The Smartest Functional Expert Is Not Always the Best General Manager
And most organisations never tell you that until it is too late. Most professionals build their careers going deep. Deeper expertise, deeper relationships within their function, deeper mastery of the specific challenges their domain presents. And for a significant portion of a career, that depth is exactly what gets rewarded. Then the rules change. The roles that matter start requiring something different, something broader, something that depth alone cannot provide. And the professionals who have not seen this coming find themselves at an inflection point that their career trajectory did not prepare them for. What General Management Actually Requires The gap between being an excellent functional leader and being an effective general manager is wider than most professionals expect and more specific than most organisations explain. A general manager does not just lead a bigger version of the team they used to run. They are accountable for outcomes across every function simultaneously. T...