The career path to reach the CEO position is not orthodox. To become the captain who will command the company and its crew, there is a natural growth dynamic that needs to be passed on for this professional to develop the necessary skills to connect with and inspire teams, guiding according to the desired objectives. But, the big question that ambitious people in this position ask is: what is the best way to achieve this position? And, what other experiences do they need to have to contribute to this journey?
Many studies indicate that a large part of current CEOs have held, previously, the role of CFO. In fact, this is a quite advantageous position competitively towards the role of CEO, and it tends to be the most logical way to do this.
The Chief Financial Officer is usually the one who has the "key to the safe" of companies. He oversees the commercial area of the venture, the internal projects, and maintains important banking relationships for corporate economic health. For dealing with responsibilities more sensitive to business operations and having access to highly relevant internal information, is what makes it, as a consequence, one of the professionals with the highest degree of credibility and penetration internally, when compared to the other executives.
As it has a more technical bias in its responsibilities, normally, they are looking for strategic people from other areas (commercial, marketing, sales etc.to assist you towards the progression to the CEO position – all these, characteristics that justify the greater predominance of CFOs over Chief Executive Officers.
However, no matter how much this dynamic ends up prevailing and being the most "natural" in the market, it is not a scientific and rigid process to be followed, not excluding other people from other areas from reaching that position. In practice, those who wish to follow this path should be concerned, far beyond developing the precise technical skills, to improve as a leader of people and processes, having the ability to inspire and deliver to ascend over time to more senior positions, shifting from being a vertical professional to a transversal one.
After all, a good CEO should have a strategic and detailed vision of all areas of the company. Even without having extensive knowledge and depth in all, you will need to see the whole with intelligence and know how to make things happen. This, in addition to surrounding himself with strategic people who assist him in this decision-making process, in which I trust to understand, with better assertiveness, everything that is happening internally so that you know what to do in order to improve the results achieved.
It is undeniable that the position of CEO stands out as one of the most sought after in the market in terms of career progression. Although, for a long time, to have been seen merely as a position that would bring enormous bonuses to its occupants, today these references also bring and elucidate their burden – not only in terms of responsibility, as well as the solitude of occupying it, in terms of your decision-making and relevance to corporate progression and prosperity.
This greater clarity, as much as it also made many people stop wanting, strongly, to occupy this position, it was an extremely positive movement to awaken individual self-reflection on what they want in their professional paths.
To those who aspire to become a CEO, it is necessary to be clear in mind about the complexities of the responsibilities of this position, for what, when faced with any crossroads, do not tend to abandon the ship instead of having resilience and persistence to overcome difficulties and boost the company in its segment. É, in fact, a solitary chair, but that, to those who really want to accept the challenge, can bring exceptional advantages to your reputation in the market.
