good vs. bad leadership.
by liz farr
i am fascinated by leadership. that’s likely because i’ve had way more experience with poor or mediocre leaders than with great leaders. let me tell you about examples at the extremes.
more from liz farr: jason blumer & julie shipp: move leaders out of client service | brandon hall: firms try to make too much on tax prep | amber setter: coaching helps resolve the tension between safety and purpose | james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | chris vanover: question the why or stay with the status quo | jason deshayes: what we’re doing isn’t working
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in 2002, my accounting career began with a job at h&r block in rural new mexico. it was my first job where it was important to be at work on time. all my previous jobs had been as research assistants in biochemistry. my schedule was flexible, and as long as i kept up with the necessary work to move the project forward, my supervisors generally didn’t care when i did the work.
what kind of leader do you want to be?
do you want to be the kind of leader people want to follow? who is honored, as julie shipp is, “to go shoulder to shoulder with you”? or the leader who relies on constant and pointless check-ins?
if you’ve never spent time at a retail tax prep office, you may not be familiar with the stampede of people who show up as soon as they get their w2s so they can get their eitc refunds as soon as possible. this office was in a low-income area, so for a few weeks in february, when the doors opened at 9 a.m., we had enough people lined up outside the door to keep us busy until noon or beyond.
i wasn’t quite synced to the notion of getting to work absolutely on time yet, so for a few days one week, i was a bit late to work. not hugely late, but late enough that my co-workers were already paired up with clients when i walked in the back door. on the second day, as soon as i was seated, my boss ralph bent to my ear and quietly said, “can you do me a favor? can you leave your house 10 minutes earlier in the morning?”
i was never late again. i suddenly understood how bad it looked for ralph to have me walk in late and that my tardiness made one of the clients wait until i arrived, which had a cascading effect the rest of the morning. i also saw how hard he worked and how committed he was to helping people in our community get their taxes filed.
ralph’s gentle approach to leading his motley crew made me loyal to him. i worked for him the next year and would have put in a third year if i hadn’t been offered a last-minute tax season internship at a local cpa firm.
my experience in public accounting was what i call medium bad. not the horrible experiences of a friend who put in 48 hours straight on an audit or the co-worker publicly scolded for losing a document she’d never had. but bad enough that i eventually left the profession entirely.
i spent 11 years at a smallish firm in albuquerque. in my last fall there, the mood was edgy and uncertain. four people had left our 15-member firm since june. three of them had worked with me for a decade. those left wondered if we’d be the next ones to get axed. or if we should take our ambition and our skills elsewhere.
that november, i was spending my days on a business valuation project for a contentious divorce. because the books hadn’t been kept up to date since the soon-to-be ex-wife separated from her husband, i spent days compiling expenses from receipts and credit card statements and weeding out the personal expenses scattered throughout. it was super-detailed and manual work that took a lot of focus. (yes, i know – i could have used tech to automate most of that work, but no one at that firm was aware of that possibility.)
one of my bosses walked past my office every morning to get to his office. he had developed the habit of walking past my door, briefcase in hand, and stopping two steps beyond it. he would pause for a few seconds, then walk backward two steps to put his head in my door and ask me, “how’s that business valuation project coming?”
he was never really after a serious answer. it was walk-by management. if i did have a question, he’d generally put me off with a promise to follow up later (which he rarely did). he wasn’t motivating me to get the work done faster. that little distraction drove me nuts.
one day, i snapped and told him, “i would get it done faster if you would just let me do my work.” that, in turn, caused him to snap, and he stepped into my office, slammed my door shut and started yelling at me about my attitude. i said i didn’t appreciate his micromanagement, and he countered that he was just ensuring the work was done.
in an instant, something shifted in me. a voice inside told me to let him win, that this battle wasn’t worth it. so, i apologized. the look of smug triumph that flashed over his face let me know he had just shown me his true colors.
he destroyed the few remaining shreds of loyalty i’d had for that firm. i had zero desire to follow him as a leader any longer.
admittedly, i could have handled that better. but that incident was the catalyst i needed to leave a firm where i had zero opportunities for future growth. i had stayed as long as i did because i liked the people i worked with. however, most of them were either gone or on their way out by then.
and in retrospect, i don’t blame my boss for his reaction. he was doing the best job he knew how.
a few days later, one of my accounting friends connected me with a tiny cpa firm looking for help. within a week of that incident, i gave my notice.