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HR Leader Development for an HR or Line Executive Role

LINE MANAGEMENT ONLY PATH

  1. Understand and appreciate the vast number of complexities and difficulties that the CEO and line executives must navigate within every fiscal year so that all functional aspects of the business are intertwined and coordinated successfully to beat the company’s competitors, achieve its financial goals and increase shareholder value.
  2. When establishing a development plan for an upcoming line management position, give primary emphasis to the necessary hard skills that are required for job success.
  3. Advise upper HR management in advance that you are exploring this line management career option as a possible career path. Even if the HR leader subsequently returns to HR after assuming a line management position, such experience will be invaluable to both HR and the company in the future.
  4. Seek out an influential line executive, preferably within the particular function in which you will assume your initial management position, who knows you well and can act as your mentor. Once selected, advise HR management accordingly.
  5. If the ultimate career goal is to operate and lead a business as a general management executive, you should uncover a sequential progression of management positions in the various key functions of the business (Product Development, IS, Sales, Finance, etc.) If the ultimate career goal is to become a functional executive (V-P Sales, V-P Marketing, etc.), uncover a sequential progression of management positions in the various sub-functions involved (for Manufacturing, they would be Manufacturing Engineering, Production, Inventory Control, Purchasing, Quality Assurance, etc.).
  6. In each subfunction, there are three or four key departments that have salaried management positions which are valued more than others. Each of these positions typically has three or four important areas of responsibility in which actual work experience is more desirable than others for advancement purposes.  If possible, you should strive to assume a management position within one of these important sub-functions.
  7. However, seek out your initial line management position within a particular function where you have had the most practical work experience interacting with their managers and different managerial positions. Review the job description and understand the position’s major areas of responsibility and the business objectives for the current fiscal year.
  8. Before assuming any line management position, make a concerted attempt to participate in and/or lead a major team project that deals directly with the particular line department or take an appropriate seminar in an effort to acquire some practical department knowledge.
  9. With the advice of the mentor and the new boss, review the key areas of responsibility for your management position and each position under your control beforehand. Learn about the major projects and tasks currently underway, the progress made to date and any potential roadblocks to success.  Finally, understand how the areas of responsibility and projects relate to the department’s business objectives.
  10. Start interacting with appropriate line management executives within the function regarding the department’s various business issues and how they relate to the function’s ability to meet its business objectives.
  11. Recognizing the desired 75% hard/25% soft skill mix for any line management position, seek out and verify the position’s required hard skills for your future development.
Jack Bucalo
Jack Bucalo
JACK has led the Global HR function for a Fortune 500 and 1000 international company and several other large international companies. With four years of line experience complementing his HR experience, he believes that the CHRO or HR Leader should play a more direct role in helping the CEO to achieve the company's business objectives and strategic goals, while effectively implementing its administrative duties. In doing so successfully, the CHRO or HR Leader can become an equal business partner with his/her line management peers while becoming more directly involved in the company's operational mainstream, rather than being just an administrative afterthought. As a pragmatic practitioner, Jack publishes detailed and actionable articles on a wide variety on critically-important HR issues on BIZCATALYST 360°. He is also on the advisory board for other web sites. Jack's over 20 years of executive-level HR experience for which he was responsible for company, executive and Board-related matters, form the basis for most of viewpoints.

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2 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Nicely balanced advice, Jack. I started my civilian career in retail. No one, on matter how HR qualified, could get into HR without starting on the sales floor. That lesson has stayed with me. My thought, HR MUST venture into operations at some point or risk becoming irrelevant.

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