The growth of any organization depends on the vision implemented by its CEO. Being at the topmost position, a CEO oversees all the operations in the company, which includes IT, Marketing, Finance, and also maintaining the company’s public image. While it’s a high-pressure job, the prestige that follows on securing this profile makes it the end goal for most MBA graduates. But how many actually become a CEO? There is an interesting study behind it.
Harvard Business School recently published an article with the title,The Fastest Path to the CEO Job . It was a ten-year study conducted by Elena Botelho, Kim Powell, and Nicole Wong, who reviewed 17,000 C-suite executives, where they studied 2,600 personnel in-depth to analyze their path to the top. They found that the ones who made bold career moves accelerated faster towards the CEO position. Moreover, only 24% of the ones that made it to the top had MBAs from elite B-schools. This solidified the argument that most of the MBAs focused on honing the specialization skill set rather than creating a pathway to becoming a CEO in the future.
Keeping that in mind, the 60 global CEOs on the board of Universal Business School decided to curate a program called the Global CEO management program. Let’s take a detailed look at it.
Benefits of a programme created by global CEOs
UBS, alongside Cardiff School of Management and IIM Indore, have curated a Global CEO management program that provides students with a globally accredited MBA Degree delivered over two continents, Asia and Europe. Students can opt for this program across four Major specialisations – Finance, Marketing, HR and Logistics & Supply chain.
By opting for this program, students will –
● Develop confidence to face any challenge. ● Become adaptable and agile.
● Use the right analytical tools. ● Explore new approaches to critical thinking and independent analysis. ● Facilitate quick decision-making ● Come up with innovative solutions to business problems
In this program, students undergo a five level transformation towards becoming a leader with an innovative mindset, and entrepreneurial flair. Let’s learn about this transformation in detail.
The 5 level transformation
Here’s a step-by-step guide of the 5 level transformation offered by UBS’s Global CEO management program-
1. At the first level, students have to procure a consulting project where they provide a solution to their respective companies and get paid for their services. In the process, they will be delving into a real-life industry problem.
2. Upon procuring a project, students get live projects and undergo design thinking learning at the second level. It prepares them for the ‘Business Pressure Cooker’ elective, which teaches them to solve live industrial problems.
3. At the third level, students undergo a 50-hour non-stop case blazer activity. It will mirror the time and outcome pressure in an industry, and promote a culture of unmatched work ethic.
4. At the fourth level, students go through an intensive four-day Capsim simulation. Capsim is an organization that brings students together to experience a business strategy on a global stage. During this simulation period, Capsim invites business leaders, who speak the importance of making critical business decisions in real-time across the enterprise.
5. At the fifth and final level, UBS introduces its students to innovative modules such as Innathon, Tri-business championships, and the Sandwich game. For instance, The Global Thomas Reuters trading room allows students to trade global stocks commodities, bonds, and currencies across 75 live exchanges and five continents in real-time. It familiarizes our students with the concept of the butterfly effect, where they understand causal relationships from macro to micro-events and how they impact the market.
By completing these five levels of transformation, each student develops a detailed entrepreneurial project, which has been used by our scholars to launch their own businesses. Building CEO attributes
Our Global CEO Management program will instill the following CEO attributes –
● Strong communication skills – In any corporate setting, CEOs set workplace standards. They possess the ability to uplift the moral of their team, and motivate them to work efficiently. How do CEOs do that? Through strong communication skills. CEOs with strong communication skills can articulately express their needs and expectations from their team. This form of transparent and balanced communication help CEOs build a connection with fellow employees, which reflects on the potential to develop excellent working relations with clients. Therefore, any MBA program aiming to produce corporate leaders emphasize greatly on improving the communication skills of their students. It could be through debates or any other extracurricular activity that require students to be confident with their communication.
● Workplace understanding – The important trait that distinguishes CEOs as leaders of their organizations is the ability to understand employees and manage them accordingly. They understand that not everyone learns on the job at the same pace. By showing patience and confidence in their employees, CEOs can provide a platform for them to succeed.
Moreover, CEOs can create a healthy and collaborative work environment by training their employees with contemporary tools in their line of work. Such an approach resonates well with the employees, and helps in building a mutual understanding based on trust and loyalty .
● Outside-the-box thinking – With changing times, new ideas, products, or services always keep on ushering in the market. It stems from the fact that organizations want to evolve themselves by embracing newer technologies and meet the ever-changing market demands. As a result, when tried and tested methods don’t work, CEOs must possess the competency to think outside the box to achieve certain business goals. They can incorporate their team members to get their opinion on the matter, and seek ideas that can be successfully implemented. While there is a risk involved in releasing a product based on a never-before-implemented idea, CEOs must show the confidence to take calculated risks. It will help them overcome the fear of failing, and eventually lead the company to the path of success.
By opting for this program, aspiring management students will gain the requisite professional expertise and set themselves on a path to be a future CEO.
