As Intend2Lead turns 10 this year, we look back at the past decade of coaching thousands of accounting leaders and notice some challenges are the same, while new ones are creating a massive impact on the profession. What we notice most of all is the rapidly accelerating pace of change brought on by new, outside influences and how the profession needs to change from the inside to navigate them.

If you’re an accounting firm leader, you are likely feeling the pressure from many directions, including:

  • Succession gaps
  • Pipeline challenges
  • Adopting new technology, including artificial intelligence
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Private equity
  • Globalization
  • Remote/hybrid teams

The new challenges

Ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity are accelerating. Ten years ago, many firms could get away with maintaining the status quo. Today, leaders understand they need to be much more adaptable and agile, but they don’t always know how.

Private equity recently entered the profession in a significant way, and mergers and acquisitions are on the rise. Firms are now grappling with fundamental questions about whether to stay small and independent, merge up, or bring in investors.

At the same time, AI is automating more technical work and evolving what leadership needs to look like in ways the profession is still working to understand.

Many firms are now hybrid or partially remote, and more are managing teams globally, requiring leaders to create community, connection, and belonging across distances and cultures that were not part of the job a decade ago.

New Partners also want different things than they did ten years ago. They want to feel empowered and are no longer content to just make Partner and stay there until they retire. They want to feel a sense of purpose and connection in what they do, and they want the role, the firm, and the profession to align with what they want for their life.

All of this creates a deep need for leaders to develop critical thinking, build deeper relationships, and navigate ambiguity with ever accelerating response times.

The tool to find the solutions

When we founded Intend2Lead in 2016, we saw a profession full of bright, conscientious, kind people who genuinely wanted to make a difference, but were experiencing a contagious despair. The surrounding culture had normalized an expectation that struggle, burnout, and a sense of powerlessness were the cost of success.

It pained us to watch this expectation slowly drain people who had so much to offer, and we wanted to help change the profession from the inside.

We’ve been doing that ever since, with thousands of clients, and now, for Intend2Lead, developing the next generation of leaders feels even more urgent.

In order to survive, our profession must help emerging leaders feel connected, engaged, and confident enough to step into expanded roles. The future of the accounting profession depends on our capacity to consciously evolve as leaders – to choose love instead of fear and possibility instead of scarcity.

The question is: How do we do that and rise to the challenges we’re currently facing?

After 10 years coaching firms and individuals at Intend2Lead, plus nearly thirty combined years as CPAs ourselves, we are clear on the answer.

Coaching cultures are the solution to some of our profession’s toughest challenges. For those it doesn’t solve, it is one of the most powerful tools to find the solutions.

Space, structure, support, and trust

At the individual level, we help people envision the type of leader they need and want to be, and we give them the space, structure, and support to make that vision a reality.

Through our path-to-Partner and new Partner programs, we help leaders consciously evolve their leadership mindset and skill set. We help them connect with and support one another on that journey, creating a sense of connection, community, and belonging that accelerates both their individual and collective development. We’ve enjoyed watching cohorts of leaders develop together over six to twelve months and beyond, as Partners build trust across service lines, begin to understand what the rest of their firm can do for clients, and bring each other into more opportunities.

When trust increases, the firm’s ability to serve clients and grow revenue increases along with it, and the relationships built in these programs benefit firms for years to come.

Cultivating coaching cultures helps leaders leverage more, empower others, and free up their time and energy for more strategic work. By learning about the process of change, they develop more realistic expectations and can navigate the increasing change in our profession with more confidence, using empathy to create connection and belonging, and empowering others to work through challenges on their own.

Belonging, one of the five beliefs at the heart of our work, is what makes this possible.  When people feel like they truly belong, they stay, they grow, and they lead.

A coaching culture is the answer

The one clear differentiator in our work is teaching individuals and firms how to create a coaching culture by practicing coaching as a leadership style and cultivating intentional mindset shifts to embody conscious leadership. This produces individuals and firms capable of navigating known – and unknown – challenges with resilience and success.

Because a coaching culture is the opposite of a fixed culture, it expands with the individuals in the firm, with their growth, challenges, and expectations, and it flexes to allow solutions to challenges through collaboration.

We’ve helped firms and individuals with:

  • Executive coaching for firm leaders (managing partners, C-suite leaders, department heads, etc.)
  • Leadership coaching for emerging leaders
  • Developing the next generation of leaders through comprehensive, customized, cohort-based programs
  • Helping leaders build confidence and capability during significant promotion transitions
  • Overcoming burnout and turnover
  • Navigating significant transactions such as M&A integration, private equity infusions, and IPOs
  • Adopting new technology
  • Building coaching cultures, including teaching coaching as a leadership style to entire leadership teams and firms

If you are feeling overwhelmed or uncertain about the challenges facing your firm or your team, creating a coaching culture is the most powerful tool for finding and creating solutions.

Why our next ten years matter even more

The profession is at a crossroads.

Private equity, AI disruption, pipeline challenges, accelerating mergers and acquisitions, burnout, and succession crises are all coming to a head at the same time. The firms that will successfully navigate what’s coming are the ones investing in their leaders right now, developing the next generation before the succession gap becomes a crisis, building coaching cultures that create the kind of belonging that makes talented people want to stay, and cultivating the conscious leadership mindset that turns challenges into opportunity.

We didn’t start Intend2Lead to change the profession.

We started it to give accountants the tools to change it themselves. Ten years in, those tools are more necessary than ever. Conscious leaders are the answer to the profession’s survival, and firms that invest in coaching their leaders invest in our collective future.

If you want to learn more about where your firm is in cultivating a Coaching Culture and where there are real opportunities to grow, we’d love to have that conversation.

See you in the DoP,