The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

I was reading an article by Anjli Raval in the Financial Times about the transition for CFOs to the CEO job. She quoted a survey by Heidrick & Struggles which showed a third of CFOs in the FTSE 100 firms became the CEO.  This is up from 21% in 2019.  Raval makes an interesting observation, “research shows that CEOs promoted from the CFO job do not drive top-line revenue growth as quickly as those from other backgrounds, particularly in the first few years”.  Why is that the case? The article offers a few reasons about these promoted CFOs having a “cash-preservation mindset over a drive to pursue new opportunities”. Also, as the CFO, they had been making tough budget allocation decisions which had not been popular with their division head colleagues. Now they are the boss, but not everyone is happy about it.  As Yogi Berra said, “Leading is easy. It is getting people to follow you, which is hard”. That skill set isn’t taught to people trained in finance and accounting.  Analytical people, in general, are n