https://inverify.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/is-the-chief-hr-executive-a-good-path-for-ceo/

IS THE CHIEF HR EXECUTIVE A GOOD PATH FOR CEO

Yes, the Chief HR Executive does make a great CEO.

Harvard Business Review’s recent publication, “Why Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) Make Great CEOs” December, 2014 uncovered new leadership potential that’s waiting to be tapped.

HR departments in the past have been seen as a back-office function to administer compensation and benefits plans. These leaders have been hidden behind CFOs or COOs and lacked the exposure needed to take a leadership role in strategy implementations that can truly transform a company.

Over the last 10 years a new trend is emerging and more CHROs are reporting to the CEO and playing a key advisory role. There are more and more identifiable CEOs today who have held leadership roles in HR. Example, Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, served as VP of HR and Anne Mulcahy, Xerox’s CEO for 8 years, ran the company’s HR operations. Many CEOs today have also acknowledged that it is very difficult to achieve success without an outstanding CHRO.

The University of Michigan professor and leading consultant on organization and talent issues, Dave Ulrich, evaluated several sets of data from thousands of 360-degree assessments and uncovered the following trends in leadership traits. When comparing leadership traits among CEOs, COOs, CHROs, CIOs, CMOs, and CFOs, Ulrich found an extremely high correlation of leadership traits between the CEOs and CHROs. The traits that most closely aligned between CEO and CHRO are as follows:

Leadership Styles

• Social
• Participative

Thinking Styles

• Flexible
• Creative
• Complex

Emotional Competencies

• Ambiguity Tolerance
• Composure
• Empathy

As this trend continues the HR department will be a stepping-stone for Executives moving into the CEO role. With many of these new HR leaders coming in with backgrounds in Finance, Operations and other business disciplines we anticipate more focus on streamlining fundamentals and evolving HR into more of a strategic partner with the business. This perspective will require new ideas for managing and executing foundational blocking and tackling HR activities.

We recommend being prepared and focusing 2015 on streamlining core HR activities like managing employee records, on-boarding activities, managing vendors, administering benefits, and improving reporting to allow the HR leadership team better opportunities to serve the strategic needs of the business.