7 essential C-level skills you need to be prepared for the challenges ahead

C-level skills in transition!

The fourth industrial revolution is fundamentally changing our markets, companies, business models and working lives with digitalisation, artificial intelligence, online sales platforms and social media.

Turbulent times and incalculable geopolitical influences require agile action and resilience.

You can read an overview of which skills are really relevant today here….
Also gaining massively in importance, of course, are the issues of sustainability, geopolitical and unpredictable influences alongside the environment and climate, and the expectations of Generation Y and its successor generations, and these should be represented commensurately in every strategy.

7 essential C-level skills to be prepared for the challenges ahead:

1. Leadership

• Agility
• Resilience
• Agile leadership
• Leadership skills
  

2. Entrepreneurship and strategy

• Implementing a vision
• Strategic thinking and execution management
• Strategic orientation of an organisation
• Developing corporate culture and exemplifying value systems
• Uncertainty management in the context of the VUCA world: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity
  

3. Human resources management

• Team and relationship building
• Relationship management
• Generational coach – the ability to connect and build bridges
  

4. Business and financial knowledge

• Understanding the inner workings of a company
• Entrepreneurial thinking and action
• Analysing market and customer needs
  

5. Technological know-how and technical skills

• Artificial intelligence
• Data science
• Machine learning
• Cybersecurity
• Cloud computing
• Robotics automation processes
  

6. Change management

• Permanent mutability
• Design thinking
• Innovation management
  

7. Communication and representation

• Communicator
• Presenting and persuading for the long term
• Authenticity and credibility
• Openness and clarity

These essential new core competencies are part of the basic equipment of the new CEO generation. The skills of agility, agile leadership and resilience are taking on a whole new significance, in both business and the personal sphere. Flexibility in respect of new technologies, the understanding of new technology-based competitors, speed of response to changing customer needs, managing investor expectations and acting as a generational coach for future leaders form the spectrum of the new mind set of the CEO generation. Agility is also becoming a crucial success factor for every CEO because their lifecycles are becoming ever shorter and the pressure to succeed is increasing.
This overview is based on the studies “CEO Outlook 2019 von KPMG”, the “CEO-Umfrage von Gartner 2019” and the “Report 7 C-Suite Skills by Saint Mary’s College of California 2019”.

Dirk Aaron Bohl / Executive Profiler