• FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • LOG IN
  • SIGN UP FOR FREE

Resourceful Finance Pro

  • FREE RESOURCES
        • Accounts Payable
          Finally! The trick to securing greater T&E compliance
          Benefits
          Rooting out folks who don’t belong on your health plan: A 6-point dependent audit checklist
          IT
          3 costly misconceptions about biz email compromise
          Credit and Collections
          Collecting via email: 4 must-make moves in your subject line
          Accounts Payable
          5 Tough-to-spot signs that an invoice is fake
  • PREMIUM CONTENT
        • Staff management
          120 Proven Communications Tips for Today’s CFO
        • Payroll
          Handling Nonexempt Employee Pay: Stay Compliant and Avoid DOL Audits
          Accounts Payable
          T&E Best Practices: Complete Guide to Ensure Compliance
          Payroll
          Payroll Best Practices: 4 Ways to Save Time and Money
        • Staff management
          Email Best Practices: A 6-Question Quiz
          Staff management
          Innovative Communications Strategies: An Email Case Study
          Staff management
          A 5-part Framework for Successful Workplace Communications
        • SEE MORE
          PREMIUM RESOURCES
  • CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Payroll
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Finance Technology
  • Sales & Use Tax
  • More
    • Employment Law
    • Strategy
    • Policy and Culture
    • Fraud
    • Budgeting and Forecasting
    • Banking
    • Staff Management
    • Cost Control
  • Policy and culture
3 minute read

What really makes a great leader? 3 mottos from your peers

Alyssa Pedrick
by Alyssa Pedrick
May 24, 2019
  • SHARE ON

To get to where you are, you had to demonstrate not only excellent financial knowledge and experience, but great leadership skills.

From your front-line staffers to departmental managers, you have to manage it all. In fact, you probably have to spend just as much time leading your team and educating others as you do analyzing spend and presenting financial reports.

And the best leaders know that there’s no end to their own personal and professional growth.

One viable way to keep growing? Looking to your fellow company leaders’ practices. Here are three pieces of advice from successful leaders that you can work to exemplify at your own company:

1. Trust your team

When it comes to managing your team and delegating assignments, it can be challenging to strike the right balance between completely letting go and micromanaging, says Keisha Rivers, founder of The KARS Group Ltd. But for your own sanity, and to help others develop their skills, it’s key to relinquish any untrusting nature.

When you show your team that you value and have confidence in them, they’ll be motivated and driven to deliver.

But you don’t have to give up all control in every situation. If you still want to retain some control over certain assignments or tasks, you can schedule regular check-ins to see how things are progressing, Rivers adds.

Spend Controls

2. Pursue and welcome change

At work, you’ve probably heard (or maybe even said) the phrase, “That’s just the way things are here.” But you know that getting stuck in old habits or becoming stagnant is troublesome for leaders, explains Liz Elting, co-CEO of TransPerfect. Instead, leaders should constantly look to innovate, to update policies, to improve process steps.

And don’t go it alone! Elting recommends gathering feedback from everyone who holds a stake in your processes, from your own staffers and managers to other business units and trading partners.

The questions you ask can be more general (“How’s our process doing overall?”) or more specific to a certain practice (“Could we streamline XYZ in our payroll process? Is our vendor query turnaround time satisfactory?”).  And let’s not forget: Once you have feedback, make concrete plans to act on it. That’ll show you’re not just a leader who wants to progress, but a doer who will really make it happen.

3. Seek respect, not popularity

There’s no denying it: Everyone wants to be well-liked. But sometimes, especially when you’re a top executive, you have to make tough decisions or enforce rules that others don’t like.

That’s why David Scarola, Chief Experience Officer of The Alternative Board, focuses not on being well-liked by everyone he works with, but on being understood and respected.

It’s important to communicate openly and clarify why decisions were made, why deadlines are in place, and so on. Others may not always like it, but if you thoroughly explain the reasoning behind it, they can understand it. And that’ll earn you even more respect.

 

 

Alyssa Pedrick
Alyssa Pedrick
Alyssa, a member of the Resourceful Finance Pro staff, has written extensively on business and finance for several years. She has produced content for accounts payable professionals and finance executives and has developed whitepapers and infographics for the finance and accounting industry.

Get the

Resourceful Finance Pro Logo

Newsletter

With Resourceful Finance Pro arriving in your inbox, you will never miss critical stories on accounting, benefits, payroll & employment law strategies.

  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • Hidden
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Resourceful Finance Pro Logo
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
  • WRITE FOR US
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
  • Accounting
  • Benefits
  • Payroll
  • Policy and Culture
  • Employment Law
  • Fraud
  • Finance Technology
  • Sales & Use Tax
  • Accounts Payable
  • Credit and Collections
  • Strategy
  • Budgeting and Forecasting
  • Banking
  • Staff Management
  • Cost Control

Resourceful Finance Pro, part of the SuccessFuel Network, provides the latest Finance and employment law news for Finance professionals in the trenches of small-to-medium-sized businesses. Rather than simply regurgitating the day's headlines, Resourceful Finance Pro delivers actionable insights, helping Finance execs understand what Finance trends mean to their business.

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Copyright © 2023 SuccessFuel

WELCOME BACK!

Enter your username and password below to log in

Forget Your Username or Password?

Reset Password

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Log In

During your free trial, you can cancel at any time with a single click on your “Account” page.  It’s that easy.

preloader