HR heads become CEOs and business Leaders

Hi HR Freaks!

Shyam Sundar who is the CEO of Hindustan Motors - Mistubishi Lancer project started as an hard core HR professional, completed his Business Management Course which helped him scale up.
He took up this role way back in 1994-95 one of the early birds in career growth.

I feel from a CEO ladder perspective, the career pathing is changing to become an " ENTREPRENEUR" which we have handful of successful personalities who have swimmed out of HR.

This is the sign of eliminating BENCHMARKING practices and jus creating LANDMARKS in every aspect of running the business.

Rgds
Rajesh - HR
9886019801

While it is common to see Finance & marketing guys getting top posts (MD's, CEO's etc), its not hard for an HR person to get that job - provided he/she has the required capability.

One reason why there are few HR people in the top posts is obvious - The average age of a CEO is about 45 - 50 plus. That means he'd have probably done a professional MBA / degree about 25 years ago. Now 25 years ago, most people didn't opt for HR and the functions of an HR person were primarily welfare and personnel management - which left little scope to strategize and as a CEO you have to strategize, something Marketing and Finance people do more than HR (its only recently that HR has started strategizing).

Another is scientific observance and quantitative skills - something HR people of yester years lacked. Almost everyone tells you that HR is based on 'soft skills' and 'value judgements' - in other words meaning, "Its not a science, and there's nothing quantifiable and little is measurable'. Today that story is different. HR is now a proper Science with models and theories and there is enough statistics and mathematics involved (using measurement scales previously was almost absent - today that's changed)

As technology grows, life and culture of society changes and more and more people get selfish (meaning: life is all about the money), organizations will strive to get the best talent and nurture it. Why is HR so big in USA and western societies? One reason is that as society breaks into individualism and family as an institution gets smaller as an identity for individuals, they search more and more for other places to 'belong' - like the workplace. So you have a McDonald's happy family at work. And who creates this whole culture? HR does. Create a culture that draws people towards the organizations and make them stick there (read: Pfizer, Infosys, Colgate Palmolive, P&G - all companies having a strong culture, and are HR led). Human Resources will be big - its just a matter of having the right talent picking it up as a profession.

Will HR people become CEO's? Definitely. You and I can aspire to be there soon enough.

BPO is business process outsourcing
It means organizations outsource few of their business processes to the other organizations. For E.g. if some mobile service provider give customer care service to the organization whose core competency is in customer care.

Ekta

hi people,
ya i think it is great post to motivate HR people and tell that even they have some more ladder place to catch in fewer than just being as HR head...
but why the no of HR as CEO in other feild is very less.? what is they lagging that they are not posted at that post....
or it is due to history of thoughts retricting others to see HR as CEO.....

Probably because of the philosophy.

Manufacturing industries in India probably will continue to be product oriented and not people oriented because of heavy use of machines in production. There's little need for HR to strategise because essentially it is product driven - what you sell and how you sell at the best cost will determine your market standing (so there's more focus on Finance & marketing, hence higher scope for them to become CEO's). Moreover, the workforce is largest at the plant and 'workers' have a different mentality of work. hence although most companies may have an HR manager at a plant, the work is still essentially PM & IR, with probably better policies.

Corporate HR has little strategising to do in an industry where its work is related to training and performance enhancement. Recruiting is virtually little at the plant because they are over staffed and there is little attrition. At the corporate level. yeah they do have more work, but its still limited.
So it may be possible that HR as CEo may not be viable - ofcourse, talented people could get anywhere, but generally speaking it may not be the case.

In the service sector, the product is not tangible because it is people driven. hence the quality of the people is important - the people are the companies product. Thus the bigger focus on HR and thus HR becoming CEO's.

India has largely focussed on manufacturing industries and those aspects will change slowly. probably as the workforce gets older and younger people come in - who are educated and dynamic - the role of HR at the plant will also change. Hopefully then you might see a change in attitudes and how HR really operates.

This very interesting. May I know where I can get more information (such as articles) on this? Thank you very much.

Hi all,
I read the conversation from all contributors and thought bit differently. Now what i did, might be a very small step, but i think it worth enough to do in context of present topic.

I asked myself as would i like to be the CEO ?
I worked for a small IT orgn of 45 people and was the lone but very appoachable and effective HR person (As my Director HR would say).

Coming to my answer, I am more of a creative person and the kind of HR work which i like to do involves much of experimenting in people work, facilitating people and making the environment a better place to work, thus their is a lot of scope for things to happen on their own.
That is to say, i dont manage anyone (actions) or control any happening directly, and i just facilitate things and people and i think thats my job. So if someone is looking for the direct result-oriented qualities for the post of a CEO, wont find me a good candidate.

In another way its good for me too. I am more of a people- person, means i like to have a personal repo and direct, free approach with all employees. So, getting to a higher post will require me to have a distanced approach and will add on a bit of official-ness with everything....which i guess wastes times and efforts for communicating effectively.

This might be a very small perspective and good only for small groups/ orgns, like my small work experience, but still this is what is close to my heart and hand. Whatever position/ level i may be in, i love that people-work.
I would appreciate any replies/ comments.
With regards
Pragya.

Hi SSiregar,
i would say before getting into details any body who bears the cost and benefit analysis of operation performed under his supervision and take the responsibility of company revenue can become the CEO.

It's not specifically HR head or respective depts.

yes HR Head can become HR CEO.

For HR to be considered as a candidate for the corner office, we need to understand & speak the language of the business that we are in.

There are more & more cases coming up of line managers being excellent people managers. The time is not far away when HR is going to have its fringe activities either outsourced / shared with technical managers.

Therefore the HR person who's a future CEO would be one who understands the pulse of the business & sees it in the activities that he does for the people.

Pausing for more thoughts from all of you....

Balaji
TCS

Hi,


In general it doesn't matter whether u are an hr , marketing or finance person..all that needs to be proved is whether u are competent & convincing enough to lead the employees as well as the company to the stars..
Its sheer idiocracy to reach upon conclusions based on hr, mkt etc..