Traditional thinking viewed careers as strictly linear: you join a function like finance or HR, build domain expertise and climb the corporate ladder within that silo.
Today, however, a growing consensus recognizes that non-linear career paths – trajectories that deviate from the functional norm in some way – can produce leaders with greater range who ultimately deliver more impact for organizations.
Research by McKinsey and Spencer Stuart suggests that there’s a growing trend for companies to promote people with more diverse experience and greater exposure to different roles and functions under their belt. Organizations seem to be looking for deep generalist profiles with a broader range of perspectives and capabilities (alongside functional expertise: increasingly, it’s the chief commercial officers, chief operations officers, and presidents of large business units that are being tapped for the top job). There’s a good reason for this.
At the enterprise level, leadership must be ambidextrous. Leading an organization from the top calls for an ability to simultaneously perform and transform. IMD’s cross-sector research on future-ready organizations demonstrates that companies at the forefront of their respective industries are better at managing both the perform and transform agendas. Professors Ric Roi and Misiek Piskorski have demonstrated that these winning companies are led by leaders with the capability and range to lead successfully in both repositioning today’s business while creating future business models. They have also shown a correlation between diverse roles across the leaders’ careers and the level of leadership ambidexterity. The challenge for linear leaders, those who’ve risen through the ranks via specialist tracks, is that often, they simply lack the range, the diversity of experience, input, and exposure to really drive the transformation agenda.
This is where the deep generalist has the edge. Working in diverse roles or functions, under different managers and agendas, and to different tempos and cultures can help aspiring leaders build that critical ambidexterity: that ability to use the different styles of thinking and behaviors that drive transformation, which comes from exposure to diverse operating contexts.
Getting this right, however, is not easy. For organizations, it takes purpose and commitment. For individuals, it can take courage, says Luca Condosta.
Gens Y and Z are less shackled to the social prestige or even the financial remuneration that comes with traditional linear progression through the ranks, he says, and are more interested in having the freedom to explore different aspects of work.
Condosta is Group Head of Social Progress and Sustainability Capability Building with the electrification and automation technology giant, ABB. His trajectory has been anything but linear. In his 15-year tenure with the organization, he’s held leadership roles in finance before pivoting to HR in 2024 with a special focus on ESG reporting via a stint as Group Head of the ABB LGBTQ+ project in 2020 – a role that overlapped with his position as Group Finance Record to Report Process Owner.
These are significant career switches, mobilized in part by a desire to add value in new ways, and partly by “innate curiosity,” he says.
“I’m driven by the impact I can make. In every role, there comes a moment when I know I’ve delivered real change, understood the challenges, and it’s time to seek the next opportunity to create value elsewhere. That drive is deeply connected to my curiosity and passion for problem-solving – a constant thread throughout my career, from my early days in programming to today. There’s that need to take problems and dismantle them that is fed by curiosity.”
There’s also a generational component, Condosta believes. Gens Y and Z are less shackled to the social prestige or even the financial remuneration that comes with traditional linear progression through the ranks, he says, and are more interested in having the freedom to explore different aspects of work. This is something he sees reflected in many interviews done for global roles and in the attitudes of the teams he has managed.
“Up and coming leaders understand that there’s a trade-off between responsibility and freedom, and freedom is a real motivating factor in younger generations: it’s about having that space in your career to experiment and try completely different things to find what you like, and where you can create new value.”
From the individual’s perspective, this can be challenging, says Condosta. Making the kinds of shifts he has enacted over his own career has meant overcoming different roadblocks, some cultural, others relational. Sometimes, you may need to convince line managers and colleagues of your capabilities and “authenticity” when switching into concurrent or new roles, he says. Then there’s imposter syndrome.
“It’s not easy. If you want to do different things with your career, you need to be ready to prove to your stakeholders that you have what it takes to succeed; that might mean giving 110% in your current role and 120% in the role you’re stepping into. There’s a line about ‘being so damned good at what you do, no one can put you down,’ and I think there’s real truth in that. And you’ve got to have the courage to believe in yourself and overcome self-doubt, especially if you’re making these opportunities for yourself.”
Making opportunities has entailed making the powerful business case for change, he adds, from “educating” line managers on the potential value of these career switches, to accepting full responsibility in the event they fail. He’s also had to win the trust and respect of new colleagues with each functional pivot.
There’s a humility that you experience as you’re building credibility in a new function or role. You’re giving something up and starting over in a sense, and to get that right, you need to learn and defer to expertise.
Condosta is unequivocal about the value of pursuing a non-linear career path.
His own experience has broadened his mindset and his range as a leader, he says, while developing a certain humility towards colleagues.
“When you shift roles, it’s a bit like ditching your surname or changing your family. There’s a humility that you experience as you’re building credibility in a new function or role. You’re giving something up and starting over in a sense, and to get that right, you need to learn and defer to expertise.”
There’s value also to be found in innovation gains, and in the “bridges” that leaders can build across the organization as they make these kinds of transitions.
“You bring certain transferable skills to each new role. When I moved from finance to HR, for instance, I could see new ways of implementing assessment KPIs in organizational learning – we were able to create more value by capturing impact and making adjustments using quantitative processes.”
Because he has “belonged” both to finance and HR, he has less of what he calls “emotional territoriality” around different areas of the business; a broadening of mindset – and leadership range – that underscores ambidexterity.
“You no longer belong to finance or HR completely, but to both. And this empowers you as a leader with the empathy and imagination to make connections, build bridges, and join the dots across the entirety of the organization, which is so critical to transformation and futureproofing in the longer term.”
“If you believe this is the future, you should consciously drive this journey.
Supporting leaders like Luca Condosta – pathfinders who have the courage and curiosity to build non-linear careers – is a critical imperative ahead of organizations that are looking to develop and leverage (and retain) ambidexterity in their leadership and succession pipeline.
There are several measures companies can consider:
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