Want to be a CEO? 7 step-guide to prepare at the C-suite level

Different times call for different leadership skills. If one wants to be a C-suite executive, there are certain skills young aspirants need to hone in order to move up the ladder. 

The journey towards getting a senior executive role often starts long before their first managerial experience. With lots of people aiming for the top and only a few positions available, it's important to understand what professionals need to keep in mind during their transitional journey to reach a high-ranking executive title. 

For starters, take responsibility for your decisions, communicate well, don't be averse to taking risks, and create healthy work environment that encourages understanding, opportunity and enthusiasm. 

Here are some other skills one needs to master to climb up the ladder. 

Getting the team right
At the beginning of their C-level tenures, executives rely on the inputs shared by their direct reports when determining solutions to the strategic problems. Having the right people on the team is extremely crucial for the C-level executives. 

Strong leadership

At senior roles, it's vital to be able to lead others effectively. However, having leadership skills is not just about giving orders or having power and control. Leadership is about motivating teams to perform better, inspiring them to be more innovative, and driving them forward to meet and exceed business goals. 

The art of self-management 
During transitions, executives struggle with self-management. They often spend less time-management. They often spend less time preparing themselves for their new role and focusing on their personal growth/development. Executives with most successful transitions are usually the ones who spend more time preparing themselves for their roles. This helps them to perform better than others at their job. 

Goal-oriented

C-level leaders should set clear goals that will give directions to the business and the teams heading different departments. Part of being goal-orientated is also taking accountability that key performance indicators of line managers or team leaders are met. It is also important for them to step in if necessary they need help in hitting those set targets. 

Bold 
To see real breakthroughs, corporate leaders need to have the confidence to take bold decisions. 

Business expertise and flexibility
At the 'chief' level, professionals need to have a broader range of expertise. While it's important to oversee operations in different departments, senior leaders must also understand market share, customer trends and industry shifts. While working in a global economy, the aspiring leaders must understand the challenges associated with international negotiations and impact of economic trends. With businesses developing, industries changing and globalisation, top bosses should be able to adapt quickly to different situations. 

Creating a shared vision on business priorities
Business-related activities play a critical role in a transition's overall outcome. It is extremely important for professionals to create a shared vision and alignment in sync with their organisation's business goals.  

Source: Economic Times

Research: Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them

It’s a concrete fact that women earn less than men do. The true gender pay-gap is not known with certainty, but, when comparing equally qualified people doing the same job, most estimates by labor economists put it at 10% – 20%.  The crucial question remains its cause. One common explanation is that women are less likely to negotiate their salaries. We’ve seen this in both bestselling business memoirs like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and in previous studies like the research-based Women Don’t Ask.

Gaining access to a more recent, and more detailed, dataset allowed us to investigate this question anew. What we found contradicts previous research. The bottom line of our study is that women do “ask” just as often as men. They just don’t “get.”

Even we were surprised by the results. We had expected to find less asking by the females. Instead, we found that, holding background factors constant, women ask for a raise just as often as men, but men are more likely to be successful. Women who asked obtained a raise 15% of the time, while men obtained a pay increase 20% of the time. While that may sound like a modest difference, over a lifetime it really adds up.

We also examined the idea that women act less assertively in negotiations for fear of upsetting the relationship with their boss or colleagues (some evidence for this has been found in previous research, notably by Emily Amanatullah and Michael Morris in a 2010 paper). We found no support for this in our data. Instead, we found that although employees do sometimes say that they do not ask for a raise because of concern for their relationships in the workplace, this is equally true of men and women. Both 14% of males and 14% of females say they have done this.

Source: HBR June 25, 2018

Click here to see the complete article

The Mindset Your Company Needs to Grow Organically

M&A is central to many companies’ growth strategies. But you can’t grow by acquisition alone. Companies with more organic growth generate higher shareholder returns than those relying on acquisitions alone. But organic growth remains elusive. It’s been easier to go from big to bigger through M&A than new to big through entrepreneurship.That failure is not due to a lack of trying. Companies dedicate vast amounts of time, money, and effort to organic growth. The problem is that many companies have the wrong “operating system” for organic growth.For most companies, both M&A and organic growth are managed like rocket launches. An enormous amount of planning goes into anticipating every possible scenario and removing every possible risk. Once launched, the opportunity is micro-managed to ensure that everything goes according to plan.This might have worked in the past when markets moved incrementally. But in a global business environment that is changing exponentially, the market moves too quickly. Too much is simply unpredictable. The solution is to shift the mindset from “rocket launch” to “laboratory”. You need to be constantly experimenting, adapting, and learning — rather than analyzing, planning, and optimizing.

Source: HBR May 22, 2018

Click here to see the complete article

Access details for DELNET

Center for Lifelong Learning, JSB is now member of DELNET. You can access their databases through by following below steps

• Open DELNET Website (Click here)

• Look for "DELNET Discovery Portal" link. Click on the link.

• You should be able to open the landing page without login prompt

Please find below YouTube tutorial on "How to access DELNET online" for your reference

Wishing you all a very Happy Learning