In present scenario, the definition of long term seems to be constantly shrinking, one frequently comes across organizations redefining themselves every decade and in many cases even faster. These changes are either driven by the change in the ownership structure or due to the change in the business environment. This has a major influence on the way organizations look at their leadership team. When the market expects the organizations to be lean and adaptive, the same expectations translates to the expectations from the leadership. Being a cross functional has become a major prerequisite for the top leadership positions. Cross functional career paths are provided as part of leadership grooming so that leaders are well versed with the nuances of various functions. It is expected that they will better understand the impact of driving any change within the organization after being practically exposed to various functions.
This gives excellent opportunity for senior managers to pick up functions, which they normally wouldn't get opportunity for. One however, has to learn to make the best use of such opportunity and not make a mess out of the same. One of the senior IT Program managers, I knew very closely, in one of the most dynamic organizations I worked for, got chance to move to the Quality Head role and later to the HR head role. In this particular case, the person landed up creating lot of chaos and employee frustration in both the departments, just because of the level of complacency he carried from his operational role.
The important learning is that while the current organizations provide a great platform to develop cross functional skills, most of them lack sufficient trainings for smooth transitioning and control points to catch the issues earlier leading to a loss-loss situation, both for the employee and the organization. As a growing ip leader, one would need to have a much higher self-discipline and desire to learn to make it a win-win situation for everyone.
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