Ask any senior executive and they will tell you that one of their most important tasks as a leader is to develop people. And more specifically, training future general managers: those who will lead the company of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, reality is often far from meeting aspirations.

When John Hillen and I wrote our latest bookour decades of combined experience working, observing and researching with countless companies have shown that each of these organizations has invested significant time and effort into growing and scaling their business. However, less than 10% of these companies had a specific plan to develop their leaders alongside the company.

This is a significant gap! Without an executive development plan, business growth will stagnate and companies may not have enough qualified senior managers to guide them. Or worse, the business growth plan will succeed, but the businesses will fail as they struggle to meet the demands of their own success.

A little cold water

• Few companies succeed in integrating external senior general managers. Research from leading executive search firms paints a bleak picture: for example, Heidrick and Struggles reports that 40 to 50 percent of senior executives hired externally leave within the first 18 months due to performance or failure issues. adequacy.
• Internal promotions fare a little better because managers already know the culture and have internal support. Yet many companies report that only 60-65% of internal promotions are successful, indicating that these leadership transitions are a real struggle.

If you’re an ambitious manager, all of this suggests that you shouldn’t be entirely dependent on your employer to develop the skills you need to become and succeed as a chief executive. Your career trajectory (bigger roles, broader scope, and more responsibility) is in your hands. So let’s zoom in on where to start.

Don’t wait: start now

People with exceptional careers don’t wait for their organization to understand, get buy-in and budget, and implement a leadership development program. Instead, they restart to develop the core skills they will need as general managers.

In their research(1), our colleagues Frank Rouault, Jean Segonds and Vince Byrne assert that future general managers must develop skills in three critical areasbut these are not the areas we usually think of, like operations, finance and marketing.

On the contrary, the most promising and successful future GMs show significant growth in areas that go beyond conventional wisdom:

1— Technical skills: Necessary but not sufficient, technical expertise characterizes outstanding managers as they improve processes, drive innovation, and create business value. GM’s stars continually hone these skills to overcome obsolescence, organize best practices and increase their own value to the company. Technical skills include domain expertise and business skills, as well as:

• Functions focused on business management: finance, marketing, supply chain, innovation, legal and compliance, risk, IT, digital, strategy and governance
• Specific skills: problem solving, adaptability and curiosity

2— Relational skills: Working well with others is an absolute necessity for success in rapidly changing organizations. Almost all work problems have their roots in a breakdown in communication, a difficult conversation gone wrong, or a broken relationship. (And sometimes all three!) Time and time again, research on emotional intelligence shows that even the smartest, most technically proficient managers will fail if they lack the soft skills essential to leading change and generating followers . Interpersonal skills include:

• People-focused functional areas: human resources, culture, recruitment, onboarding, talent assessment, professional development, incentives and rewards, career path, management training, leadership development, engagement, retention and departure
• Specific skills: communicate, cooperate, manage conflict, influence, mentor, teach, coach and inspire

3— Socio-systemic skills: Networking skills are table stakes: a strong network is crucial for cultivating mutually beneficial relationships, influence without authority, and leverage to get things done. But great general managers add proactive stakeholder management skills: anticipate what your most important stakeholders want and need and ensure that these transactional and non-transactional relationships generate the desired results. Socio-systemic skills also include:

• Functional areas focused on the broader parts of the business: customers, partners, investors, vendors, suppliers, regulators, government agencies, industry groups and trade associations, and professional affiliations
• Specific skills: identify important contacts, connect people, develop non-transactional and trusting relationships, help others, cultivate social networks, participate in associations and groups, do board work or volunteering, and meet with customers (and even customers of customers)

How to start becoming a general manager

Now that you know the lay of the land, let’s see how to navigate this terrain. Here are some specific approaches to help you develop the core skills you’ll need to become a great general manager:

Technical skills

Focus on:

• Create business impact: Develop your entrepreneurial skills. Look for new ways to generate growth and results.
• Develop expertise and contribution: Deepen the technical experience and knowledge that others value.

Ask yourself how you can:

• Preventing technical obsolescence?
• Learn to think about the future?
• Develop expertise in key functional areas, such as sales, marketing, finance, IT and human resources, to drive results?
• Catalyze innovation?
• Develop yourself as a thought leader in your field?
• Align your team, peers and others with the company’s top priorities?
• Make sure you are focusing on the right levers to achieve your business goals?

Interpersonal skills

Focus on:

• Understand and bring out the best in yourself: optimize your best qualities, your soft skills, your leadership abilities and your influence.
• Bringing out the best in others: maximizing technical skills, soft skills, leadership skills and the influence of others.

Ask yourself how you can:

• Develop yourself as a human leader?
• Develop others and increase their capabilities?
• Develop and enhance your management style or your leadership practices?
• Create more commitment (“hearts and minds”) to the company?
• To be considered a role model?
• Lead key people initiatives? (For example, recruiting, onboarding, managing, scaling.)

Socio-systemic skills

Focus on:

• Develop a strong network: Build a diverse, active and mutually beneficial network Before you need it!
• Engage your stakeholders: Build non-transactional relationships and seek win-win situations while directing your career toward your long-term goals.
• Contribute to the community as a whole: give back. Share your learning and expertise with others by serving on a board or volunteering.

Ask yourself how you can:

• Build and activate your network?
• Create a more diverse network?
• Help more people in a given month?
• Develop meaningful relationships with people who sincerely want to see you succeed?
• Give people reason to talk about you as an expert, mentor or trusted advisor?

If you really want to become a great general manager, you need to start working now to become the leader you know you can be and create your own growth trajectory, with a learning strategy and a clear action plan. This article is enough to get you started: challenge your CEO to run with it! And seek coaching, mentoring, and advocacy from GMs you admire: The best GMs will always make time for you.

We’d love to hear how you grow and what you learn as you develop these foundational skills to become a great general manager. Write to us at [email protected].

Many thanks to my colleagues Elisabeth Jensen Maurer and Alain Perez for their excellent contribution, and of course to Frank Rouault for the research and wisdom.