Career development factors

General factors

Most of the surveyed executives (72%) have been consciously working on their careers, and only 28% of them were promoted due to a lucky chance. Russian managers believe that the most important career development factors include professional qualities (97%), personal characteristics (95%) , commitment (89%) and education (77%).

Luck and peer support were believed to be less important for climbing up the

• luck (47%);
• good connections (46%);
• mentor (45%);
• peer support (35%).

Note that women more often than men point at the importance of personal qualities for career development (99% vs 89%), but less often stress the role of connections (41% vs 55%). The in-depth interviews revealed that it was due to women’s less thorough incorporation into business networks: they find it harder to maintain business contacts on equal footing, and not always can match the socialising format – especially when it’s built around “male values” such as sauna, fishing and football.

The in-depth interviews also showed that the respondents saw their careers as a direct result of their own actions and pursuits. According to the executives, leadership phenomenon is based on certain qualities one has to be born with (personal characteristics).

“I think it’s genes. You can’t just wake up one day and decide, I want to be a boss. You strive towards it while you study, you spend more time working. Some go to dance but you go to a library. It’s in the character; you must have certain leadership qualities and some charisma. There’s no way to develop it, you either have it or not”. (man, general director of a large Russian foodstuffs retail chain).

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Role of education in career development

Practically all of the surveyed managers (98%) had higher education. 26 % had two or more college diplomas; 8% - МВА degrees, and 10% had doctorates. Most of the managers (74%) completed or were planning to complete further education courses. The share of managers - МВА holders was much higher in foreign-owned companies (22%) than in Russian ones (3%).

The main motivating factor to receive further education was “it’s important to learn new things” - 50% of the respondents thought so. 25% were sure that without further education no career development would be possible at all, though only 3% said their employers required them to get further education. Most of the executives (77%) recognised education and diplomas as an important career development factor. Also, 36% of the respondents listed insufficient education among barriers hindering career development. Only 11% believed education didn’t play significant role in climbing up the career ladder in Russian companies.