The responsibilities of a senior manager have diversified over the past twenty years. Previously, it was enough to be a good high-level manager, but today, you also have to be a good coach and have in your toolbox many essential soft skills.
In a business world where increasingly large organizations are evolving, these relational skills make it possible to contribute to the success of a company by taking into account today’s values. These new values are work-life balance, diversity in all its forms, staff satisfaction and mobility, and inclusion. The new generations of senior managers are well in tune with these new values.
These are great challenges for high-potential candidates!
A new generation of executives
In terms of demographics, the turnover rate of senior managers is now higher than a decade ago, because the age cohort of “new executives” is smaller. In a context where many senior managers in their sixties are retiring — or will soon be leaving — this situation presents great opportunities for advancement for the youngest, that is to say those in their forties and fifties.
Organizational changes do not scare these resilient young executives. Born between 1965 and 1980, they already have great achievements behind them. They are more inspired by business personalities like Jeff Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon, born in 1964, than Bill Gates, born in 1955 and founder of the world’s largest software publisher in the seventies. For this new generation of senior executives, the founder of Microsoft and his team are almost like a dinosaur.
In this new context, many high-potential executive candidates are thinking of knocking on the doors of the most dynamic companies. But what do you do when you already have so many responsibilities on your shoulders? The temptation to look elsewhere is even greater if a senior manager in office finds that he does not have free rein to realize his full potential.
When a senior executive is happy in their job, we are in the best of all worlds. But when interpersonal relationships cool down or the organizational machine starts to squeak, the call from the sea is powerful. The grass suddenly turns greener in the neighbor.
The network of contacts of a headhunter is the best ally of a senior executive in a career advancement process.
Sending your resume to a headhunter is the first thing to do. This professional knows how to recognize the talent of a high-potential candidate committed to a professional reconversion. He also knows how to make it known to the right people. If you belong to this category of people, do not hesitate to take this first step.
There are a large number of profiles where you could regain the job satisfaction you have lost. Let’s take a look at the main reasons why current senior managers are thinking about changing their workplace. You will see, there are several!
Very varied situations
Spending more time with your family
The famous work-life balance is more than ever on the agenda. A business is a family, but there are some fundamental differences. Today, this factor is even more important, especially since the arrival of women in the labour market and in management positions. Family responsibilities are less stereotypical and everyone puts their own spin on them. An unhappy executive in his family life will not make the best strategic advisor in a company that faces major challenges.
The wear and tear of the daily routine
No one had seen it coming, but suddenly the strange feeling of reliving “Groundhog Day” is back. It’s a widespread sense of déjà vu where the passion for work has become sclerotic into habits, routines, and sterile meetings. Let’s call it the professional winter. In addition, it took the departure of colleagues close to you to make everything so painful and boring. Here, we urgently need new stimulating challenges to regain the pleasure of the work accomplished.
The weight of multi-layer management
In a large company, if a senior manager has the impression that his important decisions are no longer decisions, but opinions immediately neutralized by other colleagues, and nothing helps… it’s not moving forward… we trample. In short, this senior executive no longer has the free hand to give the best of himself. In this type of situation, we will even see super executives decide to go to work in a smaller company, just to regain autonomy, satisfaction and pleasure at work.
The toxic boss
The toxic, indifferent or ungrateful boss is not the one who hired you. You just got to know him. Worse, the questionable leadership of some leaders favored colleagues who were primarily careerists and did not have the flame of personal fulfillment that is yours. Birds of a feather flock together. Widespread incompetence quickly becomes unbearable, even if it is successful. What else to do but leave the ship?
Where is the growth?
Knowing how to manage growth is one thing, but knowing how to navigate in bad weather is another. A company that proves incapable of progress, knows too many failures despite all your efforts, can overcome the nerves of the best captains following a few solid edges on rough seas. After several repeated professional frustrations, the calm horizon of new, more welcoming lands can make you dream.
Wrong direction
This hyper-talented senior executive is gradually finding himself in a professional career based on an accumulation of logical, well-founded and even successful professional choices, but which in the long run have led him in the wrong direction. You could say that he is a victim of his success! His undeniable talent has led him to occupy a position that does not correspond to his values or his desires. What a strange situation! This senior executive in constant reflection has the impression that there is a permanent gap between everyday life and his aspirations. We look forward to a new career plan!
Change as therapy
If boredom becomes a routine, but this obligatory routine is based on essential financial security, it can generate growing dissatisfaction at work. A troubled dissatisfaction that continues silently and puts its victim to sleep like a slow poison. If you are looking for stability in your working life to the point of accepting the monotony of a decision-making position that does not suit you and that you are doing well, no problem. But if it’s causing you ongoing worries, listen to that important signal and start bringing the great person you are to another employer.
Organizational tsunami
Be careful, the company where you have been working for years and in which you thought you would end your career is turned upside down by a major restructuring where alliances and professional relationships that took you years to build take the edge. The demobilization of everyone is at the rendezvous and threatens the productivity of this company, and therefore your career. In short, it’s not going well. Nothing prevents you from going elsewhere if you are there. The opportunities are there.
Enough is enough
You are that workaholic who rushes into life and knocks down all the obstacles in his path. But too much unnecessary travel, too much exhausting travel, and too many exhausting administrative processes deprive you of the essential oxygen needed to make informed decisions at a high level. In short, you are not flying at the altitude where you thought you would fly and the cloud ceiling is proving to be lower and lower. In addition, you are not far from professional overwork and you feel it well. A holiday will not change anything and the indicator light of the ejection seat flashes louder and louder.
Headhunter and business hunter
As you can see, there are many valid reasons to reconsider your career plan if dissatisfaction is at the rendezvous.
Currently, many senior managers approach a headhunter for their own reasons. There are indeed many opportunities for talented executives of the new generation. And it’s never too early to discuss this with a headhunter who specializes in high-potential leadership positions and management talent.
For a senior executive who is considering changing employers, or even changing sectors of activity, collaborating with a headhunter to find a position that matches his talent is a preferred solution. For this, he must choose an experienced headhunter, a headhunter who is also a business hunter. Thanks to his network of human resources contacts in diverse sectors, this experienced recruiter can open many doors for you.
Headhunters are professionals who adhere to a code of ethics and absolute discretion in their dealings with their clients, whether they are companies or senior executives. The daily practice of this profession often leads to the realization that there is a lot of talent that is lost because the right people are not in the right place.
Good headhunters are well aware of new trends in the job market and are excellent negotiators to help you find the working conditions that are important to you. They have access to a wide selection of very different companies through their network of contacts.
By meeting an experienced headhunter, you could explore new avenues you’ve never thought of. This can be very stimulating in a period of your life that is synonymous with necessary change. Don’t wait until it’s too late, start today and take the time it takes to find what you’re looking for.
Love always love
In his article ” Why Love Is the Key to Career Success “, published in the Harvard Business Review, author Marcus Buckingham states that 20% of satisfying daily tasks at work are the threshold of resilience to keep one’s job. The essence of his point is reproduced in this article in French: ” Love at least 20% of his work: the magic threshold of resilience “.
According to the author, ” People who feel love, strength, joy and excitement doing what they do every day are much more productive. They stay longer in the job and manage to overcome the inevitable challenges of a job. Finding a job you love is not being self-indulgent or narcissistic; it is a precursor and a performance amplifier. »
It is often said that recruiting a senior executive is expensive, but a senior executive who is not at his or her full potential in a company that does not suit him or her is also very expensive.
Senior managers are no different from other workers in the world of work. They need to find positive emotions and intrinsic stimulation in their work. They need to love their work. Isn’t it said that someone who loves his job doesn’t work? Beautiful paradox! I would even say that leaders and senior managers have an even greater need to love their work than other workers, because achievement through work is even more important in their lives. They are bold achievers as they say.
Some have even worked all their lives to work even more, let’s say to meet bigger challenges. So, it is very understandable that they have rather the short wick when the important and well-paid position they occupy begins to disappoint them. “If we can’t even have fun working anymore!” they say to themselves in their hearts.
These senior executives are high-potential personalities. They are leaders who do not tolerate mediocrity. As a result, this also makes them even more demanding people at work. They want to succeed and want the people around them to succeed too, the teams, the other executives, because, yes, for them, work is an essential component of a busy life.
Team up with a headhunter
If you fall into this category of people, be aware that the unique skills of headhunters are still too little used by senior executives to find a new challenge to suit them. Yet together they form a great team, as they both know the world of work inside out. They have different perspectives that are worth discussing.
We invite you to contact Recruscope to promote your skills as a senior executive and to regain full satisfaction in a high-level position.
