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David F. D'Alessandro & Michele Owens

Executive warfare

When you begin your career at a company, being intelligent, diligent, and effective typically leads to promotions. However, once you reach the upper echelons of management, these qualities alone are insufficient, as your peers will also possess them. Advancement at this stage requires cultivating relationships with influential individuals. Mastering ten key rules of engagement is crucial for ascending to and maintaining a top position. Successfully applying these principles can significantly propel your career forward, while neglecting them may lead to its downfall. The decision on how to proceed is in your hands.

Executive warfare
Executive warfare

book.chapter Principle #1 – keys to prosperity

To excel at the executive level, it's crucial to find a role that aligns with your natural talents and abilities. This alignment can propel you to the junior executive level, but to rise higher, you need to broaden your horizons. Three key areas to focus on are attitude, risk, and luck. Attitude involves being fully committed to your role, excelling in presentations, being an expert in your field, understanding your organization, being prepared for constant scrutiny, and maintaining discretion and discipline. It's essential to control your greed, arrogance, and lack of discipline to stand out and continue moving up. Risk management is another crucial aspect of higher management. It involves managing risks intelligently and in a calculated manner. This includes handling enterprise risks, which can have significant consequences for your organization. It's important to appreciate the realities of the situation and approach risks in a calculated manner. Being overly risk-averse or not appreciating the risks can be problematic. Encouraging new ideas and having mechanisms to analyze them can mark you as ready for the upper echelon. Lastly, luck, or having the right skills at the right moment, can also play a role in your success. Working hard can maximize opportunities to make your own luck. If you're passed over for a promotion, consider forming a task force or looking for an executive opening elsewhere. Remember, you can't force luck, but you can position yourself where it's more likely to strike.

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