Most global leaders who go through the traditional route of leadership learning have focused their knowledge and experiences on the pillar of people leadership. Whatever their success, many of them reach a career point where they start to struggle due to the lack of certain organizational skills – more particularly – on understanding finance essentials. There are good reasons why finance is so important for non-finance global leaders, and I want to share some of my insight with you so that you can start to make better business decisions.
Why Is Finance For Non-Finance Global Leaders Important?
Finance for non-finance global leaders is essential because it allows leaders to manage any challenging scenario and make critical business decisions. Smarter decisions bring greater value to shareholders while also improving global leaders’ reputation and executive presence. It’s no wonder why they seek learning finance essentials: it brings tremendous success for their company and personally.
In this post today, I’d like to share some good reasons why you should seek a Finance for Non-Finance Global Leaders Course and get finance language in your skills’ arsenal.
11 Reasons Why Finance Is Important For Non-Finance Global Leaders:
- It is the common denominator in communication anywhere you go in the world
- It helps you make decisions that add greater value to shareholders
- It enables you to display more outstanding business acumen and executive presence
- It supports you in analyzing choices based on the exact desired value proposition
- It helps you design appealing business cases that speak to what shareholders are seeking
- It assists you in avoiding future financial pitfalls
- It allows you to understand how your actions translate into profit or loss
- It helps you have better conversations with finance professionals within the organization during budget time and other important business cycles
- It allows you to set up smart financial management strategies
- It enables you to interpret financial information and leverage them for strategy
- It helps you understand resource acquisition & allocation and how to leverage them to achieve important company goals
- It supports you in creating profitable strategies and outsmarting your competition
I could go on and on with this list. But the most important takeaway is: if you understand the basic concepts of finance for non-finance global leaders, you’ll understand how your every action and decision will impact your business. Which allows you to make smarter (and more profitable) decisions. It will also allow you to lead other people into making better decisions.
Now we come to a critical point in the post, which is: if you’ve been walking the traditional steps of Leadership, stop. Start walking the steps of Global Leadership instead. Global Leadership is not about leading people in different cultures or places. Global Leadership has 4 pillars of success that you need to develop and master in order to do a great job as a global leader. If you want to learn more about the 4 pillars, we explored all concepts and skills you need to know in this post.
For now, what I want to stress out is that you need to learn Finance for Non-Finance Global Leaders to improve the quality of your decisions and overall Leadership. This will also help you approach other decision-makers more strategically to get the results you want. I selected a few things you should consider learning for this purpose.
What Are The Finance Essentials For Non-Finance Global Leaders?
- Learn the basics of working capital and how your decisions can impact it
- Gain awareness of how different global contract terms can impact cash flow
- Learn how certain decisions can affect cash generation in a company
- Understand the basics of all the financial statements
- Learn how cost and revenue decisions impact the P&L
- Learn how product mix affects your margins and how to select the best choice of mix
- Understand the nature of cost and how cost reductions or increases impact a company
- Learn the basics of budgeting
- Learn the basics of the time value of money
- Learn how to leverage financial data for business strategy
As you can see, you don’t need to gain a master’s in finance. Far from it. You need to understand how your actions and decisions impact the company financially and what it means for your shareholders and the company’s future. In other words, you need to learn practical stuff, not a bunch of formulas or complex concepts.
In The Look Out For The Right Resource
So here is my personal tip for those seeking to take a course in Finance For Non-Finance Global Leaders:
- Avoid courses that teach you a bunch of formulas. Leave them for the experts who will actually use them.
- Seek courses that will teach you practical stuff. You need knowledge that drives decision-making and actions.
- Look for content that provides examples and simulations, so you can relate and clearly understand the impact of decisions on the results
- Find a well-rounded course that knows what they are doing, and that understands what you need to learn in your position
We offer a global executive leadership program that covers all 4 pillars of global Leadership, and we have one dedicated module focused entirely on covering all the essentials of Finance For Non-Finance Global Leaders that we listed above. You can get more information and receive the brochure here.
Experiencing Finance As A Non-Finance Global Leader
I worked with many C.E.O.s during my career, and I had the privilege to work and learn from all 3 types of C.E.O.s:
- those who had a finance background and/or degree
- those who didn’t have a finance background but had a solid understanding of finance essentials
- those who had no idea about finance essentials or knew very little.
Working with those who had the background and those who had no idea about finance were the most difficult people to deal with. Those who had a finance background wanted to show off their extensive knowledge and frequently would step out of their primary job – which was being a C.E.O.
Dealing with C.E.Os who did not understand finance essentials was also very challenging because I would often lose a lot of time educating them and guiding them through the decisions. It was pretty tiresome and sometimes felt very confrontational as well.
Now, on the other side of the coin, how did THEY experience their jobs in these 3 conditions? Interestingly, those with background and those without finance knowledge had similar experiences, although for different reasons. They felt that people were constantly berating them, looking down on them, or talking behind their backs. They felt the environment and people were untrustworthy or very challenging to deal with. They spent more time managing their reputation than making good and quick decisions.
Those who did have knowledge of finance for non-finance global leaders, but kept focused on doing their non-finance jobs well, and leveraging this skill for the greater good, usually felt very empowered and had the ability to empower others as well. They were quicker decision-makers and had better overall results.
Finance For Non-Finance Global Leaders Matters
I am bringing this all up because I want to highlight what skills are made for. Skills don’t make us better. Skills make what we do better. So when you pursue a new skill, make sure you know why you are seeking to learn it. What you learn for stacking letters after your name might look very different from what you learn for making what you do better. It’s a very sad observation, but it’s a fact.
If you learn Finance For Non-Finance Global Leaders to start doing things better – while focusing on your own day job – you’ll have a great experience with finance. And you will make everyone around you also more efficient.
So, if for nothing less, learn finance for non-finance global leaders so that the environment around you becomes less challenging and more efficient and productive. But hopefully, you will improve your financial literacy because you want to make smarter decisions that bring success for you and your company.
Where can I learn more about global Leadership?
Option 1: Global Executive Leadership Program
If you are serious about learning more about the 4 pillars of global leadership success and each of its competencies, you are in luck. As we said, we will soon launch a Global Executive Leadership Program covering all aspects of these 4 pillars in a very transformational and interactive, self-paced, online course. It’s not meant for any leader. It’s intended for those who want to be impactful, influential, and inclusive global leaders. It’s for those who want to learn how to leverage their resources in the most efficient way possible and add value to their shareholders. If this is who you want to be and want to learn all the skills and competencies in each of the 4 pillars – including finance essentials – in one single place without any hassle, subscribe to get more information on the program, and you’ll be notified once it’s launched.
Option 2: How to become a 3i Global Leader – Free webinar
If you seek a quicker training, that talks about some examples and experiences in each of the 4 leadership areas to illustrate them, stay tuned for our upcoming webinar. It’s a 90 minutes webinar packed with information on the 4 secret pillars of success and how to become a 3i global leader (impactful, influential, inclusive). Subscribe to our newsletter so that we can let you know when it’s out.
Option 3: Global Leadership Competencies – Coaching Program
On top of this, we also offer executive coaching programs for busy professionals. Contact us if you want to improve a specific skill in any of the 4 pillars or work on many skills at once. We can customize a program just for you. Or, conversely, you can follow our regular program, where we will talk about one of the competencies each week during a longer program.
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