Leading With Impact: Elevate Your CPA Career

It’s time for CPAs to rewrite their career stories to unlock their leadership potential. On one hand, CPAs have great pride in their technical achievements earned throughout their accounting career journeys. They mastered the procedural elements of running engagements, preparing tax projections and developing new business. However, something is often still missing when they reflect on the leader they have become. Some may be frustrated that they are unable to cultivate trusting relationships in their work worlds, resulting in feeling unheard or valued. They express that colleagues and bosses don’t acknowledge their opinions or insights. They begin to realize that the leadership skills that brought them success in the past may not be the same skills they need to be a great leader in their careers today and beyond.

Tools to Enable CPAs to Become Successful Leaders Today and In the Future

1. Self-awareness: Adding self-awareness to your CPA leadership toolbox is the first step in growing your leadership. When you gain an honest and clear understanding of how you are interacting with your team, you can start to identify your strengths and blind spots more clearly and build stronger relationships. Here are some questions to ask to ignite this process:
• How would you describe the way you are perceived by the people in your personal and professional life?
• Would you paint the same picture or a different picture of your leadership than colleagues or bosses?
• What is most important to you about being an effective leader?
2. Confidence: Leaders need to put their confidence in high gear to kick-start their leadership for today s accounting challenges. Your confidence or lack of confidence can support or derail your huge goals. Working with my coaching clients, I am often reminded of how confidence can be a real game changer when it comes to trying new things out of your comfort zone. To build a leader’s confidence:
• Focus on your strengths and talents.
• List out last year’s accomplishments and recognitions.
• Stay open-minded to exploring new areas in your field.
• Use the feedback you have received in daily routines and stretch assignments.
3. Humility: An often overlooked leadership skill, humility is what creates impactful CPAs. If you want colleagues and bosses to see you as a leader, then lose the accolades about yourself and focus on the ways to elevate others. Give everyone around you credit for all their hard work. Leaders build credibility and connect more deeply with their teams by supporting others and validating what colleagues have to share. To lead with humility:
• Wait until a person is finished speaking before jumping in with your comments.
• Don’t put down other perspectives different from your own but rather try to see the other person’s point of view.
• Embrace challenging questions and admit if you don’t have the answer.
• Be honest about making a mistake.
4. Powerful communication: Don’t let your leadership be discounted by not speaking up with clarity and respect. Sharing your important ideas and perspectives contributes a great deal to being an influential communicator. However, actively listening to others to understand them completely is equally important. To build your communication muscle:
• Be clear in your messages by choosing words carefully.
• Use body language that is consistent with your message. Remember, if you roll your eyes no one will even listen to the words.
• Be truthful about what you are saying. No one wants to be gaslighted.
5. The leader within: The leader within is an essential tool for leadership success. To strengthen your leader within, create leadership goals that will help you keep growing. Try writing out a leadership vision that supports your values and brings you fulfillment. Know where you’re headed in your accounting career and map out what areas you may want to grow in or learn more about. Think big and reach out to people in your network who may be able to mentor you. The time is now to build your leadership skills that align with your professional choices.