3 Problems CEOs Have! Finding The Hard-Skill Competencies for New Leaders!

From GW's Leadership Executive Workbench....

Our latest management survey showed that a CEO’s major issue today is the lack of Management Depth, so that whenever a leadership manager retires or departs, there is nobody ready to take their place. That forces them to go on the open market with head hunters, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, etc.

CEOs also realize that operational managers use hard-skill competencies of management the most, such as strategic planning, decision making, problem solving, setting objectives with key metrics (OKMs); and soft skills the least.

CEOs find themselves in a box. 

They send their HR managers to vendors with an abundance of business courses such as Open Sesame and Linkedin Learning, expecting a non-proficient management person to curate a program for them. After a year of paying $25,000 or more, the CEO finds himself in the same position he or she was in a year ago. Still no management depth, but a ton of empathy skills.

How do you measure kindness and empathy for a performance review?

They need Management Depth, but they possess no hard-skill development tools to solve the issue, and there are three problems as the reason.

Problem #1. You won’t find hard-skill competencies from any Human Resource Manager, because overall, they only understand the soft skill competencies of kindness, empathy, DEI, etc. and have their favorite soft skill “coach” who always gets the gig. This was confirmed to me by executives of Brandon Hall, a leading HR consultant, and NovationHR.

I tell everyone, the best soft-skill coach in the world is Gary Vaynerchuk! He’s the best, and always available with a free price. Yes, save your HR budget, he’s the best, and he’s FREE!

That means your operational managers have no training and development programs in the hard-skill tenets of managing as they proceed up the ranks, and I find them going into the internet for any sources they can find. They know they use hard-skill competencies 90% of the time, but get zero mentoring and training on how they work together.

That’s Problem #2. Since the 1990’s, HR has eliminated any funding for hard-skill competencies of management, and the trainers and consultants who provided the hard-skill development retired, closed up shop, or got a certified soft-skill coaching certificate. The coaches who remained in hard-skill training, could not mentor, so they cherry-picked some of the hard-skill competencies (like communications and innovation) and moved them into their soft-skill curriculum.

That leads to Problem #3. There were no experts remaining in hard-skill competencies of management, and as time continued, few understood the importance of how hard-skill competencies melded together in a company's process of management.

Those days are over!  My firm and I are the only source for mentoring, not just training, on the hard-skill competencies of leadership management, because we tied our talent with the hard-skill competencies of the 6 Functions of High Growth: strategy, planning, organizing, leadership, teamwork, and control.

Nobody else has even attempted to do this, and every new operational leader who wants to eventually become an executive should be ecstatic. Some will struggle a bit, because comprehension is key, particularly when you realize you will have to mentor your own direct reports some day.

I’m asking you to walk down to the HR manager’s office, and ask her to sign up for my Saturday newsletter, because every subscriber receives the new hard-skill development program for “New Leaders” when it launches in March.  She can get a taste of operational blocking and tackling in management so that you can participate next.

Suivez-Moi!

gw

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Suivez-Moi!

Gw