Accountant To Leader

Let’s face it, Accountants are amongst the most talented people either working for or providing services to businesses.  They have successfully got through a set of demanding and competitive exams and got a whole lot of knowledge.  They have huge potential yet so often never fully exploit it.  Why is that?  From my own experience, there are a number of reasons:

1. They focus their development on technical accounting and IT skills

1. They don't get clear on what they want to achieve professionally

1. They spend most of their time producing numbers rather than contributing to business success.  An article in the December 2006 edition of Financial Management suggests as much as 80% of their time is spent producing numbers

1. They don't promote themselves and the contributions they can make.  It is all very well having lots of people who can come up with creative ideas.  Good Accountants can help non financial managers translate it into something tangible

1. They don't ask the business what they want and build a service plan to deliver it

So how can Accountants start making the transition to leader:

1. Get clear on what their professional goals are.  This includes the level they want to get to, the type of organisation they want to work in, salary

1. Start to use CPD as an opportunity to build a long term personal development plan

1. Look for ways to change practices so that the time spent producing numbers is reduced and time is released to spend with managers and in the organisation

1. Start letting non financial managers know the type of contributions they can make and do two or three things to demonstrate credentials to the cynics

1. Conduct a customer survey so that the service you offer fits with the needs of the organisation not what you think they need