“Business Acumen vs. Social Acumen” - Professor M.S.Rao

Now-a-days executives need both business acumen and social acumen. It sounds strange for executives as most of them think that business acumen is needed only for entrepreneurs. Of course, they are right to think in that way. However, for the executives who intend to reach top positions within the organizations quickly they need to acquire business acumen and blend both business acumen and social acumen proportionately.

The literal meaning of the word acumen is “keenness and depth of perception, especially in practical matters.” Hence, we can define business acumen as seeing the big picture by entrepreneurs and leaders. It is a rare quality that can be cultivated by people. Similarly, social acumen is all about gelling well with others through emotional intelligence and soft skills and networking with others.

Ram Charan says in Leaders At All Levels, “Leaders must possess both people acumen and business acumen. Anyone can improve his or her ability to select and develop people’s talents, but other aspects of people acumen are hard to teach. Leaders with people acumen have good instincts to anticipant problems among individuals who must work together and to get the resolved. When leaders are unable to make good decisions, or any decisions at all, it may be that their business acumen is not expanding. They cannot be considered to have CEO potential.” Therefore, blend both business and social acumen proportionately for quick professional success.



Professor M.S.Rao
Founder and Chief Consultant,
MSR Leadership Consultants, India
Blog: http://profmsr.blogspot.com
Where Knowledge is Wealth
Email: profmsr7@gmail.com



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