How Coaching Can Help Advance Women Within the Accounting Profession

The accounting profession has been making strides in gender diversity over the last several decades, with women now accounting for half of all new hires.

But more work needs to be done. Despite the progress made in bringing women in to the profession, they are not advancing. Women comprise just 23% of all partners, according to the 2019 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits.

As March is Women’s History Month, now is an ideal time to ensure that firm practices are designed to give women equal opportunity to grow within the profession. Coaching, and creating a coaching culture, is one tool recognized by the American Institute of CPA’s (AICPA) Women’s Initiatives Executive Committee to do just that.

While many may think of coaching from an athletic perspective, in the office environment, coaching is a thought-provoking and creative process to inspire individuals to maximize their personal and professional potential. It can help individuals become stronger contributors to the firm and more engaging with clients.

Coaching is distinct from other intra-office relationships, such as mentoring, sponsoring or advising. Mentors typically share their experience and advice, allowing mentees to learn from their experience. Sponsors are usually people in positions of authority, such as firm partners, who can advocate for a person to get a promotion, raise or new assignment. And advisors help set and review performance and development goals.

Coaches, on the other hand, empower individuals to achieve meaningful and sustainable results, uncover and overcome specific challenges or unleash unrealized potential. This helps individuals cultivate better self-awareness, enhance their leadership skills and create opportunities for authentic connection and collaboration with clients and teams.

Through coaching, individuals can uncover what’s important to them and find ways to bring more meaning to what they do, and an employee receiving coaching will be better able to deal with difficult clients, mentor their team, or address unexpected problems that may pop up during an engagement.

Other relationships, like mentoring and advising, can complement coaching, but they do not offer the same level of self-discovery and development.

As the profession changes, driven in large part by technology and client expectations, greater emphasis will be placed on finding individuals capable of adapting and solving previously unknown challenges. Coaching equips individuals with the skills to understand the change process and lead change initiatives with empathy, creating a smoother and more successful path for change.

To help advance a coaching culture within the profession, the AICPA’s Women’s Initiatives Executive Committee created “A Toolkit for Possibility: Creating a Coaching Culture at your Organization,” a guide for fostering coaching within a firm or organization. The committee, in coordination with Women’s History Month, is hosting the webinar Creating New Possibilities through a Coaching Culture, being held March 24.