re: How did most C-Suite Execs get to that position?

quote:

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Always be a yes man to everyone above you in hierarchy
Never pushback on those above you
Always be willing to cover/lie for those above you

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Guy like this, who worked under at one point then adjacent, totally stabbed me in the back.

Just an awful person.



I couldn't do a Fortune 500, that's pure politics. I stick to the Startups and Small Companies, Exec Level. Most are good people, good leaders. Politics still exist - but it's mostly just kingdom building, battling over resources. Nothing too competitive.

Its called falling upwards. A lot of companies will promote failures just to get them out of the critical position they are currently in and send them to an office job where they cant frick anything up

Carry out executives/owners wishes without challenging them
Be the best friend or relative of an executive or owner

Frankly, I'd love to just coast in a sweet spot.

Enough $$ to live comfortably, but not so high that you would rank as fat to cut during a layoff.

Important enough to have value day to day, but not so important as to have to deal with after-hours texts and constant tethering to execs.

No direct reports to deal with if your company has a tedious goals/review process.

I interact with senior leaders daily. I’ll boil it down to trust, dependability, communication & storytelling.

In terms of actually getting up the ladder, tremendous about of luck and happenstance…preparation meeting opportunity.

For large public companies, one dimension that I think gets overlooked for people with CEO aspirations: You have to get to the middle management roles rapidly early in your career. If you don’t, then you “age out” of achieving the top level jobs. Achieving VP in mid to late 30s…SVP early 40s…creates ability for a Chief role in mid 40s. A board generally wants a CEO with at least a good amount of time of the clock before retirement so early 50s is a target.

Someone getting to a VP rank at 50 just doesn’t have enough years left to get to the top spot very often.

We should also delineate…there is a massive difference between CEO and “Chief XYZ Officer” in F500 settings. Just look at the pay differences between CEO and their direct reports…it’s shocking how quickly the comp bands decrease.

It helps to be an unshakable person. In both my careers I was that way.

When All Hell breaks loose and people freeze, panic, stand there jaws agape, I was the person who was still in control and understood the necessary steps to make. Whether it was a FBI raid on a shady business or a patient suddenly developed vomiting blood over the end of the gurney, I never froze.

Talent like that along with being able to keep several steps ahead of the next domino to fall. Like they talk about chess players being several moves ahead, being able to just “see” the future ramifications of every action several steps away.

That’s the stuff of C Suite Leadership.

Some are groomed by very smart people. The CEO/president of the worlds largest auto parts company was the son of the friend of the founder and was essentially sent to Ivy League schools to learn to be a leader before being hired as a "mgt trainee". I trained this guy for 3 months on the day to day workings of the company (AZO) and within 1 year he was a senior level corporate executive and within 10 he was CEO. It was a well thought out plan to insure competent leadership to take the company forward for decades.

I’ve always felt like this was a sad path for a man to take. You are higher up in the social hierarchy, you have superior assets and financial resources, but they own you. Who wants to live inside the center of a bureaucratic commerce machine and be owned? While I admire the intelligence and ambition and most of all- the competency of many of these people, I certainly don’t aspire to be them. I think they pay a heavy price.

Being a successful business owner is the best for the business savvy and ambitious man. Now if you are in a start up or a maverick type company or a truly collaborative meritocratic business environment, none of that first paragraph applies.

There's no easy answer for this. Some of them deserve it because of merit or the fact they are true leaders of men, some of them are who they knew and some of them are - luck or timing. That said, I have seen some make it because of luck/timing/who they knew and were able to hold on or move up because they reached down and found their leadership. Rare though.

It’s a rare combination of the ability to schmooze, the ability to speak the biz lingo, and optionally some know-how.