If your dream is to become a CEO, you must keep\u00a0From MBA to CEO<\/em>\u00a0by your side throughout your career.<\/p>\n From MBA to CEO<\/em>\u00a0is about\u00a0inspiring<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0guiding<\/em>\u00a0young men and women throughout their careers to become great leaders in order to help them become successful CEOs.<\/p>\n Every question that you have cannot be answered in this book, but I can inspire you to plan, to reflect and to use sound judgement throughout your career.<\/p>\n It is perhaps easier to get the job of CEO than it is to keep it; therefore, we have set out to inspire you to behave in such a manner that you will help you to retain this job.<\/p>\n I am an experienced global CEO and Chairman who has taught leadership to MBA students at IMd, lBS and CBS. For the writing of this book, I teamed up with Egon Zehnder, a leading global search firm, and about 200 MBA students from some of the world\u2019s preeminent business school, thus enabling myself, as the author, to provide the very best insight, expertise and advice available.<\/p>\n The reason for writing this book was simple: during the course of my lectures and career, I was asked a tremendous amount of questions about how to become a CEO. This book was the obvious way of making these views, observations and personal experiences of the topic available to all MBAs who dream of becoming successful CEOs.<\/p>\n The objective has been to write a book that will become the MBA\u2019s primary reference and career guide for their entire professional life.<\/p>\n We cover all sizes of CEO jobs, from small businesses to very large ones.<\/p>\n Importantly, however, we don\u2019t believe that we can teach people to become great leaders, but we\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0believe that we can\u00a0inspire<\/em>\u00a0people to become great leaders. We also believe that you must be a great leader if your dream is to become a successful CEO. Being a successful CEO is very much about skills and mindset.<\/p>\n We have conducted a research project with the aim of identifying the most pressing questions of ambitious MBA students with CEO ambitions, as well as addressing such questions. We have also incorporated issues that were not raised during our sessions but which we know, from experience, that people with CEO ambitions encounter during their careers. We address all of these topics and give our best advice and guidance to each of them.<\/p>\n The book is designed in a manner that will help you to achieve your career goals. It should be on your iPad and by your bedside throughout your entire career. When you dive into the book for the first time, we recommend you read it in chronological order. If you do so, you will find that it contains some repetition: this is deliberate so that thereafter you can dive into the chapters you need.<\/p>\n Our research project very much supports the view that there is a real and unmet need for our book. The participating students we spoke to during the course of the research phase said that they were unable to find books that could help them with their career all the way from the Classroom to the Boardroom.<\/p>\n We interacted with approximately 200 MBA students from ten of the world\u2019s leading business schools. half accepted our invitation to have their names mentioned in the book. Between them, they represent more than 50 nationalities from all five continents.<\/p>\n We have been overwhelmed by students\u2019 interest in the topic of how to become a successful CEO. This interest was evidenced by audience responses to a lecture entitled, \u2018The Job of CEO and How You Get It\u2019, which was devised and delivered at the participating schools.<\/p>\n We conducted a qualitative research amongst 200 MBA students, and held career and leadership sessions with many of them, during which time they helped us to define their key questions. We received more than 1,000 questions during the course of the study, posed by the MBA students. Many questions raised the same concerns, and we took this into account when structuring the book.<\/p>\n Many of the students also had access to early drafts of the book and contributed with a wealth of valuable insight. Thus, the book is a result of a fantastic collaborative effort between the book team and students from the participating business schools.<\/p>\n MY HOPE:<\/strong>\u00a0Normally I do not apply \u2018MBH\u2014Management By Hope\u2019\u2014but in this case I do: it is my sincere hope that\u00a0From MBA to CEO<\/em>, with its wealth of advice will\u00a0inspire<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0guide<\/em>\u00a0young men and women to become great leaders\u2014and, subsequently, successful CEOs.<\/p>\n It is also my hope that young executives with degrees other than an MBA will be inspired by the book and thus achieve their own career goals.<\/p>\n THANK YOU:<\/strong>\u00a0As great leaders know, a one-person team can only achieve very limited results in business, and the same applies when writing books. I am therefore very grateful to have been able to work with a fantastic team and book community. A big thank you goes to Egon Zehnder, to the participating business schools and their busy and enthusiastic students, to Clare MacCarthy for editorial advice, and to our sponsor\u2014the Apax Foundation.<\/p>\n Waldemar Schmidt<\/em><\/p>\n This section of the book is designed as a constant source of inspiration about key leadership and career issues that both young and mature leaders will face during their entire working lives. There are, however no black-and-white solutions. The purpose is to inspire you and help you find your own way in dealing with these critical issues.<\/p>\n The book contains the entire guide. Here we give you two examples with issues that you are likely to encounter during your career:<\/p>\n ARROGANCE:<\/strong>\u00a0Probably the worst enemy of great leadership. If arrogance is an ingrained component of your DNA and you cannot get rid of it, it is highly unlikely that you will have a long career in leading positions. Arrogance does not only stem from your DNA. Successful leaders often become arrogant because of their success. They do not notice. If arrogance is part of your DNA, you must understand and accept that people see you as arrogant. Thereafter, you must make an effort to change your behaviour and arrange that someone you trust and respect polices your behaviour and gives you honest feedback on your progress in order to ensure you lose the arrogant style. In many cases, your spouse or partner would be the best person to help you with this very delicate task. In order to avoid arrogance creeping in because of your success, you are well advised to avoid becoming a \u2018Celebrity CEO\u2019 who spends excessive time outside the company on boards, giving speeches at conferences, appearing in the media and ending up as \u2018Manager of the Year\u2019. Your spouse or partner should help you to remain the genuine person you were, when you got the CEO job.<\/p>\n ZERO \u2014 TEN SCALE:<\/strong>\u00a0Many managers struggle with determining what is important. A simple method that we have found very helpful has been to ask the question: \u201cOn a scale from 0 \u2014 10, how important is this?\u201d When posing this question to a CEO who presented an acquisition to his board he paused for a long time, finally said \u201c5\u201d and then added, \u201cI no longer think that we should make this acquisition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Introduction If your dream is to become a CEO, you must keep\u00a0From MBA to CEO\u00a0by your side throughout your career. From MBA to CEO\u00a0is about\u00a0inspiring\u00a0and\u00a0guiding\u00a0young men and women throughout their careers to become great leaders in order to help them… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3SNmK-7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editoravaldemar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How to read the book:<\/h4>\n
The book is structured as follows:<\/h4>\n
\n
\nProgressing through my own story in detail has helped me to understand the issues faced by young professionals with CEO ambitions. It has also helped me to conclude that CEOs are not born but are made when given opportunities and taking the chance to utilise such opportunities.<\/li>\nAbout our research:<\/h4>\n
Your A\u2013Z career guide<\/h3>\n