I'll assume this question is about getting to the C-suite in a large company and doing it well enough that you get featured in Fortune magazine etc.

I guess I am notorious for promoting the view that it takes some sociopath tendencies to climb the ladder well (google "Gervais Principle"). I don't pay much attention to "how to get to the C-suite" in particular, but what follows is a consequence of my general views on corporate management.

I am afraid I don't agree with the answers posted so far. They offer some good points, but miss the heart of what goes on on the path to the C-suite. This is partly a result of the way the question has been asked. It is a "how do I become somebody?" question. People who end up in the C-suite aren't "be somebody" people. They are "do something" people.

This distinction (be somebody/do something) is due to John Boyd. I wrote an essay about it at: http://us1.campaign-archive2.com...

Look at the career of any significant C-suiter and you'll realize that they "did something." Maybe they opened up a new market. Maybe the built the sales organization from scratch. Maybe they sweated blood to make a major new product happen. Maybe they drove a company-changing M&A move. Maybe they got the company into the mobile sector.

Then look further back. The big "do something" move that vaults them into the C-suite is typically just the last and biggest one of a series of escalating moves. In each case, they likely changed something about business as usual, on increasing scales.

Such people are spotted early, seek out or are given air cover (giving air cover to talented younger sociopaths is often a critical kind of "do something" move in later career stages), and put on an obstacle course of opportunities to do bigger and bigger things. Some they seek out and maneuver into for themselves. Others, they are drafted into.

On this trajectory, the rest of the organization is basically like trees or static objects. Or think of this person as a fast sports car going so fast among other cars, weaving in and out, that they might as well be stationary.

There are exceptions. Some make it to the C-suite as a compromise candidate because they are viewed as "safe" (and end up surprising others). Others are just temporary stop-gaps.

The stuff others have pointed out (coachability, social skills, cross-functionality) is just a matter of polishing the rough diamond. It is unimportant enough that it is generally outsourced to executive coaches, leadership programs and functional rotation programs. Neither necessary, nor sufficient. In fact that's basically a sideshow. If your "do something" moves are critical enough to the company, roughness won't stop you from getting to the C-suite, but chances are, if you rub too many people the wrong way, you won't stay there long and somebody will derail you soon. Marshall Goldsmith's (great guy, the uber-executive coach of the day) What Got You Here, Won't Get You There contains all this basic diamond-polishing stuff: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/0...

Along this trajectory, the main thing to be aware of is that tolerance for errors goes down as you go up. You may be given a couple of chances at lower levels. Higher up, one bad mistake and you're out, trying to pick up the pieces.

Among the worse mistakes:

1. Riding the coat-tails of someone who is no longer wearing the coat
2. Making enemies when you are in a strong position who have a reason to take revenge when you are weaker
3. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time/unlucky
4. Fumbling a sure thing
5. Playing people chess badly with the other people converging to the same top few positions (what, you thought there was no competition on this path?)
6. Being nasty to "non combatants" (everybody else who is NOT on this path, i.e. the rest of the corporation... they are the civilians in the war zone, and you have to be nice to them; some people screw up badly because they end up playing "scorched earth" type tactics in corporate warfare that hurts the rank and file more than their rivals. Fatal move. The civilians are individually much weaker than the combatants, but if you mess with them collectively, you will be lynched. Keep the people happy. Make the right speeches. Kiss babies. Smile.)

Underneath all this though, the two basic qualities needed are:

1. Relentless drive: this is an extremely exhausting path. 90 hour weeks for 15-20 years is just the baseline for playing the game. You have to make your 90 hours count more than all those other 90-hourers.
2. The second is a capacity to resist the urge to become an "organization man" and a desire to impose your will on the organization rather than have it impose its will on you, even if you kill yourself trying.

In my corporate life, I found I had some of the skills needed, and lacked others. The big one that I lacked was the relentless drive to be a combatant. On the other hand, I didn't have what it takes to be a civilian either.

So that's why I quit the path and switched to selling weapons to the combatants and civil defense advice to the non-combatants through my writing.