Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a chief financial officer - cfo and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
The Chief Financial Officer - CFO provides programmatic and operational support to the company by implementing financial projections and accounting services. The CFO supervises the entire financial unit and is the chief financial spokesperson for the organization. He reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer or the company's President.
His primary duties includes, planning, developing, organizing, implementing, directing and evaluating the company's fiscal function and performance, evaluating and advising on the impact of the long-range planning and introduction of new programs, participating in the development of the corporation's plans and programs as an important partner, developing credibility to the finance department through the provision of timely and accurate analysis of budgets, financial reports and financial trends.
Core Skills Required to be a Chief Financial Officer - CFO
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A chief financial officer - cfo should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Innovation:
Innovation is the process of translating new invention into a service that creates value or brings better solutions that meet the requirements.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO ought to introduce innovation in their business to help save time and money giving a competitive advantage to grow and adapt the business in today's marketplace as well as creating more efficient processes and ideas with a likelihood for your business to succeed.
Accuracy:
Accuracy refers to the closeness of a measured value to a known value or standard that is passed by the governing laws.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO has to always be accurate with figures and data used and required in the office without any guesswork or estimations to facilitate precise and correct information in every department creating an authentic environment that will be respected by the workers.
Knowledge of Company Processes:
Knowledge of Company Processes is the in-depth understanding of a collection of related, structured activities that serve a particular goal for a group of customers or clients who are valuable to the enterprise.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO ought to maintain consistency across the daily processed while keeping a keen eye on the overall plan of the organization by ensuring the company processes are performed and followed.
Planning and Scheduling:
Planning and Scheduling are the act of establishing a plan for a set of tasks that needs to be completed and including when they should be done.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO needs creativity in balancing both planning and scheduling by clearing defining what and how activities will be carried out by when and who in particular to ensure there are a clear flow and accountability to every staff.
Developing Others:
Developing others is an unremitting process that focuses on the broader, longer-term growth of individuals to nurture them to their potential and promote future development.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO needs to support, coach, positively impacts and effectively aid in developing talents of their staff by motivating them to become outstanding in their behavioral change and performance improvement that opens up development opportunities in the organization.
Leadership Skills:
Leadership Skills are soft skills that assist leaders in positively interacting with employees or team members to make the workplace a great place.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO must be able to lead effectively by learning how to deal with all types of people in a way that motivates, enthuse and build respect in a bid to understand and develop his leadership skills.
Equal Opportunity and Diversity:
Equal Opportunity and Diversity means having employees from a wide range of background that includes different ages, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious belief, educational background, physical ability and treating them equally.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO is required by the law to create a workplace free from discrimination and harassment to its employees as well as understand and adhere to the rights and responsibilities under the human rights and antidiscrimination law.
Self Confidence:
Self Confidence is the ability to know who you are and what you are capable of doing which shows in your behavior, your body language, how you speak, etc.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO must be confident enough to inspire confidence in others while encouraging them to handle daily tasks and their personal lives with self-confidence that will, in turn, produce a well-rounded individual.
Financial Management:
Financial Management is the skill of learning how to handle accounting, finance, and organizational management through providing daily data on the operations that take place every day.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO ought to be highly effective in planning and organization, controlling and management of the financial resources to achieve the company's organizational objectives that are laid down to see the growth of the enterprise.
Knowledge Management:
Knowledge Management is the ability to manage knowledge and information that is presented to the company from different sources without overlooking any of them.
A Chief Financial Officer - CFO ought to creatively channel all the new information, tools, input, and methodology mean by actively practicing the art of knowledge management within the business by harnessing the organization's inherent wisdom's platform in one place.
Hard Skills Required to be a Chief Financial Officer - CFO
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A chief financial officer - cfo should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.