Ask any C-suite executive, and they’ll say that one of their most important jobs as a leader is developing people. And, more specifically, developing future general managers: the people who will lead the business tomorrow.
Unfortunately, reality often falls far short of aspirations.
When John Hillen and I wrote our last book, our decades of combined experience working with, observing, and researching countless companies showed that each of these organizations had invested extensive time and effort to grow and evolve their businesses. However, fewer than 10% of these companies had a specific plan to grow their leaders alongside the business.
That’s a significant gap! Without a plan to develop leaders, business growth will stall and companies will risk not having enough qualified senior executives to guide them forward. Or worse, the business growth plan will pay off, but companies will flounder as they struggle to meet the demands of their own success.
Some Cold Water
- Few companies successfully onboard senior GMs from outside. Research by major executive search firms paints a grim picture: for example, Heidrick and Struggles reports that 40-50% of senior execs hired externally are gone in the first 18 months due to performance or fit issues.
- Internal promotions fare a bit better, as the managers already know the culture and have internal support. Still, many companies report that only 60-65% of internal promotions succeed, indicating that these leadership transitions are a real struggle.
If you’re an ambitious manager, this all suggests that you shouldn’t depend entirely on your employer to develop the skills you need to become, and succeed as, a general manager. Your career trajectory—bigger roles, broader scope, and more responsibility—is in your hands. So let’s zoom in on where you should start.
Don’t Wait: Start Now
People with stellar careers don’t wait for their organizations to catch on, get buy-in and budget, and build a leadership development program. Instead, they jumpstart themselves to develop the core skills they’ll need as general managers.
In their research[1], our colleagues Frank Rouault, Jean Segonds, and Vince Byrne make the case that future general managers must develop skills in three critical areas, but these aren’t the areas we usually think of, such as operations, finance, and marketing.
Rather, the most promising and successful future GMs show meaningful growth in areas that lie beyond the conventional wisdom:
1— Technical skills: Necessary but not sufficient, technical expertise marks standout managers as they improve processes, drive innovation, and create business value. GM stars continuously hone these skills to outpace obsolescence, curate best practices, and compound their own value to the company. Technical skills include domain expertise and business competence, as well as:
- Functions focused on running the business: finance, marketing, supply chain, innovation, legal and compliance, risk, IT, digital, strategy, and governance
- Specific skills: problem solving, adaptability, and curiosity
2— Interpersonal skills: Working well with others is an absolute must to succeed in fast-changing organizations. Nearly every work problem is rooted in a communication breakdown, a difficult conversation gone awry, or a fractured relationship. (And sometimes all three!) Time and again, research on emotional intelligence shows that even the smartest, most technically adept managers will fail if they lack the people skills that are critial to lead change and generate followership. Interpersonal skills include:
- Functional areas focused on people: human resources, culture, recruiting, onboarding, talent assessment, professional development, incentives and rewards, career pathing, management training, leadership development, engagement, retention, and offboarding
- Specific skills: communicating, cooperating, navigating conflict, influencing, mentoring, teaching, coaching, and inspiring
3— Social-systemic skills: Networking skills are table stakes: a sound network is crucial for nurturing mutually beneficial relationships, influence without authority, and leverage to get things done. But great GMs add proactive stakeholder management skills: anticipating what your most important stakeholders want and need and making sure these transactional and non-transactional relationships generate the desired outcomes. Social-systemic skills also include:
- Functional areas focused on parties more broadly related to the business: clients, partners, investors, vendors, suppliers, regulators, government agencies, industry groups, and trade associations, and professional affiliations
- Specific skills: identifying important contacts, connecting people, developing non-transactional and trusted relationships, helping others, cultivating social networks, participating in associations and groups, board or volunteer work, and meeting clients (and even clients of clients)
How to Start Becoming a General Manager
Now that you know the lay of the land, let’s look at how to navigate this terrain. Here are some specific approaches to help you develop the core skills you’ll need to have demonstrated on your way to becoming a great GM:
Technical Skills
Focus on:
- Building business impact: Develop your entrepreneurial skills. Look for new ways to deliver growth and results.
- Developing expertise and contribution: Deepen experience and technical knowledge that others value.
Ask yourself how you can:
- Prevent technical obsolescence?
- Learn to think in the future tense?
- Build expertise in key functional areas—such as sales, marketing, finance, IT, and HR—to drive results?
- Catalyze innovation?
- Develop yourself as a thought leader in your field?
- Align your team, peers, and others with core business priorities?
- Make sure you’re focusing on the right levers to achieve your business goals?
Interpersonal Skills
Focus on:
- Understanding and bringing out the best of yourself: Optimize your best qualities, people competencies, leadership skills, and influence.
- Bringing out the best in others: Optimize others’ technical skills, people competencies, leadership skills, and influence.
Ask yourself how you can:
- Develop yourself as a people leader?
- Develop others and grow their capability?
- Evolve and enhance your management style or leadership practices?
- Create more commitment (“hearts and minds”) to the business?
- Be seen as a role model?
- Lead key people-related initiatives? (E.g., recruiting, integration, management, rightsizing.)
Social-Systemic Skills
Focus on:
- Developing a strong network: Build a diversified, active, and mutually beneficial network before you need it!
- Engaging your stakeholders: Build non-transactional relationships and look for win-win situations as you steer your career towards your long-term goals.
- Contributing to the community at large: 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 genuinely want to see you succeed?
- Give people reasons to talk about you as an expert, mentor, or trusted advisor?
If you’re serious about becoming a great general manager, you must start working now on becoming the leader you know you can be and creating your own growth trajectory, with a learning strategy and clear action plan. This article is enough to get your started: challenge your inner GM to run with it! And seek coaching, mentoring, and advocacy from GMs you admire—the best GMs will always make the time for you.
We’d love to hear how you’re going and what you’re learning as you develop these core skills on your way to becoming a great general manager. Drop us a line at [email protected].
Many thanks to my colleagues Elisabeth Jensen Maurer and Alain Perez for their excellent input, and of course to Frank Rouault for the research and wisdom.