Often, effective leadership goes unrecognized. Leaders who come to the rescue and solve problems appear like gallant cavalry officers on white horses. Books are written. Songs are sung. Speeches are made extolling the leadership of the “rock star” leader. But what about the leader who guides his or her organization to avoid calamities? Few people recognize the lack of calamity as worthy of speeches or accolades!
We find in The Rainmaker Academy and The Market Facing Leadership Academy that the same is true of the really great Rainmakers. Those accountants who are willing to invest years into planting the seeds of success get very little credit during those planting years.
Working with lots of egos can be challenging for a driven leader, and sharing or giving away the credit isn’t always easy, says Scott Dietzen based in Spokane, Washington, Regional Managing Principal of CliftonLarsonAllen.
I’m sure there are times when all leaders want to say, “Wait a minute, that was my idea.” I have had to bite my tongue and say, “Yes, that person was fantastic, and they’ve really seized the opportunity,” because in the end, what should be important to me is the firm moving in the direction towards its vision. As soon as I begin to wave my flag, the attention gets directed to the wrong people.
Whether you’re the CEO, a manager, a senior, or the receptionist, you can and should be a leader. And the opportunity to be a leader shows much earlier in your career in our kind of profession because you are leading something almost from the day you start.
With the challenges that leaders face, many accountants may turn away from the responsibility that leadership brings. But Carl George, former managing partner of Clifton Gunderson LLP, has found that leaders also benefit from their roles. “Peter Drucker may have said that leadership was mundane, unromantic, and boring work. I know he’s an icon, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m in total disagreement with that statement,” George says. “To me, I had the best job in the firm, being CEO. It was exciting every day. Any time I had the chance to lead 2,000 people in CG, and I had the chance to help lead our revenue growth five times during my tenure as CEO, it was exhilarating. That’s pretty good for a Hoosier boy from Indianapolis.”
Your ability to raise your leadership ability is the most important factor in growing your team and your business. Once you have mastered a certain amount of technical competence, it will be your leadership that will help you grow into the next level of business acumen. This book is designed to give you a road map for building a competent team of professionals to continue serving your clients in more sophisticated ways.
Based on a new book by Troy Waugh – Leading an Accounting Firm, the pyramid of success available at www.therainmakeracademy.com or the AICPA bookstore:

Based on a new book by Troy Waugh – Leading an Accounting Firm, the pyramid of success available at www.therainmakeracademy.com and the AICPA bookstore:

In the accounting profession, we’ve found that interested introverts make the best Rainmakers and the best leaders. Our instructors witness this phenomenon in each of our classes – the person who is humble enough to give the credit to his or her team seems to always be at the top of our Rainmaker Academy and Leadership Academy classes.
Bob Bunting describes one of his firm’s now retired office managing partners and her humble leadership style’s dramatic impact:
Out of her office, we’ve produced five managing partners, and we’ve produced four industry leaders and two specialty leaders.
She is self-effacing. She defers credit to others. I think she systematically avoids being charismatic. She has very high empathy with people, but she is demanding. You tell her a sob story, she says, “Let’s go to work on that; let’s get that fixed; I’m going to help you, and you’re going to perform.” And it’s really masterful to combine the empathetic style of leadership with a very demanding set of expectations.
Because of her leadership, our firm is growing.
Now, in other situations, you have the guy who is the absolute boss; he is the smartest guy in the room, he makes great decisions, people always go to him for answers, and he gives them answers because he doesn’t have time to bring them to the answers. How many leaders has he produced? Zero. People don’t quit, but he is not enabling people or bringing people along.
Gordon Krater notes that humility has made successful leaders in his firm, as well. “Our former managing partner, Bill Herman, has a lot of fine leadership traits,” Krater says. “One of the best is he really doesn’t care about the credit. But he’ll take the blame. Even when somebody is trying to give him credit, he’d say, ‘Well that’s not me; that’s the team.’”
On the topic of humble leaders, Bob Hottman says, “In Jim Collins’s book Good to Great, humility was a common characteristic of the very best leaders. None of those people were rock stars. You would hardly know their names unless you’d really read the book and remember it, and so, that was an extraordinary characteristic that they shared.”

Great leaders must be adaptive to change. If we rely only on our experience, the ability to handle the new challenges that today and tomorrow bring is very limited. Some leaders operate well in a rapid-growth environment, and others operate better in slower growth. Some leaders operate best in crisis, and others lead better when things are more stable. Sometimes, the rapid growth leader cannot lead very well in a stable situation. We have found in The Market Facing Leadership Academy that we offer, accountants find their natural leadership style and begin to operate more adaptively.
“There can be different types of leaders for different roles. A business that is growing steadily in a stable market environment will benefit from a leader who is also steady and stable. Great leaders can adapt to the situation at hand. A business in crises may need a different type of leader for a period of time,” says Bill Haller.
Bill goes on
My partner, C.E. Crouse, is a great client leader. His skills fall into two areas: trust and competence. It amazes me at how much someone can foul up in a particular client situation, and C.E., with his calm style and his caring attitude, can make that client feel, “Not to worry; I am on the case. I will solve your problem and do it all gently without leaving any scarred bodies behind.” He is a very Godly man. The way he deals with people, they feel better about themselves.
Dave Sibits, president of CBIZ Financial Services in Cleveland, OH, observes, “There are leaders who can grow firms to a certain size, and then, the business will plateau. My five and half years as part of the senior team of American Express helped position me to do the job that I am doing today: leading part of a public company.”
Leaders have to understand the technical and the human aspects of their firms. Gordon Krater, managing partner of Plante & Moran, PLLC, in Southfield, MI, says
I think we are technical by nature, and so we often look for what’s wrong. I think engineers, accountants, and lawyers are generally those kinds of people. Professionals are doing intellectual work, and they want to make sure that the person who’s leading understands that.
We are all about people, not things. If I describe my leadership style, I’d say servant leadership. I don’t really feel that I’m the boss; I feel like I’m here to create an environment where people can excel.
Bob Hottman agrees with Krater,
I view leadership in a serving role as opposed to a commanding role. I think in a service business, a servant leader is going to be much more successful than a commanding leader will be.
We use a tree to symbolize our firm and the roots being the core values, the trunk being the partners, and the limbs and the branches and the leaves being our clients and our people. And we know that tree will grow as long as we can develop partners. But the partners are on the bottom to support the organization. They’re not on top coming down.
Many accounting firms are turning to programs like The Market Facing Leadership Academy to train the new managers to become better leaders and be able to adapt to the situation presented to them. Others are using The Rainmaker Academy, which teaches planning, coaching and results to grow business owners and partners into great leaders for the future of their firms.

Based on a new book by Troy Waugh – Leading an Accounting Firm, the pyramid of success available at www.therainmakeracademy.com

Are Leaders Born or Are They Built?
People come up to me all the time and say things like, “Leaders are natural” or “Leaders and Rainmakers are just born that way” or “She is just a natural Rainmaker because she makes it look so easy.” I have found that although some people are born with gifted intelligence, it can be frittered away without nurturing. I’ve also found that people of average intelligence can accomplish greatness with their lives because of dedication, learning, and hard work. In this blog, we’ll talk about nature versus nurture. I believe you can grow your ability to lead an accounting firm, a niche team or an office.
Ken Baggett, CEO of Reznick Group in Atlanta, GA, says
I believe people have some personality traits they are born with that help them become leaders, but I believe most people can develop leadership skills at some level if they are exposed and want to work at it. I had a wonderful experience as a young leader when I met Bob Bunting, the former CEO of Moss Adams. I had just become the managing partner of Reznick Group. He was speaking at a conference, and I approached him about spending a little time with him to learn how Moss Adams operated and provided leadership training. He immediately agreed, and I flew to Seattle the following week. To my surprise we started at 9:00 AM and ended our time together around 5:00 PM that day. Not only did I feel I had spent the day with “greatness,” but I was amazed at how open Bob was. At the end, I asked him why he had allowed me so much time, and he said that when he became managing partner of Moss Adams, he was sent to another firm’s managing partner for a similar full day of discussion. At the end, the managing partner said that Bob must offer the same assistance in the future when others came calling. That day taught me that you always share, you always make time, and you can always learn from teaching.
When I ask leaders the question, “Are you a better leader today than you were five years ago?” the answer always comes back a resounding “Yes”. So here’s my challenge to you – imagine a great leader that you’ve served under or with. What three things did that person do that made him or her a great leader? Now, ask yourself, “Can I get better in those three things?” If you can get better, then you can learn to be a leader. I think leadership is mostly built, not inbred.
We experience accountants who join The Rainmaker Academy program who seem to be reluctant leaders develop their leadership ability – they learn to plan, coach others and get results. That’s the stuff of real leaders.

Based on a new book by Troy Waugh – Leading an Accounting Firm, the pyramid of success available at www.therainmakeracademy.com

Leading an Accounting Firm:

The Pyramid of Success

by Troy Waugh

Click here to Purchase Troy’s new book

Click here for more information about Leading an Accounting Firm

Want to receive a chapter of Leading an Accounting Firm a month for FREE? 

Click here to sign up!

Build a stronger firm with this guide to CPA firm leadership

Leading an Accounting Firm teaches you how to improve your personal leadership and build great leaders around you.

Using the model of the pyramid to illustrate his concept, author Troy Waugh builds a case for ongoing leadership development, guiding you through the essential ideas and practices that are at the core of great leadership and great firms.

Developed specifically for CPA firm leaders, it covers the full spectrum of leadership development, including:

• Leading Self
• Leading Staff
• Leading Strategy
• Leading Systems
• Leading Synergy

Plus, you’ll hear from more than 40 of the profession’s top leaders.  Recognizing the multitude of approaches to leadership, Waugh reaches out to colleagues in some of the best-led firms in the profession and asked them to share their leadership experience and philosophies.

Troy Waugh is the author of 3 books and has been selected as one of the 100 most influential people in the accounting profession for 7 years in a row by Accounting Today magazine.  As a leading consultant to the profession, Troy and his team have helped firms add more than $800 million in new business through their services.