Education and Training: College
Salary: Median— $85,230 per year
Employment Outlook: Good
The main aim of top executives is to formulate policies and devise strategies that are in line with the specified goals and objectives of their organization. Top executives can have a range of varying titles such as chief executive officer (CEO), president, chief operating officer (COO), administrator, or others. However, the primary responsibility of top executives is to direct operations successfully, and formulate policies that are advantageous to the goals of their organizations.
The magnitude and nature of responsibilities shouldered by top executives depends upon the size of the organization. In publicly traded companies, top executives are accountable for implementation of policies on a daily basis and maintaining accuracy in their financial reports. They also report the progress of the company to its board of directors who then determine the success or failure of the enterprise.
In many organizations, top executives are assigned responsibility of certain specific areas. For example, a chief financial officer looks after the financial objectives and budget of a company, whereas a chief information officer (CIO) or chief technological officer (CTO) is delegated the management of the overall technological aspects in a corporation. Large organizations often appoint a chief executive officer who is responsible for the overall functioning and viability of the organization.
Education and Training Requirements
Most top executives have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in business administration. Some may even have degrees in more specialized areas. The degree requirement varies from organization to organization. College presidents, for example, have a doctoral degree in their field of expertise while school superintendents have a master’s degree in education administration.
Top executives who have an extensive experience in the related field are generally preferred by employers. Graduate degrees are common among top executives, but some organizations often advance employees without graduate degrees to the level of top executives because of their extensive experience and capabilities.
Another priority requirement for top executives is their high level of analytical and personal skills. Top executives should also possess good leadership qualities, the ability to manage stress, and the ability to make unbiased, independent decisions for the benefit of their organization.
Getting the Job
A person having requisite educational qualification and considerable working experience in the same field is highly sought after for top executive positions. When an opening occurs, some organizations promote experienced managers from lower levels to the rank of top executive. Employment portals and journals often list job openings for top executive positions. To attain such designations, it is usually necessary to have prior experience in managerial positions.
Top executives often engage the services of independent professional recruiters or employment consultants. These professionals can help top executives find job opportunities and negotiate a good salary and benefits package.
Advancement Possibilities and Employment Outlook
Top executives can find career advancement opportunities by participating in company-sponsored training programs. Continuing education is also extremely crucial since a top executive needs to be well acquainted with the latest technologies and trends in the field of management. A master’s of business administration or other advanced degree is becoming the norm. It is also beneficial to attend conferences and seminars on current issues, as this helps build useful contacts that later on provide an advantage in career advancement.
The Institute of Certified Professional Managers offers the Certified Manager credential after completion of training and an exam. This credential, though not mandatory, can be helpful for advancement through the managerial ranks.
Working Conditions
Top executives of organizations often work in spacious office rooms and enjoy the services of numerous support staff. However, their working hours are generally long and grueling. They might even have to work on weekends and late evenings. The job of a top executive requires extensive traveling throughout his organization’s area of operation, which often includes international travel, for monitoring operations and meeting with customers and other executives. One is also likely to face intense pressure to succeed in achieving targets and goals set by the company. Performance of top executives is minutely scrutinized, and underachievers may find their jobs in jeopardy.
Where to Go for More Information
American Management Association 1601 Broadway New York, NY 10019
//www.amanet.org
National Management Association 2210 Arbor Boulevard Dayton, Ohio 45439
//www.nma1.org
Earnings and Benefits
Top executives are generally very highly paid. The salaries depend on the size of the organization and managerial responsibility borne by them. The median annual salary of top managers in May 2006 was $85,230. Typical salary of those surveyed ranged from $58,230 to $128,580 annually, although top executives in very large corporations can earn several hundred thousand or even millions of dollars per year. In addition to salary, top executives get total compensation inclusive of performance bonus and stock options. Amenities such as use of executive dining rooms, expense allowances, use of company aircraft and cars, company paid insurance premiums, and physical examinations are also provided to top executives. Some organizations also offer company-paid club memberships to their top executives.
Last week I was at an event where no one sat with the CEO. The whole organization was present, and the CEO’s table was empty. What a career advancement missed opportunity for the people who work for this company.
Perhaps no one likes the CEO, or employees are afraid of him, or employees are concerned they’ll get labeled as a suck up for sitting with him. None of these reasons are legit.
The CEO is just a regular person. S/he puts her pants on just like you do every day.
Most employees have limited exposure to their organization’s most senior leaders. Don’t miss an opportunity to build business relationships with your organization’s senior leaders.
Here are four career advancement strategies:
Career advancement strategy #1: Senior leaders have very limited access to most employees. Most will make quick decisions about employees with the limited access they have. If you’re at a meeting with a senior leader, speak up (provided you have something useful to say). If you don’t speak up, when appropriate, you might be (unfairly) labeled as having little to offer.
Career advancement strategy #2: If you’re at an event with senior leaders, talk and/or sit with them! It’s not necessarily a chance to wave the flag for your favorite cause or company initiative. It is a chance to get to know these folks and have them get to know you.
Career advancement strategy #3: Be less afraid. Tell the truth, tactfully. Be careful not to insult someone or something, and speak up more.
Most employees are afraid of being fired and are convinced that if they offer a counter point-of-view they’ll be at worst fired and at best marginalized and never given another cool project. I haven’t found that to be true.
It’s not so easy to get fired in this country. People who don’t do a lot of work or who do mediocre work are often not fired. And you’re worried about being fired for speaking up? Pick your battles, be wise about how you voice concerns and ideas, and worry less.
Career advancement strategy #4: Suggest solutions to problems. People who talk only about problems but don’t offer to do anything about those problems are seen as annoying complainers. Offer to be the person who spearheads the solution. Don’t worry about if it’s your job. Just don’t step on others’ toes in the process.
You make your career happen, no one else. You can talk with your coworkers and friends all day. Don’t miss opportunities to get to know the key decision makers in your organization. Fear less. Talk more.
Tags: building business relationships, building relationships at work, business relationships, career advancement, career advancement strategies, career development strategies, career management
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Some people’s careers take off, while others’ take longer — or even stall out.
Common wisdom says that the former attend elite MBA programs, land high-powered jobs right out of school at prestigious firms, and climb the ladder straight to the top, carefully avoiding risky moves. But our data shows a completely different picture.
We conducted a 10-year study, which we call the CEO Genome Project, in which we assembled a data set of more than 17,000 C-suite executive assessments and studied 2,600 in-depth to analyze who gets to the top and how. We then took a closer look at “CEO sprinters” — those who reached the CEO role faster than the average of 24 years from their first job.
We discovered a striking finding: Sprinters don’t accelerate to the top by acquiring the perfect pedigree. They do it by making bold career moves over the course of their career that catapult them to the top. We found that three types of career catapults were most common among the sprinters. Ninety-seven percent of them undertook at least one of these catapult experiences and close to 50% had at least two. (In contrast, only 24% had elite MBAs.)
Through these career catapults, executives build the specific behaviors that set successful CEOs apart — including decisiveness, reliability, adaptability, and the ability to engage for impact — and they get noticed for their accomplishments. The catapults are so powerful that even people in our study who never aspired to become CEO ultimately landed the position by pursuing one or more of these strategies.
Go Small to Go Big
The path to CEO rarely runs in a straight line; sometimes you have to move backward or sideways in order to get ahead. More than 60% of sprinters took a smaller role at some point in their career. They may have started something new within their company (by launching a new product or division, for example), moved to a smaller company to take on a greater set of responsibilities, or started their own business. In each case, they used the opportunity to build something from the ground up and make an outsize impact.
In his late twenties, “James” was hired in a strategy and business development role inside a multibillion-dollar marketing and communications business. Early in his career, he was offered the chance to build out one of the new businesses. It felt like a demotion, or at best a lateral move, to be handed a blank org chart and a highly uncertain future. “It was zero revenue when I stepped in, and we built that business to $250 million,” he says. By building a new business from scratch, he picked up essential management skills, such as running a P&L, managing a budget, and setting a strategic vision — all critical prerequisites to becoming a CEO (over 90% of the CEOs we studied had general management experience). Thirteen years later, he found himself the CEO of a $1.5 billion education and training business.
Make a Big Leap
More than one-third of sprinters catapulted to the top by making “the big leap,” often in the first decade of their careers. These executives threw caution to the wind and said yes to opportunities even when the role was well beyond anything they’ve done previously and they didn’t feel fully prepared for the challenges ahead.
Take, for example, “Jerry,” who at age 24 joined a $200 million business as a senior accountant. Eight months after being hired, he was offered the CFO position, leapfrogging the controller who hired him. Though he was young and still learning the ropes, he embraced the challenge with gusto. “I was very young for my level, and I was given responsibility ahead of my readiness,” he says. As CFO, he gained insight into a broad set of functions and proved his ability to thrive in a new, uncertain environment. Within nine years, after a stint as COO, he landed his first CEO role.
If you don’t expect this kind of opportunity to fall into your lap, you are not alone. However, what we heard from these sprinters is an attitude of “You make your own luck.” Seek out cross-functional projects that touch numerous aspects of the business. Get involved in a merger integration. Ask your boss for additional responsibilities. Tackle tough, complex problems. Above all, make a habit of saying “yes” to greater opportunities — ready or not.
Inherit a Big Mess
It may feel counterintuitive, and a bit daunting, but one way to prove your CEO mettle is by inheriting a big mess. It could be an underperforming business unit, a failed product, or a bankruptcy — any major problem for the business that needs to be fixed fast. More than 30% of our sprinters led their teams through a big mess.
Messy situations cry out for strong leadership. When faced with a crisis, emerging leaders have an opportunity to showcase their ability to assess a situation calmly, make decisions under pressure, take calculated risks, rally others around them, and persevere in the face of adversity. In other words, it’s great preparation for the CEO job.
“Jackie,” the CEO of a transport company, didn’t wait for the big mess to find her. She sought it out. “I liked working on something that was a mess and needed to be figured out: IT, cost, tax. It didn’t matter,” she says. “I got the ugliest assignments. I could unscramble them and figure out an answer.” By stepping up and risking her career on the jobs nobody else dared to tackle, Jackie proved she could deliver results for the good of the company. She landed her first CEO role 20 years after day one in her first job.
While there is no single path to the CEO seat, these career catapults can be replicated by anyone who aspires to a leadership position, and could be especially powerful for those who may find it harder to get to the top. Women, for example, take 30% longer to get to the CEO role, according to Korn Ferry.
Accelerating your career through these catapults doesn’t require an elite MBA or a select mix of inborn traits, but it does require a willingness to make lateral, unconventional, and even risky career moves. It’s not for the faint of heart. But if you aspire to top leadership, you might as well get used to it.