Wanted: Leaders and Creative Thinkers

The March issue of Harvard Business Review contains an insightful article, The New Path to the C-suite by Groysberg, Kelly and MacDonald. Their research focused on seven C-level jobs; the competencies the positions needed in the past, those currently in demand, and to the best of their abilities, the competencies that will be required over the next decade.

The article is very informative, especially as a professional development guide for individuals desiring to move into the C-suite. I also see a lot of relevance in the article for leaders to consider from the perspective of succession planning and leadership development. I totally understand there are times when bringing in new blood, and new ideas, is a better approach than promoting from within. However, let’s not overlook the opportunity to prepare senior leaders already in the C-suite for different responsibilities, as well as developing those managers coming up through the ranks behind them. With the proper combination of situations such as exposure, mentoring, training, and job rotations, your exceptional leaders of the future may be just down the hall.

The New PathThe research confirmed some of what has been previously speculated. There has been a lot of change taking place with regard to C-suite competency requirements over the past ten years. Add to that daily global and technology changes and the result is a continuous redefining of what is needed to operate a successful business, now and in the future. Through their research and interviews conducted by the authors, one thing became clear - the "technical and functional expertise that once was a must to reach the C-suite will take a backseat to leadership skills and a strong grasp of business fundamentals required of leaders in the future."

Groysberg and his team openly state their understanding that different times and different circumstances call for different leadership skills. However, they also acknowledge the impact of the rapidly changing landscape being thrust on leaders today. Issues such as changing workforce demographics, globalization, and technology innovations are driving new trends in the ways we search for talent. The new workplace seeks a blended combination of creativity, thought-leadership and well rounded international business backgrounds.

Where’s HR?The focus of the HBR article is on seven C-suite positions: CIO – Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, CFO, General Counsel, Chief Supply-Chain-Management Officer, Chief Human Resource Officer and CEO. Common across all positions is a theme of increased knowledge and experience with:


• Business acumen and orientation
• Communications
• Collaboration
• Strategic thinking
• Technology savvy
• "Soft" leadership skills, i.e., trust, empathy, professionalism, motivation, ethics, etc.The requirements for Human Resource (HR) leadership are changing just as much as for other disciplines. However, for many reasons which would fill another blog, HR doesn’t have as established a presence in the C-suite as a position such as the Chief Information Officer (CIO). In the overview of the research on the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) position, Groysberg includes a New York Times quote from Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, "The discipline I believe so strongly in is HR, and it’s the last discipline that gets funded. Marketing, manufacturing – all these things are important. But more often than not, the head of HR does not have a seat at the table. Big mistake." I agree, it’s a big mistake; especially when we look at the "people-related" changes that are integrated in the new requirements for C-suite players:


• Planning for and implementing workplace flexibilities and a variety of work structure options
• Anticipating and embracing intergenerational work style issues
• Analyzing and preparing for the impact of cultural differences and shifting demographics
• Focusing on continuous needs to help prepare and move people through change
• Expanding confidence and abilities to work with people at all levels of the organization, including C’s and the BoardIf organizations don’t take the appropriate steps to expand the experiences of their HR Managers and VP’s, I believe we will create an imbalance and run the risk that the CHRO role could tilt too far in the direction of business knowledge and lose the eye on the importance of motivation, flexibilities and development. Without the right balance of competency requirements, it’s easy to foresee the creation of a skill set gap for managing talent assessment, recruitment, engagement and retention.

I think this is an exciting time for HR. For those that are already in the profession, those in academia that teach and develop HR professionals, and organizations that invest in and promote high potentials that demonstrate the drive, interest and passion for expanding their horizons.

As the article mentions, we’ve come a long way in getting progressive organizations to see the value of HR. It’s great to identify and hire ambitious, passionate business leaders who understand the dynamics of people, as well as the criticality of matching workforce skills and training with the jobs of the future. However, for those individuals, as well as others who are just learning how to combine their technical knowledge with the human side of business there’s a place for "on-the-job" trainings that come in the form of overseas assignments, job shadowing, exposure to board meetings, and observing innovative strategic planning efforts. And really, these types of experiential learnings would be great not only for the CHRO, but for all the employees in the Succession Plan that need to expand their knowledge of company-specific issues to help expand their business orientation horizons.

So What’s Next?The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) continues to have a finger on the pulse of changing competencies required of CHRO’s. SHRM collaborates with business and academic communities to stay current in the conversation about human resource leadership competencies. In fact, the organization has also rolled out a SHRM-approved HR college curriculum to better address future skill sets for the up and coming HR/business leader. SHRM continues to partner with thought-leaders in every aspect of human capital and business management to expand research, training, and learning events to keep pace with determining the right mix of responsibilities and training as this dynamic role evolves.

The HBR article pointed to the trend that non-HR executives with backgrounds in operations, marketing and corporate law are more frequently being tapped for CHRO positions and they also acknowledged that this tendency is not without problems. They specifically cite that legal professionals are often being selected for the CHRO position as the regulatory environment has become so complex. However, tracking the successes and challenges of this skill set selection indicates that often there is more time spent focusing on regulations and compensation issues so that other responsibilities suffer.

I recognize that the bar is being raised on all jobs, not just HR. Businesses recovering from the recession of the past three years can not be successful doing the same things, the same ways they did them before the recession. And with that said we all know that what we’ll be doing in five years and within the next decade will be remarkably different than what we’re doing in 2011. It’s a rapid-change environment in which we live and work. Every business needs to attract, develop and retain the top talent to best manage this changing marketplace, and that includes the C-suite.

So why not link the Succession Plan and future workforce needs with professional development and retention efforts? What would training and development programs look like if we were developing employees for the C-suite of the future? How could we utilize mentors to transfer knowledge, design job shadowing to heighten the awareness of the criticality of strong leadership and soft skills and devise on-the-job experiential experiences to motivate and retain employees, while building a pipeline of future talent?

Do you agree that the C-suite needs to come together to collaborate about how to prepare the next generation of internal and external candidates? What role do you see HR playing in this conversation? What ideas are you considering or implementing to address this issue? What successes have you seen and what challenges are you still trying to figure out? I look forward to hearing from you. Please comment in the box below.

Future Business Leaders Need to Think Outside the Box