How good accountants become great leaders
Management and leadership are not interchangeable terms. One requires competence; the other needs trust.
In Brief
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Management is about technical competence, but leadership is about relationships and influence.
- Trust is the reason why team members will follow you.
- To fully understand and measure trust, it needs to be quantified in terms of degree or intensity.
By Sebastian Salicru
What makes a good accountant? Technical knowledge, competence and experience, you may say. Sure, these are all prerequisites to enter the profession and, with enough experience, to become a good manager.
But while management is about technical and operational competence, leadership is about people, relationships and influence.
The reason clients give you work or recommend you to others is the same reason why your peers respect your opinion, your team members are willing to follow you, and your boss is considering you for a promotion. They trust you.
“Management is about technical and operational competence… leadership is about people, relationships and influence.”
Asking someone whether they trust us is a crude form of measurement. To fully understand and measure trust, we need to unpack it in detail and quantify it in terms of degree or intensity.
The use of ordinal scales is an effective, systematic and precise way to do this.
If you are feeling brave, ask your team members to rate you on the seven statements below
(1= Totally disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Totally agree).
- Does not blame us when things go wrong.
- Communicates openly, honestly and respectfully.
- Is competent.
- Demonstrates good judgement.
- Can be relied on.
- Delivers on his/her promises.
- Shares important information openly and transparently with us.
Collect their responses, draw the average for each dimension and compare it with your self-rating. This will you give you a good indicator of your trustworthiness and effectiveness as a leader.
Read more:
Leadership Results by Sebastian Salicru
How to create adaptive leaders and high-performing organisations for an uncertain world.
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