4 minute read
Whether making an outside hire to fill an emerging gap or seeking to replace an outgoing executive, forward-looking company boards know the specifications for the perfect candidate have changed dramatically with the fast-evolving landscape. Many may not be able to articulate exactly what they do need, but they will know when they see it.
Senior leaders navigating a career progression or executive career transition therefore need a far more nuanced understanding of where the market is going, their place in it and to be able to demonstrate their value through compelling storytelling, not just impressive names, numbers and previous job titles.
A role specification is not a complete description of what the board requires and executives can no longer simply answer questions. They must learn to read what sits behind the brief and then build a leadership narrative around their genuine experience and skill sets that answers it directly to get ahead in this tight and selective market.
A job description passes through a chair, a nomination committee, an interim or outgoing incumbent, a human resources director and a search firm, and each of them removes the thinking that would have been most useful to you. What does reach you is a list of capabilities everyone could agree on; it describes the shape of the job but leaves out the argument that produced it.
The order of that list still carries information, because the capability a board is genuinely anxious about is usually either the first item or the one specified in unusual detail. In published records, you can also see what the organisation has committed to in front of shareholders; the remuneration committee’s choice of performance measures is the clearest statement any listed company makes about what it intends to pay for.
To respond to those signals, build an interpretation of your own career that speaks to them.
Two executives can hold near-identical records and receive very different receptions on the strength of that alone. Both may have spent 20 years in global consumer businesses, run international divisions and delivered double-digit growth.
One offers a commercially focused international leader with extensive experience in growth, transformation and operational excellence, which is accurate and entirely interchangeable.
The other says they help established consumer businesses find their next growth curve when the existing model has started to plateau, combining commercial discipline with organisational change.
Same career, two interpretations, and only the second gives a board something to engage with.
The test of any executive narrative is whether a search consultant can describe you accurately to a chair in two sentences. That conversation will happen without you. It happens more often the further you progress, and it can influence whether you make the shortlist.
Of course, it is absolutely essential that you can deliver what your narrative promises. Embellishment might get you part of the way but it will trip you up in the end. McKinsey has reported that two years after an executive transition, 27-46% are regarded as failures or disappointments. The story you tell during a process becomes the mandate you are held to once you arrive.
Understanding your own valuation and presentation is difficult, and reading a board’s subtext while you are personally invested in the outcome is harder still. Executive career coaching and mentoring give leaders an outside read on both and build a proposition that holds under scrutiny while still describing work you actually want to do.
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