Top Ten List: What Employers Want
by James M. Citrin Spencer Stuart
1. Leadership and integrity. In an era when public confidence in business leaders is at the lowest point in a generation and talented employees are highly demanded (regardless of the challenging economic circumstances), nothing is more sought after than people—at all levels—who can inspire a group of people to accomplish important and challenging goals. This will be done by living with integrity and leading by example, displaying a passion which spreads rapidly, and putting what people do in the context of meaningful work.
2. Track record of results. In the aftermath of the dot.com bust, we are back to basics, where everyone—from shareholders, boards, financial analysts—care about proven track records. No longer are companies hiring at the senior levels more on potential than demonstrated track record.
3. General management/ P&L experience. Leaders who have experience putting all the pieces of an operation and income statement together and an understanding of how they combine to drive bottom line growth are those that are most valuable. Regardless of the particular role that a person is in, he or she must be viewed as a "complete" business person with a holistic view of the company.
4. Sales and sales management skills. Top executives right up to the CEO today are a company's number one salesman. They have to be when companies are competing more aggressively than ever to strike the multi-million dollar enterprise agreements.
5. Execution skills. Strategy is great and will always be important. However, today and for the coming years, it's all about translating those strategies into demonstrated results. This requires a relentless focus on execution. Execution has to do with all the things that groups of people do every single day. People who can meet their commitments and execute with excellence are more highly prized than ever.
6. Partnership and alliance expertise. With the conglomerate going the way of the dinosaurs, the current and coming era will be all about playing to an organization's unique strengths and competitive advantage. As a result, in an era of outsourcing, a business leader's ability to forge strategic alliances and partnerships will be more and more essential.
7. Acquisition and integration experience. Totally apart from the increasingly important alliance and partnership skills, business leaders and companies will need to display a core competency in acquiring and integrating companies. Many companies have grown through acquisition; however, only great companies such as GE have acquired and integrated companies effectively to get talent, customer relationships, and new product lines.
8. Comfort with technology and the Internet. While large companies are no longer threatened to their essence by start-ups, the best companies and boards recognize that it would be a serious mistake to think that technology and the Internet is going away and that we can get "back to normal." The fact is that technology and the Internet need to be woven into all aspects of a company's external and internal operations and business leaders and executives will need to be the ones to drive it.
9. Cost reduction/turn-around skills. As more and more companies have over-promised and under-delivered, they will need leaders who can come in and restructure over-built cost-structures, reduce overhead levels, and root out inefficiencies in business systems to make them cost competitive.
10. International experience and sensibility. The world economy is becoming increasingly global and this will continue over the next ten years. However, it will be increasingly important for business leaders to recognize and be sensitive to the ethnic, cultural, linguistic differences that have lagged far behind the development of international trade. Not only will this skill help companies, but it is one of the most important ingredients in helping bridge the world's differences which happen to be at the heart of many of our most pressing problems.
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