Managing Yourself

Harvard Business Review magazine had an article titled Managing Yourself: Why You didn’t Get That Promotion by John Beeson (June 2009). The higher you go, the decisions for promotion become more subjective. The core selection criteria are based more about the soft skills than process and technical skills.

Here are John Beeson’s Key Factors in Executive Career Advancement…where do you fit?

Nonnegotiables (Factors that are absolutely necessary for you to be a contender):

• Demonstrating consistently strong performance
• Displaying ethics, integrity, and character
• Being driven to lead and to assume higher levels of responsibility

Deselection Factors (Characteristics that prevent you from b eing considered as a serious candidate):

• Having weak interpersonal skills
• Treating others with insensitivity or abrasiveness (let me add not being respectful of the business community)
• Putting self-interest above company good
• Holding a narrow, parochial perspective on the business and the organization

Core Selection Factors (Capabilities that breed others’ confidence in your ability to succeed at the senior executive level):

• Setting direction and thinking strategically; spotting marketplace trends and developing a winning strategy that differentiates the company
• Building and continually upgrading a strong executive team; having a “nose for talent”; establishing an adequate level of team cohesion
• Managing implementation without getting involved at too low a level of detail; defining a set of roles, processes, and measures to ensure that things get done reliably
• Building the capacity for innovation and change; knowing when new ways of doing business are required; having the courage, tolerance for risk, and change-management skills to bring new ideas to fruition
• Getting things done across internal boundaries (lateral management); demonstrating organization savvy; influencing and persuading colleagues; dealing well with conflict
• Growing and developing as an executive; soliciting and responding to feedback; adjusting leadership style in light of experience