Last month, Mike Haberman published a great post titled, “What It Takes To Break Into the Executive Suite.” Here’s the lead.
“An article recently published by SHRM, written by Rebecca Hastings, entitled What It Takes to Break the ‘Glass Ceiling’ offers the findings of a study on what it takes for women in business to break in to upper management. It is a very interesting article and I highly recommend reading it. However, I think the points that Ms. Hastings makes for women actually work well for anyone in lower levels of Human Resources, or for that matter any job, to break into the management ranks. So I will take that approach to her points and talk about the four points on what it takes to break into the executive suite.”
I want to take this one step farther. I want to review Mike’s recommendations and ways you can help the people who work for you break into the executive suite. He makes four, specific, recommendations, based on Rebecca Hastings’ post.
“You must be intentional about building and communicating your value”
Help people identify their strengths. Help them analyze their successes in terms of value added. Help them learn from things that didn’t turn out well.
“You should identify and enlist sponsors and mentors.”
Help them identify and connect with possible sponsors and mentors. Don’t stop there, though. Help them identify role models who can demonstrate the kind of leader they can become.
“You should seek assignments and promotion to positions with profit-and-loss responsibilities.”
Ambitious people, especially less experienced ones, can push for more responsibility than they’re prepared for. Sometimes that leads to a career-derailing failure. Help your people identify the skills they’ll need for the positions they crave and then help them develop those skills. Help those who experience failure in an assignment they thought they were ready for analyze what happened and get things back on track.
“You should invest in personal and career growth initiatives.”
Many people wait for learning and development opportunities to come to them. Help them identify training and assignments that are both inside and outside your organization.
I’m convinced that talent development will be the secret weapon of successful companies in the Age of the Knowledge Worker. Determine what people want and need and help them achieve it. That will go a long way toward making you an employer of choice.
Wally thanks for the thoughtful review and expansion.