3 Crucial Skills You Need to Get to the C-Suite

But the skills that got you here are not necessarily the skills that will allow you to be successful when you are in C-suite. And it may not be successful in order to really solidify your candidacy for C-suite. I'm Dr. Grace Lee and you're listening to the Career Revisionist podcast for executives, team leaders, people and managers, and ambitious professionals from all backgrounds. It's for those among us who can't stay stagnant and admire anyone who demonstrates exponential growth. We challenge ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and into higher levels of leadership. And we are determined to rise confidently in our industry so that we can make our greatest contribution using our knowledge and expertise. We have worked hard to become great at what we do, but only so we can achieve the goals that give our lives meaning and purpose. And while we persevere through a college education to get us here with our technical skills, we understand that to get to the next level where we desire to be, it requires a different kind of skills. And we're not comfortable with failure because we experience satisfaction when we are advancing. And while some of us work well under pressure, all of us perform the best when we are part of a winning team. And instead of just hoping to achieve what's important to us, we choose to become a more optimized version of ourselves to make it happen. We're not just A players. We are A plus players and we are the source of consistent output that makes positive advancements in the world around us. Have you climbed your way to the ladder to the point where now you are just one promotion away from the C-suite? But you're wondering, what do I go out to do to succeed to guarantee my promotion? So in this video, what I want to share with you are three crucial skills to develop in order to be successful at getting into the C-suite and be successful while you're in the C-suite. Because let's face it, the skills that you develop so far has allowed you to propel your career to where you're at right now as a senior executive. And as a senior executive, it's allowed you to function well to create alignment to communicate and build trust in your teams to be able to do your job well. It has helped you to ascend to where you're at today. But there are three crucial skills that a lot of people overlook as an executive coach for more than 10 years. One of the biggest mistakes that I see are senior executives who don't focus a lot of time on these three crucial skills because they've been so busy trying to do their work and be good at what they've done in the previous rungs of the latter. But they're not being proactive enough to develop these skills. So that's what I want to share with you today. And if this is helpful, give me a thumbs up and remember to subscribe to my channel, ring that button as well because every single week I release videos like this on these types of topics and so much more. The first crucial skill is communication. Because if you look at your career trajectory as a date, you will have noticed this that no matter what industry that you're from, no matter what organization you're working with currently or maybe previous organization that you work with, when you're first starting out and you're getting to that ladder that you want to climb when you're first starting out, you know, you are an implementer. You're the person who's doing a certain thing and that's your area of expertise. And in that role as an implementer, you seek to be good technically. You want to increase your technical skills, your know how. And that's an implementer. But if you look at it, implementation is actually the lowest level of value in the marketplace. No matter what industry you're in, it's the lowest level of value. And that's why you're working hard and trying to contribute and trying to do good work. And so then you get to the next level of value and some of you are recognizing this. You go from implementation and now you become a manager. And at this higher level, now you're climbing up the corporate ladder. Now you're a manager. You manage teams, you manage processes, you manage projects as well. And so as a manager, you're working at a higher level of value than when you were in implementation. At the level of a manager, you're no longer the one who primarily does the thing. It's a little bit less technical, but you're still involved in the technical work of it. But that's not the highest level of value. As I mentioned before, what God you hear successfully is not going to be what's most required in the C-suite. So the highest level of value is communication. And this is where you are articulating value. This is where you're creating alignment. This is where you're creating a cultural trust and accountability. Accountability, communication is the highest level of value in any marketplace you can be in, in any industry you can be in. And that's why when you look at the C-suite, when you examine what they do on a day-to-day basis, when you examine their career path and examine their functional roles within the organization, you're going to notice that the C-suite spend their days in communications. They spend their day talking, communicating with who, with among each other, with their management teams, with their vendors, with stakeholders, with investors, and so on. They are communicating. And they are also the ones who contribute the most value in an organization towards the mission of where they want to be. So if you desire to be in C-suite, it is utmost important to develop your communication skills. Communication is not just about the mechanics of speaking, by the way. And this is something I hear so often. People come, executives come into me and say, "I know it. I'm one promotional way from getting C-suite." And they see communication as, "Well, maybe I need to pronounce my words better. Maybe I need a more refined vocabulary." Or maybe I need to, you know, diminish my accent a little bit to send more of a native English speaker. Those are all mechanics of communication. It has nothing to do with C-suite. When I'm talking about communication, I'm referring to this strategy of communicating. How do you communicate the value? How do you communicate strategic direction? How do you create alignment among your teams? With all levels of management below you and above you. And how do you communicate so that everyone can see where we're going, see where we are right now, and see our results towards the progress? How can you communicate that? So communication also involves a level of clarity. It also involves a conveyance of certainty. It also involves how you show up as well. And how you convey the deepest and most dynamic things that are necessary to communicate. And in a way that people can understand. And in a way that creates alignment, unity, and buy-in. These are all parts of communication. It is not mechanical at all. It is nothing to do with the mechanical mechanics of speaking. But it has everything to do with the art of communication, the science of communication as well. So if you're somebody who's serious about, "I want to go to that upper level of my career path." I know that I was meant for more. I know that I can do that work well. If I involved in that suite, see suite. And you're serious about investing in your skills today. Because this is a meaningful goal for you to get into that C suite. If that is your most meaningful goal, then I invite you to work with me. In this video, below this video, actually, in the description, there's a link to apply for my coaching program. And when you submit your application, the first step is really just to have a conversation with either myself or a member of my team, just to discover whether or not we can help you with what you're looking for, and whether or not it's the right fit for both of us. But if it is, then you're going to be invited to join a team of other senior executives and C suite as well, as you build your communication skills, as you understand how to navigate that terrain, how to understand how to draw out your business acumen and convey the value of your insights and wisdom. So you're going to discover all of this process and all of the training that will help you be successful at getting into the C suite. But once you get in, it's also helping you to be successful while you're in it. So submit your application and I look forward to working with you on the inside. So that was communication. The second crucial skill is collaboration. And you're going to notice that every skill that I'm going to talk about starts begins with a letter C. So the second crucial skill is collaboration. Collaboration, it could be self-explanatory, but from my experience as an executive coach, it's not really self-explanatory. Because here's the thing, when it comes to collaboration, in the C suite, as you're working your way into the C suite and definitely while you are in the C suite, you're going to be making decisions with increasingly less and less information. And you're going to know increasingly less and less about the organization that is in front of you. Because when you're in the C suite, you're managing multiple layers of management levels beneath you. But most of these management levels beneath you, you don't even know what's going on. You may not even know the individuals by their first name. And you won't even know the people who are newly hired, the people who've been there for a while, exactly what they do. So there's a lot about the layers of management and about the organization and the functions that you don't know about in the C suite, especially not at that level. So as a result of that lack of information, we still need to make decisions as C suite. We still need to make effective decisions that affect the organization as a whole, that affect the organization's ability to achieve the vision where they're going and how far we need to be, to close gaps and to be able to manage vulnerabilities. So that's why collaboration is key. Because it's about collaborating with teams that you don't even directly manage, that you don't even know who they are exactly and exactly what they do on a day-to-day basis. So collaboration is also vertical. It is horizontal. And in many cases, it's diagonal as well. It's crucial to be able to develop this skill. So with involved in collaboration, it requires letting go of what you've been known, letting go of what you've known all along, letting go of what's been familiar with you up until this point. Because let's face it, you got here out of sheer hard work, discipline, focus, having developed your education and technical skills. of well and you began as an individual contributor. So as a result of that, we spent most of our time being good at what we do and being able to drive ourselves to be productive. So it's time to start a different vernacular, a different mindset of, instead of individual contribution, to see the interconnectedness between people, between processes, between business functions and departments as well. It is time to make that mental shift, a mindset shift, to expand your time space horizons, to be that visionary, to have the overarching pulse on the organization where we're going. And that is what I mean by collaboration. So I'm talking about the three crucial skills to get you into C-suite. Number one was communication. Number two was collaboration. And number three, the third C is cohesion. Yes, cohesion is a skill. So here's what I mean by that. It used to be that when it comes to senior executive level of C-suite, every C-suite was in charge of its own business function or individual business functions. For example, the CMO was primarily in charge of marketing and the CFO is primarily in charge of finance. It used to be that way. But moving forward, what I'm seeing is a trend towards C-suite, being needing to be involved more in the bigger picture of the organization, the vision, where the company is going, that overarching business strategy or the strategic direction. That's what I'm seeing going forward, moving forward. So rather than working in silos or being isolated as CMO and marketing, CFO and finance and so on, this is why it's important to develop the skill of cohesion. Cohesion means how are we going to create that cohesive culture? How are we going to be able to speak each other's languages? Not just each other's languages, but speak a common language, a common vernacular as well. Now how are we going to be able to make key decisions as one unit? That is cohesion, one unit moving forward. And creating cohesion means that this is ultimately how we can maintain a momentum of growth, how we can maintain a broader business acumen as well. Because when you can create that cohesion, it requires you to have that insight towards business acumen. So moving forward, if you are somebody who is finding that maybe communication is the greatest weakness that you have and communication is maybe your top priority for this year or this quarter, then I have another video coming up for you and this video is on how do you improve your communication skills to get to the senior executive level roles. So if you are serious about this and you are also thinking about working with me and applying to my coaching program below, then stay tuned. In the next video coming up, I'm going to share with you on how to improve your communication skills, just some tips on how to improve your communication skills to get to executive senior leadership roles. So I will see you there.