Succeed in the C-Suite: Top Executive Management Skills

Executives are dealing with greater complexity and a more rapidly shifting landscape than at any other time in history. Disruptions caused by supply chain challenges, geopolitical and regulatory issues, economic pressures, and the sheer pace of change have prioritized reacting to threats over anticipating and preparing for opportunities.

Compounding these global issues are declining employee engagement and friction between many companies and their employees over returning to the office. It’s no surprise that more and more C-level executives are challenged to:

  • Deliver results consistently and sustainably

  • Lead decision-making and drive change initiatives

  • Identify and respond to market opportunities and challenges confidently

  • Build strong teams for implementation and execution

  • Develop vision and strategies

  • Lead through pivot points

  • Secure proper resourcing (staff, budget and/or capital)

  • Deepen engagement and alignment through the organization

C-suite executives require top executive management skills to perform at a high level and succeed in today’s business environment. A Harvard Business Review article on the CEO Genome Project identifies four critical behaviors that separate successful CEOs from their unsuccessful counterparts:

  1. Deciding with speed and conviction

  2. Engaging for impact

  3. Adapting proactively

  4. Delivering reliably

The effectiveness of these behaviors, which extends to all C-suite roles, is determined by an executive’s underlying skills and strengths.

Executive Coaching Advances Management and Leadership Skills

In addition to propelling productivity, executive coaching helps a C-suite leader gain self-awareness, increase confidence and eliminate fear to improve decision-making in the face of uncertainty. Executive coaching improves listening and communication skills to increase influence and impact. Finally, it strengthens leaders’ emotional intelligence (EQ) and promotes robust self-mastery to deepen connection and forge alignment with team members.

More than the individual benefits, companies also reap the rewards of executive coaching.

According to a recent Gartner survey on the top HR trends and priorities, building critical skills and competencies tops the list for the fourth straight year. Senior level executives who possess strong management and leadership skills can more effectively:

  • Build deeper connections with employees across and through the organization, which improves retention and facilitates attracting new employees.

  • Provide a sharper focus on rising talent while identifying potential performance trouble spots, particularly in leadership behavior areas.

  • Increase the chance for sustained organizational success and reduce the likelihood of reactive actions, such as layoffs.

When selecting the right executive coach, look for these important factors:

  • Compatibility and chemistry

  • Credibility and the right certifications

  • Partnership approach to co-create solutions

  • Empathy combined with accountability

  • Deep intuition and curiosity

Senior leaders who benefit from executive coaching encompass those who are:

  • Leading at the C-level for the first time

  • Concerned that their performance has shifted from reliable to inconsistent

  • Believing they’re operating “out of their depth”

  • Suffering from burnout and stress

  • Seeking a greater sense of well-being and ease in their professional life

Top Executive Management and Leadership Skills

To succeed in the C-suite, executives require strong proficiency in a wide range of management and leadership skills comprising:

Executive Management Skills

  • Prioritization

  • Decision-making, particularly in the face of uncertainty and change

  • Delegation and execution

  • Talent identification and selection

  • Deep subject matter expertise

Leadership Skills

  • Emotional intelligence

  • Listening and communicating

  • Foresight and creating a shared vision

  • Strategic thinking

  • Possessing a growth mindset

  • Motivating and inspiring others

  • Initiating change

  • Navigating internal politics

Not surprisingly, most of these are interpersonal skills. For C-suite executives, the importance of these skills often exceeds that of technical skills. They’re also the biggest drivers of executive presence and predictors of C-suite success.

The combination of executive management and leadership skills ensures the proper balance between performance and performance enablement. The focus is on both what needs to get done and how to accomplish it effectively, efficiently, and sustainably.

Think of this as “leading with power” instead of “leading by force.”

Executive Coaching Helps CFO Develop Executive Management Skills

Executive coaching helps leaders optimize their performance to deliver outstanding results in all conditions and regardless of circumstances.

Leading Edge Coaching & Consulting worked with the newly hired finance leader of a private manufacturing firm. This was his first time in a C-suite leadership role. The new landscape and scope of his responsibilities led him to seek coaching. This CFO was brought in specifically because of his deep subject-matter expertise, broad experience across several industries and success in leading change initiatives.

Members of the company’s senior leadership team (SLT) had been there for more than 25 years, as was the prior CFO. As he met members of the SLT, he found they were conflict-averse, change-resistant, and consensus-driven. They also didn’t view the role of CFO as a particularly strategic one, based on his predecessor’s performance. He began wondering how he could succeed in driving change, when his fellow executives collectively possessed a fixed mindset.

He struggled to find his voice in C-suite meetings. Even though he was hired to be the CFO, he still felt like a finance director among these leaders. He had thoughts and opinions on topics, but he hesitated to share them. He debated himself in his head, and by the time he marshalled the confidence to speak, the time to contribute had passed.

Leading Edge’s work with this senior executive focused on four broad streams to build his executive presence:

  1. Recognizing the unique factors that influence his own ability to perform at peak levels.

  2. Identifying and challenging performance blocks, including limiting beliefs, interpretations, assumptions and negative self-talk. These narrowed his perspectives, limited his options, constrained his effectiveness and diminished his success and happiness.

  3. Developing awareness and building strategies to reduce judgment, increase curiosity, build resilience and create accountability.

  4. Learning the business intimately, identifying his colleagues’ priorities and values, and seeking opportunities to jointly develop and implement plans to make changes, support continuous learning, and ignite versatility.

Coaching helped him regain his confidence, so he could step firmly into performing as a CFO. He took time to get to know each SLT member and build deeper relationships. This helped to increase trust between them. Consequently, it became easier over time to discuss ideas, ask powerful questions and expand the SLT’s comfort zone for seeking out different viewpoints.

One of his biggest successes came during a midyear board meeting. Rather than giving a dry recitation of the numbers as the board was accustomed to hearing, he connected the dots between the financial results and the success stories he learned from his colleagues acknowledging each function’s contributions to the quarter’s performance.

The board chair remarked to him afterward that this presentation was entirely different from any other financial review he had seen. There was deeper engagement, more robust questions, and a greater sense of understanding and buy-in. Most significantly, it built stronger alignment and commitments around future plans, than the SLT and board had experienced in previous meetings.

Achieve Results from Executive Coaching

The biggest C-suite management challenges often revolve around achieving balance among prioritization, leading through uncertainty, and navigating interpersonal relationships. The increased level of complexity and the impact of decisions at stake are typically much higher than in other leadership roles. This adds to stress that complicates clear decision-making, which further compromises adaptation, execution and delivering results.

Executive coaching helps C-suite leaders master the skills necessary to achieve this balance. It helps leaders put them into practice to increase objectivity, gain resilience and build a high-performing team that is engaged, resilient and delivers results consistently regardless of circumstances.

Find out more about 4D Leadership & Executive Coaching by Leading Edge and schedule a complimentary discovery call to discuss how coaching can support your growth and performance as a leader.