How to become a general manager

If you enjoy seeing how different parts of a business connect, making decisions that influence organisational direction and leading people through change, a career in general management could be a natural next step.

General managers operate beyond a single function. They need to understand people, customers, finance, operations, strategy and emerging technologies, then bring those perspectives together to make informed decisions.

It is also a significant part of Australia’s leadership workforce. Jobs and Skills Australia reports around 69,300 General Managers are employed nationally, with 91% working full-time.

So, what does a general manager do, and how can you build the capability to move into this kind of senior leadership role?

What does a general manager do?

A general manager is a senior leader responsible for the performance of a business, business unit or major area of an organisation.

Rather than focusing on one function, general managers typically work across multiple areas of the business. Depending on the size and structure of an organisation, they may oversee operations, finance, marketing, people, customer strategy and other functions while reporting to a chief executive officer (CEO), managing director or executive leadership team.

Jobs and Skills Australia describes General Managers as leaders who plan, organise, direct, control and review the day-to-day operations and major functions of organisations through departmental managers and subordinate executives.

General manager responsibilities can include:

• Setting organisational priorities and objectives
• Overseeing functions such as sales, marketing, finance, operations and people
• Aligning teams and departments with broader organisational strategy
• Making commercial, operational and strategic decisions
• Managing budgets, resources and performance
• Leading managers and department heads
• Working with internal and external stakeholders
• Identifying risks and opportunities across the organisation
• Leading organisational change and transformation
• Reporting business performance to senior executives or boards

The role requires breadth. A general manager does not need to be the technical expert in every function, but they do need enough business understanding and judgement to see how decisions in one area can affect another.

Steps to becoming a general manager

There is no single route into general management.

Most professionals build towards the role by combining experience in their field with progressively broader leadership responsibility, commercial understanding and exposure to different parts of an organisation.

Jobs and Skills Australia puts the median age of General Managers at 48, compared with 39 across all occupations, reflecting the level of professional and leadership experience typically associated with the role.

Step 1: Build a strong foundation in business and management

A strong understanding of how organisations operate can provide an important foundation for a career in general management.

Many professionals begin with undergraduate study in areas such as business, commerce, economics, marketing, finance or another discipline relevant to their industry. Others develop expertise through professional experience before undertaking postgraduate study later in their careers.

There is no single qualification required to become a general manager. However, higher education is common among people who reach this level. Jobs and Skills Australia data for Corporate General Managers shows 30.5% hold a bachelor degree, while a further 22.2% hold a postgraduate qualification, graduate diploma or Graduate Certificate.

As your responsibilities grow, postgraduate study such as the UTS Online Master of Business Administration (MBA) can help you develop the broader business perspective senior leadership roles require.

General managers make decisions across functions, balancing people, performance, finance, customers, technology, risk and organisational priorities. The UTS Online Master of Business Administration develops capability across these areas while strengthening the critical thinking and strategic judgement needed to navigate complex business environments.

Through eight core subjects, you’ll build capability across leadership, marketing, economics, finance, responsible decision-making, sustainability and strategic business practice. You’ll also develop proficiency in the responsible use of AI and data, helping you evaluate information, challenge assumptions and make informed decisions as technology changes how organisations operate.

Step 2: Gain broad professional experience

Becoming a general manager usually involves progressing through roles that give you increasing responsibility and a wider understanding of how a business operates.

Experience across different teams, projects or business functions can be particularly valuable because general managers need to understand how organisational priorities connect.

For example, working in sales or marketing can build your understanding of customers, markets and revenue growth. Finance roles can strengthen commercial judgement and your ability to interpret budgets, performance and investment decisions.

Operations roles can build experience in execution, efficiency and resource management, while project and transformation roles can expose you to cross-functional decision-making and organisational change.

You do not necessarily need to work in every function.

What matters is gradually moving beyond responsibility for your own area and developing the ability to understand how different parts of an organisation contribute to its overall performance.

The workforce profile reinforces how substantial that responsibility can be. Around 91% of General Managers work full-time, compared with 69% across all occupations.

Step 3: Build the capabilities senior leaders need

General managers do more than oversee operations. They lead organisations through uncertainty, competing priorities and change.

That requires capabilities that extend beyond traditional people management.

GMAC’s 2026 employer research found problem-solving, strategic thinking and communication remain among the capabilities employers value in graduate management talent. Data analysis, AI and technology skills also recorded some of the largest increases in employer value, highlighting the growing importance of combining human judgement with technological capability.

Key areas to develop include:

• Strategic judgement: Understand the wider business environment, assess competing priorities and make decisions that support long-term organisational goals.
• Critical thinking: Challenge assumptions, evaluate evidence from different perspectives and identify bias or gaps in the information available to you.
• Cross-functional leadership: Understand the priorities of different business functions and bring teams together around shared organisational outcomes.
• Commercial capability: Understand financial performance, budgets, investment decisions and the commercial implications of different strategic choices.
• People leadership: Create clarity, develop capability and support teams through periods of growth and change.
• Change and transformation: Help organisations respond to new technology, shifting markets, customer expectations and changing ways of working.
• Stakeholder management: Communicate and build alignment with employees, executives, customers, partners and other stakeholders.
• Responsible use of technology and AI: Understand how emerging technologies can support better decisions while considering their limitations and ethical, organisational and social implications.
• Decision-making under uncertainty: Weigh evidence, risk and competing information when there is no obvious or perfect answer.

These capabilities become increasingly important as you move from managing a function to making decisions that affect the organisation more broadly.

Step 4: Strengthen your leadership for complex environments

Senior leadership often means dealing with complexity rather than simply having greater authority.

General managers need to lead people with different expertise, balance short-term and long-term priorities and make decisions that may affect multiple teams at once.

Developing the following capabilities can help:

• Build emotional intelligence: Understand your own responses and recognise how others may react to pressure, uncertainty and change.
• Develop systems thinking: Look beyond individual problems to understand how different parts of an organisation influence one another.
• Practice inclusive leadership: Seek different perspectives and create environments where people can contribute to decision-making.
• Strengthen communication: Adapt the way you communicate for different audiences, from employees and customers to executives and boards.
• Cultivate resilience: Maintain perspective and support others when plans change or organisations encounter setbacks.
• Develop coaching capability: Help people build their own judgement and problem-solving skills rather than relying solely on direction.
• Use evidence critically: Understand the information behind a decision, test assumptions and recognise where data or technology may not tell the whole story.

Strong general managers are able to move between the detail and the bigger picture, understanding what needs attention today without losing sight of where the organisation needs to go next.

Step 5: Build your professional network and learn from others

Professional relationships can play an important role in leadership development.

A strong network can expose you to different industries, ways of thinking and approaches to business challenges. Mentors can also provide perspective when you are considering a career move, stepping into greater responsibility or dealing with situations you have not encountered before.

Effective networking is not simply about collecting contacts. It is about building genuine professional relationships where knowledge, perspectives and opportunities can move in both directions.

With UTS Online, you’ll learn alongside other professionals and collaborate through discussions and applied learning activities throughout your MBA. You’ll also learn from academics and industry practitioners who bring current thinking and professional experience into the online classroom.

Engaging with different perspectives can be particularly valuable for aspiring general managers, whose roles often require them to bring people with different expertise and priorities together.

What is the employment outlook for managers?

General managers work across industries including technology, finance, healthcare, construction, professional services, manufacturing and retail.

The broader outlook for management employment in Australia is positive.

Jobs and Skills Australia projects employment among Managers to grow by 14.9% between 2025 and 2035, adding around 279,600 roles over the decade.

Growth is not expected to be evenly distributed across every type of management role.

Some of the strongest projected growth is in areas that increasingly combine specialist knowledge with broader leadership capability:

• 27.1% growth for Health and Welfare Services Managers
• 25.5% growth for ICT Managers
• 22.8% growth for Research and Development Managers

For professionals preparing for general management, these trends reinforce the value of developing leadership and business capability that can transfer across industries and organisational contexts.

How much can a general manager earn?

General manager salaries can vary significantly depending on industry, location, organisation, experience and the scale of responsibility involved.

SEEK’s September 2026 salary data, based on salary ranges disclosed in job advertisements, shows some of the highest industry averages for General Managers in:

• Banking and Financial Services: $194,454
• Engineering: $193,125
• Accounting: $192,543
• Government and Defence: $187,246
• Construction: $172,049

Average advertised salaries also vary in other major sectors, including $149,056 in Education and Training and $147,567 in Healthcare and Medical. SEEK notes that advertised figures may differ in whether they include superannuation and other benefits.

That variation reflects the breadth of general management itself. The responsibilities of someone leading a financial services business can be very different from those of a general manager working in health, education, technology or professional services.

Shape your MBA around your direction

General management is cross-functional by nature, and your development does not have to sit within one discipline either.

Alongside eight core business subjects, the UTS Online Master of Business Administration includes 24 credit points of electives drawn from across UTS Online. This gives you the opportunity to stay connected to the field you already know, build capability in an area you want to move into or combine different perspectives around the challenges you want to lead.

Elective areas include:

• Digital Marketing: Build understanding of digital consumer behaviour, data-driven marketing and omnichannel strategy.
• Health Services Management: Explore leadership, value-based care and planning across health and social services.
• Public Health: Develop perspectives across contemporary public health, health promotion and global health systems.
• Education (Learning and Leadership): Build capability across workplace learning, mentoring, innovation and organisational development.
• Technology Management: Connect business strategy with AI, digital transformation, innovation, enterprise agility and technology.
• Sustainable Leadership: Explore sustainability practice, climate change, policy and the role of science and data in leadership.
• Strategic Communication: Build capability across stakeholder engagement, organisational storytelling, risk and crisis communication.
• International Relations: Develop broader perspectives on global governance, sustainability, data ethics and regulation.

For an aspiring general manager, that flexibility can be particularly valuable.

You might want stronger technology capability as AI becomes more important to your organisation. You might need a deeper understanding of people and learning as your leadership responsibilities grow. Or you might combine communication, sustainability or industry-specific electives with your core business studies.

The workforce outlook also shows why different directions may matter. Jobs and Skills Australia projects particularly strong growth in health and technology management roles over the coming decade, at 27.1% and 25.5% respectively.

Rather than following one prescribed direction, you can shape part of the MBA around the capabilities most relevant to the kind of leader you want to become.

Start with a Graduate Certificate

If you’re not ready to commit to the full MBA, you can start with the Graduate Certificate in Business Administration.

The Graduate Certificate is made up of four subjects drawn from the MBA. Designed for working professionals, it provides a shorter way to experience postgraduate study, apply what you learn in your role and gain a recognised qualification in as little as eight months.

When you continue into the UTS Online Master of Business Administration, all 24 credit points completed through the Graduate Certificate are automatically credited towards the MBA, leaving 48 credit points to complete the full degree.

The Graduate Certificate can also provide an entry pathway for some applicants who do not hold a bachelor’s degree, subject to course entry requirements.

Why choose the UTS Online MBA?

Moving into general management requires more than becoming better at one function.

You need to understand how different parts of an organisation connect and develop the judgement to make decisions across them.

The UTS Online Master of Business Administration is designed for working professionals who want to build that broader capability while continuing their careers.

The course comprises 12 online subjects and 72 credit points, including eight core subjects and 24 credit points of electives. Subjects are delivered in seven-week study periods, with six intakes throughout the year and a minimum course duration of two years.

Build capability across the business

The eight core subjects develop capability across:

• Marketing
• People and change
• Accounting and decision-making
• Managerial economics
• Critical thinking
• Sustainability, ethics and social impact
• Finance
• Strategic business practice

Together, they are designed to help you understand business from different angles and make more informed decisions when challenges cross functions.

Think critically when the answer isn’t obvious

Senior leaders regularly make decisions with incomplete or competing information.

Through subjects including Critical Thinking for Business Decisions, you’ll strengthen your ability to analyse complex problems, challenge assumptions, evaluate evidence and reach well-reasoned conclusions.

That focus aligns with what employers are looking for. GMAC’s 2026 employer research continues to identify problem-solving and strategic thinking among the most valued capabilities in graduate management talent.

Put AI to work responsibly

AI and emerging technologies are changing the information leaders have available and the decisions they need to make.

The MBA develops proficiency in the responsible use of AI and data to support informed business decisions, while exploring the ethical, organisational and social implications of emerging technologies.

That matters in a labour market where GMAC found skills using AI tools, data analysis and other technology skills recorded some of the largest increases in employer value in 2026.

Apply what you learn at work

Learning is grounded in practical business challenges, helping you connect new frameworks and perspectives with your own professional context.

Studying while you continue to work means you can apply new thinking as you progress through the course, whether that involves approaching a decision differently, analysing a business challenge from another perspective or changing how you lead a team.

Employer perceptions of online graduate management education are also continuing to shift. GMAC’s 2026 research found 61% of employers value online and in-person graduate management courses equally, up from 55% two years earlier.

Make part of the MBA your own

Your 24 credit points of electives give you another way to connect your UTS Online Master of Business Administration with your professional direction.

You can deepen capability in your current field, explore an area you want to move into or combine electives from different disciplines to build a broader leadership perspective.

Learn through UTS Business School

The MBA is delivered by UTS Business School, which holds AACSB and EQUIS accreditation and is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education.

You’ll learn from academics and industry practitioners who bring contemporary thinking, professional experience and real-world insight into your studies.

Take your management skills to the next level

Becoming a general manager is rarely the result of one qualification or one career move.

It usually comes from building experience, widening your understanding of the business and developing the judgement to lead beyond your own function.

With around 69,300 General Managers already working across Australia and management employment projected to grow by 14.9% over the decade to 2035, there are opportunities for experienced professionals who can lead across functions, industries and changing business environments.

If your next step involves greater strategic responsibility, cross-functional leadership or making decisions that shape organisational direction, the UTS Online Master of Business Administration can help you build the broader capability to take it on.

Explore the UTS Online Master of Business Administration or speak with a Student Enrolment Advisor on 1300 477 423.