Finance Leadership

There is a point in an accounting or finance career when being good at the technical side of the job isn’t enough to keep moving forward.

Early in a finance or accounting career, progress is often driven by technical growth. You become stronger at reporting, forecasting, financial analysis, the close, and the other disciplines that define your role. As your expertise grows, so does your responsibility, and you build a reputation as someone who can be trusted to deliver when the work matters.

But moving from a strong mid-level professional into finance leadership requires something different.

The people making those decisions already expect you to understand the numbers. What they start looking for is whether you understand the business behind those numbers, communicate well with senior management, take ownership, and lead other people.

For finance professionals looking to take that next step, here are a few areas that deserve greater focus.

Start Looking Beyond Your Own Responsibilities

One of the biggest changes that comes with moving into finance leadership is how you approach your job.

It becomes less about completing your part of the process and more about understanding how everything fits together.

If you work in accounting, don’t only focus on what needs to happen for the close. Understand why management needs the information and what decisions they are making from it.

If you work in FP&A, don’t stop at explaining the variance. Understand what happened in the business to cause it and what it means going forward.

The same applies across accounting and finance. As you take on more responsibility, understanding the business becomes just as important as understanding your part of the finance function. That also means getting outside of your own department.

Talk to people in operations, sales, HR, and other areas of the company. Understand what they are working toward and the role finance plays in reaching those goals.

You don’t need a leadership title to start doing this. In fact, developing that broader view before you get the title helps show that you’re ready for more responsibility.

Learn How to Explain the Numbers

Knowing the answer and explaining the answer are two different skills.

A strong finance professional may understand exactly why results came in below plan. A finance leader needs to explain that clearly to someone who doesn’t spend every day looking at the numbers.

That may be the CFO, CEO, operating team, board, or another department.

The more senior the position becomes, the more important that skill becomes. Senior leaders don’t only need another report. They need to understand what happened, why it happened, and what it means for the business.

This is also an area where many technically strong finance professionals have room to grow.

Deloitte recently looked at some of the gaps that keep high-performing finance professionals from advancing. After interviewing 236 senior finance leaders, they found that technical experience is often already there, while broader leadership skills become increasingly important as someone moves up.

You don’t have to wait until you’re presenting to a board to develop that skill.

Think about how you explain financial information in meetings today. Are you simply giving people the numbers, or are you helping them understand what those numbers mean?

Being able to make complicated financial information easier to understand becomes more valuable as your career progresses.

Get Comfortable Taking Ownership

As you move into more senior positions, there are more situations where there isn’t a perfect answer.

A forecast misses. A deadline slips. Something goes wrong during the close. A project doesn’t go according to plan. Those situations often show more about someone’s leadership than when everything is going well.

Taking ownership doesn’t mean having every answer yourself. It means recognizing an issue, understanding what happened, communicating it early, and helping determine the next steps.

Instead of bringing your manager the problem, think about what information they need and what possible solutions make sense. That shift may seem small, but it changes how people see you.

You move from being someone who completes an assignment to someone senior leaders trust with a problem. That trust matters when opportunities for greater responsibility become available.

Learn How to Lead Before You Manage a Team

A lot of people think leadership starts when they have direct reports, but it doesn’t. There are opportunities to lead long before Manager, Director, or Controller appears in your title.

Maybe a new employee comes to you with questions. Maybe you take responsibility for part of an ERP implementation. You may coordinate with another department, train someone on a process, or help improve something that isn’t working.

Those situations give you experience communicating expectations, working with different personalities, and helping a group get something done. They also give senior leaders an opportunity to see how you work with other people.

As your career progresses, your own work becomes only one part of the job. You also become responsible for helping other people do their jobs well. That requires a different set of skills.

A technically strong accountant who struggles to delegate, communicate, or develop other people may have a harder time moving into a leadership position. Someone who starts developing those skills earlier is better prepared when the opportunity for accounting and finance leadership comes.

Don’t Wait for Someone Else to Plan Your Career

It’s easy to assume that doing good work leads naturally to the next opportunity. Sometimes it does. But you still need to understand the direction you want your career to take and what experience you are missing.

If your goal is becoming a Controller, look at the experience you have today. Have you managed a close? Worked directly with auditors? Been involved in an ERP implementation? Managed or developed people?

If your longer-term goal is becoming a CFO, the experience becomes broader. Have you worked with operations? Been involved in budgeting and forecasting? Presented to senior leadership? Helped build a team? Been part of an acquisition or another major change in the business?
You don’t need to check every box right now.

The important part is knowing which experiences you need and looking for opportunities to build them.

Sometimes those opportunities exist at your current company. Asking to be part of a project, taking responsibility for a new area, or working more closely with another department may give you experience you don’t have today.

Other times, the next step comes from moving into a different company or position.

When looking at a new opportunity, don’t focus only on the title or compensation. Look at what you’re going to learn and the new responsibilities you are going to take on.

A smaller company may give you more exposure to the CFO and leadership team. A PE-backed company may give you experience with acquisitions, faster growth, changing reporting requirements, or building a finance function.

Sometimes a position that gives you broader experience does more for your long-term career than simply getting a better title.

Final Thoughts

Moving up in accounting and finance isn’t only about becoming better at the technical part of your job.

At some point, the expectations change.

The finance professionals who continue moving forward understand the business beyond their own responsibilities, communicate clearly, take ownership, work well with other people, and start showing leadership before someone gives them the title.

At Torrey & Gray, we work with accounting and finance professionals at different stages of their careers, from experienced accountants and FP&A professionals to Controllers and CFOs. We help professionals understand the opportunities available in the market and find positions that match their experience and long-term career goals.

Climbing the ladder doesn’t always mean chasing the next title. Building the right experience along the way puts you in a stronger position when the right opportunity comes.

Ready to take the next step in your accounting or finance career? Connect with Torrey & Gray to explore opportunities that match your experience and support your long-term career goals.