The core responsibilities of a manager transcend industry.
An executive, above all else, needs to be an effective leader. Part of that is knowing how to utilize the resources they are given to achieve the best possible result in the most efficient and cost effective manner.
I’d say that there’s an 75% commonality of role between all executive positions, with 20% being specialties relative to department (finance, marketing, strategy, etc), and at most 5% being specialty of industry.
5% is really not that much new information to pick up, and can generally be covered in the hiring/probationary period. Additionally, knowledge from one industry generally can apply to another.
(For example, I transferred the hub & spoke infrastructure I learned from my time in the airline industry to the support systems I developed at Evernote.)
Executives who retain a coach tend to have a much smoother transition (and beyond), which is why you’ll see so many CEOs and other senior executives work with coaches like myself.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/How-do-executives-manage-their-job-role-in-an-industry-they-dont-belong-to
Originally Posted On: 2016-01-10