The Skills That Matter Most as Your Responsibility Grows

Research & Sources / Personal & Career Development

A young carpenter starts with a toolbox: saw, hammer, chisel. They get really good with each tool. Years later, the same carpenter runs a workshop with twenty people and big projects. The tools still matter, but now they also need a compass, a map and a way to talk to clients and teams. The higher you rise, the more your job moves from the toolbox to the compass.

What got you here won’t get you there

Early in a career, technical skills drive success: being excellent at your craft, fast, reliable and accurate. These skills don’t disappear. But as responsibility grows, other skills become the main difference between good and great.

Research by Alan Benson and colleagues showed that top individual performers did not automatically become good managers.¹ The skills that make an excellent specialist are different from those that make an excellent leader.

The skills that grow in importance

Judgement. Deciding well with incomplete information. Elena Botelho and colleagues studied more than 2,000 executives and found that decisiveness, making decisions faster and with more conviction, was one of the behaviours that set successful CEOs apart.²

Prioritisation. Choosing what not to do. Peter Drucker observed that effective executives first ask “what needs to be done?” and then focus on the few things that matter most.³

Communication. Explaining direction clearly, listening, and making people feel heard.

Developing others. In Google’s study of great managers, being a good coach was one of the most important behaviours.⁴

Self-awareness. Knowing your effect on others, and your blind spots.

Energy management. Larger roles bring more pressure and longer stretches of intensity. Sustaining performance becomes a skill in itself.

Build them before you need them

The best time to develop these skills is before the big promotion. You can practise judgement by taking ownership of decisions in your current role. You can practise developing others by mentoring a junior colleague. You can practise prioritisation by saying no to low-value work.

Keep your craft alive, but in balance

Many leaders lose touch with the technical side completely, which makes them less credible and less useful. Others hold on to it too tightly and never let go. The healthy middle: stay close enough to the craft to understand it, but spend most of your time on the compass.

What this means for you this week

• Rate yourself 1 to 5 on judgement, prioritisation, communication, developing others, self-awareness and energy.
• Ask one person to rate you on the same list.
• Pick the gap that matters most for your next step.
• Find one way to practise it in your current role this month.

Keep your tools sharp. But start learning to read the compass.

Sources

1. Benson, A., Li, D. & Shue, K. (2019). Promotions and the Peter Principle. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(4), 2085-2134. doi.orgTop salespeople were more likely to be promoted to manager, and their teams then performed worse: being good at the job is not the same as being good at leading it.
2. Botelho, E. L., Powell, K. R., Kincaid, S. & Wang, D. (2017). What Sets Successful CEOs Apart. Harvard Business Review. hbr.orgStudy of more than 2,000 executives: decisiveness, engaging for impact, adapting proactively and delivering reliably distinguished successful CEOs.
3. Drucker, P. F. (2004). What Makes an Effective Executive. Harvard Business Review. hbr.orgEffective executives ask what needs to be done, write action plans, take responsibility for decisions and communication, and focus on opportunities.
4. Google re:Work. Following the data: The research behind great managers (Project Oxygen). rework.withgoogle.comBehaviours of Google’s most effective managers: coaching, empowering, communicating, a clear vision; technical skill is only one of them.