Savage counsel – leadership skills
Each week for Encore Chris Savage tackles your career and agency dilemmas this week he looks at leadership skills.
Hi Chris,
I have big ambitious plans for my career. I want to be CEO before I turn 40. What are the top leadership skills I should be looking to cultivate?
So, you think you want to be the CEO, hey? Tread cautiously. Why do you want to be CEO? It’s a tough gig. I know. I have been CEO of several businesses and a CEO consistently for the past 20 years, until I took up my current role five years ago. At STW Group, I am not the CEO. I am – with our CFO – our CEO’s key partner. It is an easier life. Believe me.
Here’s the point. The higher you climb the corporate ladder, the better the view. But, the air is very, very thin. Sure, there is a real buzz from being in charge. It can be exhilarating. It comes with a big price, though: pressure, stress, long hours. They say it’s lonely at the top. And you know what? It bloody well is.
But if you’re hell bent on that path, and want to accelerate towards that first significant CEO gig, here are the top three tips on how to do it. I have been inspired by motivational speaker and author Brian Tracy’s clarity and wisdom here. He articulates so well what I know in my heart.
Become brilliant at solving problems. Leadership is about solving problems. It comes with the territory. Almost everything I do every day – every email, phone call, meeting – is about a problem. As your career evolves and you get bigger jobs, the problems tend to be the same, it’s just the amount of money involved that increases. So work on your skills as an awesome problem solver. Be a ‘solutions’ focussed person. Build your brand as someone who takes on an issue, works out a solution, gets it done, pushes it through. Do that well, and you’ll be given more and bigger problems to solve. And you’ll get promoted faster than others. Promise.
Work harder (and more effectively) than anyone else. Yeah, yeah. I know it is old fashioned and not new-age hug-each-other stuff. But face the facts. You want to turbo your career, then put in the hard yards. There are no short cuts. I reckon if you can work two hours more everyday than others, then you will rise faster and triumph. Oh, and make sure you are outstandingly productive and effective in that time, getting more of the important things done every day. Be prepared for many years of genuinely long, hard, relentless work. Ask any of your CEOs if they made it without doing this. If they did, tell me. I just won’t believe it.
Push yourself to the front. “Continually ask for more responsibility,” Brian Tracy wrote in his great book Earn What You’re Really Worth. Terrible title, awesome book (if you want to be a CEO fast, read this book). I have a colleague in our Asia business who is young, talented, smart and hard working. When we started working together, I delegated cautiously to him. He did the work. He anticipated. He worked long hours. He solved problems before I needed to get involved. He asked for more rope. We gave it to him. He pushed harder. Worked harder. Focussed his energies on problem solving. Started to assume more responsibility without asking. We let him do it. He now is in a role someone with five years more experience should be doing. But he is doing it. I expect I’ll be reporting to him soon. And that would be fine too.
There are a million other tips. But these are my top three. Become brilliant at solving problems. Work harder (and more effectively) than anyone else. Push yourself to the front. But do tread cautiously. Remember what a banker told me once: “To be successful in this business is like having four hotplates: one is family, one is friends, one health, the other success. If you want success, you will only have time to turn on one other hotplate. Which would you choose?” Re-read that please. Think about it. Carefully. There are many examples of CEOs who have balance and have ensured all aspects of their lives have prospered. Then there are others who can’t manage it all. Like lard arse me.
Go hard – be bold – but please, take care of yourself.
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great points! work hard AND you need to ring your own bell and shout out your acheivements
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Tom Novans is doing a great job in Asia.
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