Being a C-suite executive, as many know, requires a lot of work that pays off when reaching the executive level — but competency alone is not enough to mark that professional spot, according to Black Enterprise.
Working your way up the corporate ladder ranks also takes crucial soft skills like how one carries themself and connects with fellow colleagues, which can have a long-lasting impact.
Here are some ways to continue to build up that executive presence from Black Enterprise:
- Know how people view you as a leader. It is far and few between that employees will respect the authority or ideas of an unstable leader. Being calm under stressful situations helps to build trust, credibility, and positive team culture in the workplace.
● Keep polishing those soft skills as career advancements continue to come or as you remain in your C-suite-level role. Impeccable soft skills like negotiation and presentation skills are increasingly becoming more important than functional skills. For example, if you’re standing up before staff or executives and presenting a project status change, be ready to clearly articulate your challenges and ideas for improvement, ask questions, listen, and accept constructive feedback.
● Inspire people to take action regardless of the organization size and be ready when confrontation occurs while maintaining your cool. Learn to find the good in a negative situation and empower others to respond professionally.
● Learn to understand how your work meshes into the bigger picture. More often than not, difficult decisions are done at work, which impacts the daily routine of staff. As a leader, the boss will be expected to focus on the big picture while inspiring employees of the positive times hopefully coming up ahead — while keeping them on track. During this time, continue to look at how your work has impacted the company’s bottom line while articulating your own performance metrics and the valuable goods you’ve brought to the company.
● Make those decisions – one of the quickest ways to flounder as a leader is to not make a decision. Indecisiveness is bound to result in a negative impact that could harm one’s ability to hit company goals and inspire team members. Also, it can hurt the opportunity for career advancement.
● Understand office politics no matter the career field. Office politics are games played at every office and in every organization that can help or hurt one (even senior leaders) when navigating the workplace. They are informal systems of power and influence, according to Black Enterprise. How does your influence and power show up and who are the key players to influence change? Make sure you are always at the top of that ranking, while genuinely building professional relationships along the way.
Upon mastering these soft and hard skills in the executive realm, why not continue forward and think about being the chief executive officer of a company next? Before that can happen though, what pathways are needed to take those next steps?
Below are six traits that all CEOs should obtain while growing along their professional journey:
- Communicate well to build trust and squash any uncertainty a client or employee might have. From shaking hands to landing the deal, increasing trust can make all the difference.
- Be optimistic and set realistic goals when leading a corporation. Nobody wants a leader who always expects the unobtainable because then they will never be pleased with the outcome, the article stated.
- Have a healthy measure of risk-taking, which can lead to more business for a company. According to a study from the Harvard Business Review, one of two essential traits that a CEO gains is being able to take risks. This trait will give confidence to your team and further solidify their trust in your abilities as their leader.
- Be organized by figuring out how to properly find the bigger picture in all areas of business.
- No matter a company’s revenue level, it’s always a good idea to continue expanding your contacts list by consistently developing new partnerships with prospective clients or notable board members.
- Being prepared. This means even prepping for bad news and forging a way through it despite the negative issue, which doesn’t have to crumble a company.
There is a myriad of ways to rock it as the potential next CEO while shattering glass ceilings along the way. Continue your path forward and let your professionalism and skill-building assets show up and do the rest. Here’s to your next chapter.