One of the ironies of being a top finance leader is that seldom if ever will you be heralded for your vast technical skills. Instead, you are more likely to be praised for having keen management skills or even imagination.

The likely reason for this is that while technical skills are clearly how finance executives distinguish themselves beginning day one of their careers, it is the executive’s ability to manage people and perform creative problem-solving that ultimately leads them down the CFO path.

In my last blog post I shared a few insights from an upcoming Business Finance interview with Prudential CFO Richard Carbone, and here once again I cannot resist sharing a few more. Having first been named CFO of Prudential Financial 13 years ago, Carbone can now be counted among an elite grouping of finance leaders whose long tenure counters the CFO turnover trend.

For his part, Carbone quickly underscored the irony I mentioned above.

“Your leadership skills are constantly being tested when you lead such a highly talented and motivated team,” said Prudential’s finance leader.

“You have to be creative. You have to be a problem-solver. You have to have your own original thoughts as far as how to get the work done. The worst managers I have worked for are those who just sort of cross their arms and have no idea how work gets done,” explains Carbone, who, like so many top finance leaders, profited from a reputation of being technically savvy during the first part of his career.

According to Carbone, presence of mind is also of enormous value to finance executives, especially when it comes to communication.

“Putting together a presentation and delivering it well is not enough. You have to be able to think on your feet and understand what it is you’re doing, and when the audience isn’t getting it, you need to come up with another way to explain it,” says Carbone.

“The fact is that if you only have one way of explaining something, you really don’t understand it,” he concludes. ###