”
This is a common problem among middle managers who constantly overanalyze issues and never make a decision. By developing your ability to make strategic decisions, you will be able to make choices that are in the best interest of your company.
It’s important to develop a process for making strategic decisions. This will help you to work through your emotions and avoid getting paralyzed by analysis. There are many different techniques you can use to make strategic decisions, such as the OODA Loop, decision trees, and the 8-D Framework.
Be a great problem solver
One of the most important skills for a leader is the ability to solve problems. As the leader, you will be expected to solve any problems that are holding your company back from success.
If you have ever worked in a large organization, then you have likely seen the effects of bad problem solving. You may have seen middle managers who are unable to solve problems, or senior managers who make critical mistakes due to poor problem solving skills.
As the leader, you will be expected to solve the biggest problems in your company. This includes solving any issues that are creating problems for your employees.
By developing your problem solving skills, you will be able to solve any problems that arise in your company. This will help you to advance your career and make your company successful.
Be an expert in your field
You can’t expect to advance to the C-suite if you don’t have the skills to be successful in your field. If you want to become the CEO of your company, you need to be an expert in the industry and your field.
This might seem like an impossible goal, but it’s actually a very realistic one. As a mid-level manager, you likely have access to training and development opportunities that will allow you to become an expert in your field.
If you want to become an expert in your field, you will need to dedicate time and energy to your career. This includes attending conferences, taking extra classes, and reading books and articles about your field.
Be a strong leader
If you want to become a CEO or other C-level executive, you will need to be a strong leader. While many people think that strong leadership and strong management are the same thing, they are actually very different.
A CEO is a strong leader, while a director is a manager. To develop your leadership skills, you will want to embrace the traits of a great leader. A leader takes responsibility for their impact.
A leader focuses on the future. A leader builds trust. A leader is positive and optimistic. A leader is willing to act in the best interest of the company. And while it’s impossible to know exactly what your CEO is thinking, you can focus on developing the traits necessary to be a strong leader.
By embracing the traits of a strong leader, you will be able to lead your team to success and advance your career toward the C-suite.
Be a data driven decision maker
As an executive, you will have to make a lot of decisions. These decisions could include company strategy, spending decisions, and hiring decisions. A decision maker who makes decisions based on emotions will often make poor decisions. In order to lead effectively, you need to make data-driven decisions.
By making decisions based on data, you will be able to make decisions that will positively impact your company. In fact, studies have shown that companies that are data driven are more profitable.
This doesn’t mean that you ignore your emotions when making decisions. Instead, it means that you base your decisions on data that is relevant to the decision you need to make.
Networking is key
If you want to advance through the corporate world, you will need to build relationships with people. In fact, some experts say that building relationships is more important than landing the job in the first place.
By networking, you can meet people in your field, and you can expand your professional network. Networking is an important part of your career advancement. It will help you to find mentors, career coaches, and potential mentors. It will also help you to find opportunities that might not be advertised publicly.
There are many ways to network, including attending networking events, participating in online networking groups, and reaching out to people you would like to meet.
Excel at Company Culture and Strategy
As a mid-level manager, you will have a good idea of how your company works and what makes it successful. You have likely seen how a successful company operates, and you have been involved in the strategy and day-to-day operations of your company.
By being involved in your company’s strategy and culture, you will be better prepared to move up to the C-suite. You can expand your knowledge of company culture and strategy by participating in meetings and reading company documents.
This will help you to fully understand your company’s values and goals. By being involved in the strategy and culture of your company, you will be prepared to take on a leadership role.
A Survey study:
Stephen Hansen(Imperial College and CEPR), Tejas Ramdas (Cornell), Raffaella Sadun (Harvard, CEPR and NBER), Joe Fuller (Harvard), used a large corpus of detailed and previously unexplored job descriptions for C-suite positions spanning a time period of 17 years to study which skills are demanded in managerial labor markets.
They assigned the following labels to each of the clusters based on the content of the descriptions that make them up, and provide an example description for each cluster.
Administrative Tasks: basic tasks involved in running an organization. “Preside over or serve on Boards of Directors, management committees, or other governing boards.”
Financial and Material Resources: managing the organization’s physical and financial resources, operations, and infrastructure. “Monitoring and controlling resources and overseeing thes pending of money.”
Human Resources: appointing employees and ensuring they’re main motivated. “Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, hiring, and promoting employees in an organization.”
Information Skills: processing information and engaging in analytic reasoning. “Identifying the underlying principles, reasons, or facts of information by breaking down information or data into separate parts.”
Monitoring of Performance: measuring and improving organizational performance. “Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.”
Social Skills: interacting with, listening to, persuading, and empathizing with others. “Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.”
Ref: The Demand for Executive Skills, Stephan Hansen et al.
The data show that the demand for executive skills comprises a range of operational, cognitive, and interpersonal skills.
The demand for specific skills, however, is highly heterogeneous across firms: far from adhering to similar boilerplate language, firms instead spend considerable effort in specifying the skills and capabilities they look for in potential candidates, even within the same country, industry, and year of search.
The data also show that the demand for executive skills has evolved over time. In particular, firms have become increasingly more likely to demand Social skills—i.e. the capability to interact, persuade and more generally relate to others—relative to more traditional operational and administrative capabilities (e.g., monitoring the allocation of financial resources).
To drive business in this digital world, Gartner found two type of skills for C-Suite: One Hard Skill – here primary are AI , data science, Cyber security, etc and another Soft Skill where Design thinking comes at the top place followed by strategic thinking and sales leaderships at the bottoms. Take a look below:
Conclusion
There are many skills that are required to advance your career to the C-suite. By developing these skills and networking with people at all levels of your organization, you can advance your career toward the highest levels of leadership.