The must-have skills to become a VP

Aim to become a VP (or a CEO)? Probably, these are the skills you must have. Let’s keep this simple: most VP job descriptions sound great but they rarely reflect the day-to-day realities of the role.

At Headcount AG, we work closely with companies looking to fill business-critical leadership roles in life sciences. These aren’t C-level mandates, but they’re make-or-break roles, VP of Medical Affairs, Heads of Market Access, Regulatory Strategy leaders, the people who connect vision to execution.

To dig deeper into what separates great VPs from average ones, our General Manager, Maurice Thornton, sat down with six Vice Presidents and one CEO for our Leadership Lab podcast. The goal: cut through the leadership jargon and find out what VP-level impact really looks like in 2026.

Forget visibility. The best VPs we spoke to measure performance not by how central they are to the spotlight, but by how clearly their work impacts the customer, the market, or key business metrics. Whether it’s faster clinical development, better regulatory positioning, or more accurate forecasting, results rule.

It is the silent decision-making supporting your team in the background, pulling the strings, connecting the right people, and mediating inputs.

And experienced VPs recognise those moments to step out of the spotlight, let the team own the success, and build momentum for them while supporting from behind the scenes. They don’t say you shouldn’t be visible and at the forefront-  but just not always.

Every strategic choice should ladder up to one question: how does this help the person who’s paying the bill?

“As a VP, if your decisions don’t map back to customer outcomes, you’re playing the wrong game.”

Experienced leaders often tell me they’re constantly anticipating what the next challenge will be — for their team, their product, or the organisation as a whole. It’s a kind of mental radar. What’s coming down the pipeline? What is everyone else missing? That’s the baseline.

But anticipation alone isn’t enough. The strongest VPs also understand what the strategy is actually trying to do — not just on paper, but on the floor, in the market, for the patient or customer.

Being strategic isn’t about sounding clever in boardrooms. Sure, presenting well is part of the job. But the real strategy is about subtraction. Knowing what not to do. Choosing where not to spend energy. Simplifying where others complicate. The best VPs don’t do more — they do what matters.

“If you can explain your company’s strategy in one sentence at the coffee machine, congrats — you’re 90% of the way there.”

This applies to hiring, too. Candidates who interview with me and are asked about their relevant experiences and start their career stories in high school might miss the point. Relevance is clarity. Clarity is leadership.

“Strategic leaders are the ones who simplify when everyone else is complicating.”

In today’s matrixed life sciences companies, influence beats hierarchy.

I hear that often: people are tired of company politics, boardroom games, and fighting over influence.

And the cost is grave talent being tired of including the political game in their decisions and needing to lay out internal battle plans.

Great VPs don’t push they align. They’re persuasive, they listen, gather the data available, and make a decision. They translate top-level goals into individual motivations. Often, you find the sentence “ability to manage and drive cross-functional outcomes and teams.” And no, it doesn’t mean that you tell everyone exactly what to do and micromanage them.

They read the room. They bridge verticals. They manage tension with empathy.

“Titles don’t lead teams. Trust does.”

VPs don’t always have perfect data. Or time. But they still need to decide and own it. They’re accountable in crises, calm when ambiguity spikes, and quick to reset when plans go sideways.

Decision fatigue is real not just in hiring processes. But great VPs build mental systems to stay grounded. And foremost, they are accountable for their decisions. They stand by them and have the resilience and arguments to counter pushback or even include the pushback in their decision-making.

“You won’t always have time. You won’t always have the data.”

Real leaders don’t hoard talent, they grow it. The best VPs we spoke to make mentoring a daily habit. They hire people smarter than them and aren’t threatened by it. Succession isn’t a future plan, it’s a leadership KPI.

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’ve hired wrong.”

Strong talent cultures don’t happen by accident. They’re built by leaders who take recruitment and coaching seriously. And yes the best VPs are magnets. Top performers want to work with them. The best leaders we see naturally drag parts of their teams with them when changing positions, when people feel you led them the right way.

The most respected VPs don’t just have years on paper; they have scars, stories, and judgment. They know what failure feels like and how to convert it into leadership insight. They mentor by example, not ego.

This is also where recruiter instinct kicks in.

We always dig for how someone talks about their failures. If they can own it, extract insight, and apply it they’re usually the real deal.

I love the question to ask: “So what was a time you had to leave your ego at the door?” People start thinking, reflecting. And don’t get me wrong, the stories I hear are often clean as hell. But there are those cases where people own it and share the full story. And it often results in great conversations about the learnings and the moments resulting from such experiences.

Every leader we talked to had at least one career detour, sometimes voluntary, sometimes not. But what stood out was how those detours became the most important learning cycles.

It is great to have a streamlined career path and your LinkedIn profile shows a promotion from MSL to Executive Medical Director Global and yes, that is a sign of talent and I highly value those.

But what we see in biotech and life sciences is that your company with that great idea and asset just got bought out and there is your detour. Often people open the topic with, “Yes, and then we got acquired, and most of us were let go after a year and the handover.” And then they start telling you about the job searches, the struggle, and the position they found themselves in, going outside of their comfort zone.

They developed patience. Learned to play politics without losing their values. Understood that visibility isn’t the same as credibility.

“Credibility isn’t built through self-promotion. It’s built through consistency.”

There’s power in the sideways step and humility is a major advantage.

Yes, AI is changing how teams operate. But it’s also making human skills more valuable. The next generation of VPs will need to bridge digital fluency with cultural nuance and ethical clarity.

They’ll need to lead hybrid teams, operate across geographies, and keep trust intact even when the tech breaks or the signals are noisy. Leadership is becoming more relational, not less.

Being a VP isn’t about polished statements or performance reviews. It’s about judgment in motion. It’s about keeping people aligned when the strategy shifts and nobody has perfect data.

This is the leadership we look for every day. And this is what we specialise in at Headcount AG.

If you’re hiring for one — or becoming one — let’s talk.