Developing your career: how do you fuel the journey?

Elite sporting competition teaches us that to succeed you need to push yourself in to unchartered territory – to grow, you must do things differently. Richard Branson was famously quoted as saying:

“If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes –

then learn how to do it later!”

I focus on two areas of senior finance: today’s financial leaders; and tomorrow’s future finance leaders. How tomorrow’s leaders become today’s is an aged old question and making that ‘next step’ is often about taking yourself out of a comfort zone, feeling awkward and trying something new. The challenge exists for the current leadership community too – survival is no longer enough; innovation and adaptability will enable you to thrive.

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” Charles Darwin

Last Tuesday brought about a morning meeting with a vastly experienced CFO who has operated at board level for the past 14 years and had an eye on two things: succession planning and moving in to the digital era. The same day resulted in an evening meeting with a high-flying senior finance manager, intent on being a future CFO and setting herself a 5-year window to achieve this.

“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.” Harold. S. Green

What struck me was that the discussion with the aforementioned CFO was generally around market conditions, the availability of talent and their flexibility to move to new geographies. My conversation with our progressive finance manager had an overarching theme of technical achievements, where they see themselves going in the future and a desire to have a business mentor to facilitate their career progression.

This led me on to thinking – what is in place to support the development of financial talent?

A SWOT analysis is a good first step. You are most likely to be a personal success and a success story for your employer if you maximise your talents. Likewise, people tend to go through fewer struggles if they understand what their perceived weaknesses are and most importantly, design a plan for how to overcome them.

“Chance favours the prepared mind.” Louis Pasteur

Mentoring and sponsorship can be a hugely beneficial exercise too – provided you partner with someone who will be open and constructive, not just tell you what you want to hear for a confidence booster. Mentoring is applicable at asset level too and Tech Manchester’s project leader Patricia Keating was recently quoted as saying that:

“Start-up companies that have been mentored have a 70 per cent survival rate.”

The best leaders are interactive, social and participative – not natural to you? Push yourself, you won’t be the only person who it doesn’t come naturally to. Technical skills will set you up for the future, however, leadership is about understanding people. Always seek to take on that additional responsibility; you will gain confidence and expand your intellectual capabilities. Take ownership for your personal development and remember that everybody started somewhere.

“The respected CFO continually invests in developing the technical and leadership skills of their staff

as well as their own.”

HedgerWay are a boutique senior financial leadership recruiter based in London: we facilitate change and enable development for your career and your team.