在评估考察员工是否能够胜任管理层职位时，大部分与我们合作过的跨国公司都认为，这个人必须能够应对各类的挑战、处理各种问题，这样才能让公司信任他。因此管理层职位要求你具备全面的能力和素质，这些能力和素质能使你的表现和成绩对公司的成功起到关键作用。对高级经理而言，这方面标准就更高。
"在高级经理这样的职位上，你需要各方面完备的技能。" Victor Koo说到，“我在事业早期总是确保自己在主要职责上取得良好表现，而同时，我也努力培养一个高级经理应具备的其他能力。比如，我很早就认识到，对高级经理而言，借助他人的力量来取得成果是很重要的， 所以我在以前的工作中，会寻求加入管理项目并领导工作小组队伍的机会。这些经历最终得到了回报，它们不仅帮助我获得了日后的管理职位，也使我在一上任时就有良好表现。”
Julia Huang是PRCEDU.com（中国领先的网络学习教育公司）的CEO， 为了使具有高潜力的员工得到更全面的能力发展，她让他们去探索本部门之外的职责领域。她形容说：“我一直鼓励我的员工带着更强的猎奇精神去丰富自己的经历，获得更广阔的视野，以帮助自己胜任经理的职位。当你学习到不同的做事方法，你就能提高自己的做事效率，你会拥有更多创新的想法，远远超出你在与自己部门、公司同事交流中的所得。
Nicole Bernard甚至鼓励她的员工在商业之外的主题和兴趣上丰富他们的个人资历。“我遇到的本土职业人士中，太少人花时间学习心理，或想弄明白人们是怎么思考的。”Nicole评价道，“而懂得如何与人交往是你能否取得事业成功的重要因素。”毕竟，商业是人来操作的，刺激商业的决策是人来做出的。因此，懂得多、明白人的行为、并知道他人的思考方式都能帮助作为经理的你更好地处理各种事务。在你发展职业能力和职业经验的过程中，这些技能并不是代替品，而是非常高的附加值。”
你的软技能有多好?
虽然差距仍然存在，但客户也指出本土职业人士在一些关键领域所取得的巨大进步，其中包括：在履行职责以外对公司目标和业务情况有了更好、更全面的理解。他们注意到员工更愿意与高层交流并提供意见，在同事、客户面前的表现也更成熟。他们同时也发现员工在团队合作、寻找资源、解决问题方面的能力都有提高。他们还提到员工更努力提高自身的积极性、参与性、和责任感。
对于大多数想获得高级管理职位的本土职业人士来说，他们需要继续提高自己的软技能。这一过程需要时间，需要不断地训练，培养好习惯，直到这些习惯渐渐成为你处理问题的方法。因此，你现在就需要投入努力，积极到培养自己的软技能。
我的个人发展历程
早期职业倾向：
害羞而且消极
听过我关于求职市场和职业发展的演讲后，人们会认为我一直以来都擅长公共演讲。其实，20岁前的我恰恰与此相反。我从前对公共演讲感到恐惧，仅仅在一小群人面前发言都是极大的挑战。
当我向别人坦白这一点时，许多人难以相信。虽然我现在长得很高大，但小时候的我非常瘦小。我还记得高中前两年，我必须仰头看班里的大部分同学。他们都比我高一个头。站在他们身边，我感觉自己像站在一群巨人中。这导致我变得非常害羞、敏感，从来不敢加入班级讨论。当老师点名让同学回答问题时，我会低下头，假装认真地记着笔记，好像在说：“对不起，我现在很忙，不要打扰我，拜托千万不要！”
到了高年级，事情开始有了转机。我开始长个子了！突然之间，我和同龄人一样高。然而，虽然我的外表看起来长大了，但我内心还是十分害羞、敏感。这样的感觉到我工作之后依然还在。
因此，在我事业早期，我很擅长将自己放在能突显自己优点的位置，避免暴露自己缺点的场合。我很少主动迎接挑战 ，除非万不得已。 久而久之，我就知道怎样为人处事最好。所以尽管我很少参与其他的事务，但我给人的感觉是一个对其他事不敢兴趣的人，而非没有自信去处理事情的人（这种情况更常见）。多年来，我带着这样的面具 ，虽然越来越多的人来找我帮他们处理问题，但我始终没有信心，也没有能力去担起这些挑战。
我相信许多人或多或少都会这样，特别在初入职场时，他们不愿意走出自己安逸的环境，相反花大量的精力隐藏自己的弱点。但你的弱点终会暴露。如果想要晋升到更高的职位，总有一天你得面对这些缺点，与其逃避不如趁早面对。幸运的是，我能够在相对早的时候认识到这一点。
How To Become A Well-Rounded Management Professional
By Larry Wang
When evaluating staff for management roles, most of the international companies that we work with need to feel confident about a person’s ability to handle a wide range of challenging situations and issues that you will face. As such, these positions require you to develop well-rounded capabilities and qualities that allow you to reliably deliver the kind of performance and results that are critical to a company’s success in this market. That requirement becomes even greater for senior management roles.
"To perform at an executive level, you need to possess a full set of skills,” says Victor Koo. “Although I always made sure I was performing my main job function well early in my career, at the same time, I also worked on building other skill sets that I knew a top executive must have. For instance, I recognized early on how important it is as an executive to achieve results through others. So in the jobs that I had before, I would seek out opportunities to get involved in managing projects and running task force teams. Those experiences really paid off not only in helping me to get into management roles later in my career, but also in allowing me to perform in them once I got there.”
Julia Huang is the CEO of PRCEDU.com, one of China’s leading e-learning and education companies. In getting her high potential staff to become more well-rounded, she tells them to explore things outside of their department and job scope. “To gain the type of broader perspective that helps you to perform as a manager, I always encourage our staff to be more adventurous and to diversify their experiences,” she describes. “When you see different ways of doing things, it can really improve your own way of doing things. It helps you to think outside the box and gives you new ideas that you don’t get just from dealing with people in your own department or company.”
Nicole Bernard even encourages her staff to round out their background with topics and interests outside of business. “Too few mainland professionals that I meet spend time learning about psychology or trying to understand how people think,” observes Nicole. “Yet knowing how to deal with people is such a huge part of your ability to be successful in your career. After all, businesses are run by people and the decisions that drive businesses are made by people. Therefore, being well read, understanding human behavior, and knowing how others think all help you to better handle situations and issues as a manager. Those things are not a substitute for developing your professional capabilities and experience, but they are an extremely valuable complement to them.”
How Well Developed Are Your Soft Skills?
Although gaps still exist, we hear clients point to the significant improvements that mainland professionals are making in key soft skill areas. These include having a better, big picture understanding of company objectives and business issues beyond just a focus on executing functional responsibilities. They see a greater willingness to approach senior management and offer ideas, as well as a more mature presentation of themselves to colleagues and clients. They notice the improvements in the ability to work in teams, leverage resources, and respond to and solve problems. They also mention the increasing efforts to take initiative and get involved, as well as take accountability for situations.
For most mainland professionals who wish to attain senior management levels in their career, they need to continue to improve in the quality of their soft skills. That improvement process takes time and requires an ongoing effort of practicing and developing good habits until they become your normal approach to handling situations. As a result, the effort that you need to put into building your own soft skills is one that you should be actively making right now.
Personal Travelogue
Early Professional Orientation:
Shy And Passive
From the job market and career development presentations that I deliver, people assume that I have always felt comfortable speaking in front of others. Until my late 20s, however, the exact opposite was true. I used to be terrified. Just speaking out within a small group was a huge challenge for me.
When I tell people that, many find it hard to believe. While growing up though, I was a very short, skinny kid. As a high school junior, I remember having to look up to most of my classmates who were a head taller than me. Standing next to them, I felt like I was in a land of giants. The result was that I grew up being extremely shy and self-conscious, where I would never join in on discussions in class. In ones where the teacher would call on students for answers, I would keep my head down and pretend to intently take down notes, as if to convey the message, “I’m sorry, I am way too busy to be bothered right now, so please don’t!”
Beginning in my senior year of high school, a fortunate thing happened. I began to grow! Quite suddenly, I became as tall as my peers. However, even though I looked more grown up from outward appearances, I still felt shy and self-conscious inside. That was a feeling that stayed with me even as I began working as a professional.
As a result, early in my career, I became very good at only putting myself in situations where I would look good, while staying away from those situations where I might not. I rarely pursued new challenges unless they were unavoidably placed upon me. Over time, I developed a talent for how to always look right and act right. So although I rarely participated in situations, I had the appearance of being someone who was mainly disinterested in getting involved as opposed to being someone who lacked the confidence to handle them, which was more the case. As I maintained this façade for many years, I came across an increasing number of situations that others would approach me to handle, but that I didn’t have the confidence or capability to take on.
I believe there are many people who are like this to some extent, especially early on in their career. They are reluctant to go outside their comfort zone and, instead, put a lot of energy into hiding their weaknesses. But eventually, situations arise where those weaknesses become exposed. At some point, you need to address them if you want to attain higher-level roles in your career. Better to begin that process sooner than later. Fortunately, I was able to recognize and do that at a relatively early stage for my own situation.
