By Dr. Kristy Short
With an ever-leaking staffing pipeline, it’s high time accounting firms started looking inward for solutions, including alternatives to help retain qualified staff and reduce the need to recruit from a shrinking pool of candidates. For firm leaders and stakeholders, this calls for a little self-reflection. After all, you set the workplace tone. And you have the power to initiate change that—get ready for it—comes from the heart.
Leading with a little emotion hasn’t always garnered professional respect, which is curious in a profession focused on building positive, long-term client relationships. It’s even more curious when you consider that accountants are innately kind, thoughtful, and fiercely humble humans (at least in my experience).
A balance of emotional intelligence (that’s where the love comes in) and critical thinking represents the “sweet spot” for many great firm leaders. It’s the way into the promised land of better communication and relationships, reduced conflict, elevated morale, and job satisfaction. A place where staff not only enjoy their work but genuinely love their jobs (and their boss).
The risk of all logic and no love
The word “love” in the workplace can sometimes create a ripple “ick” effect. But why?
Maybe it’s because when Love shows up to the party, Vulnerability is never far behind. And we all know that vulnerability means exposing weakness, raw emotion, and all that is deeply personal and private, right?
Ahhhh, wrong.
Vulnerability gets a bad rap. It always has. Being vulnerable isn’t about revealing weaknesses or inner demons. It’s simply about being open and authentic. Peeling back the professional layer and revealing what’s under the hood to reveal something we all possess: emotion.
At face value, being vulnerable can be scary. But the fact is, vulnerably leads to open communication and sharing of emotions, which leads to the healthiest of destinations: honesty. And in a profession that’s built on trusted relationships, honesty feels pretty spot on—a natural motivator for people to communicate with confidence, express their ideas, unleash hidden creativity, grow, and thrive. And isn’t that what every good leader wants for their staff?
Author Brené Brown said it best: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.” And sorry/not sorry … she knows what’s up.
Where emotional intelligence (EI) can lead you …
The staffing shortage, no doubt, will be a major challenge for the foreseeable future. As such, hanging on to qualified, competent, charismatic team members should be your primary focus—which just might call for you to do things differently: to inject a little EI (love) into your workplace.
Emotional intelligence, simply put, represents your ability to understand and manage emotions. EI-driven people can better regulate how they feel, diffuse arguments easily, or stay calm in stressful situations. All attributes of competent, effective leaders.
Still a doubter? Then let the convincing continue. Consider what EI can do for your accounting firm’s team and your culture broadly:
Enhance communication and relationships: Emotionally intelligent leaders excel at communication and building strong relationships with team members. They tend to be more expressive, listen actively, and respond empathically (and in a timely manner) to staff concerns. This leads to more open, honest, and productive interactions among team members. It gives people “permission” to be vulnerable.
Team members (like leaders) cannot work in isolation. They require input and support. They require leaders to show up and to care about their work and their state of mind. When this doesn’t happen, it often leads to one of two common outcomes: 1) quiet quitting, where employees slowly disconnect and then resign, or 2) perceived quiet firing, where staff feel undervalued, expendable, and fearful of “inevitable termination.”
I think we can all agree that both scenarios suck.
Reduce conflict and improve conflict resolution: Those with high emotional intelligence are adept at picking up on the emotions of others. This enables proactive intervention that can mitigate quiet quitting or perceived quiet firing. When you’re in tune with staff on an emotional level, it enables you to navigate conflict more effectively, de-escalate tense situations, and adopt fair solutions to retain your high-value power performers (e.g., those who support client advisory services and other lines of business that require building strong client relationships).
Let’s get uber real for a moment. Conflict is a multi-entity-fueled phenomena. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum—leaders, together with employees, create the energy and pressure that affect culture shifts. Strong leaders recognize this and are not afraid to face conflict head on—while also taking responsibility for their part in it.
Resolving conflict requires leaders to open lines of communication with team members. It requires taking the time to meet with employees one-on-one when needed and to be truly present in team meetings to lead effectively. Without proper leadership, conflict is like a giant tick. It will suck the lifeblood out of your team and your firm culture.
Increase empathy and mutual understanding: In the Era of Separateness (i.e., virtual workspaces), staffers can often feel disconnected, invisible … even lonely. But in a culture where vulnerability and honesty are fostered and fine-tuned, empathy and mutual understanding reign. Being intentional in your efforts helps create a far more supportive and understanding workplace where staff feel valued, heard, and connected—despite distance and time barriers.
Improve stress management: The mark of a true transformational leader is the ability to lead effectively in times of calm or chaos. Those who embrace EI are better equipped to handle workplace stress and pressure—while also helping regulate the emotions of others to craft a calm, resilient work environment.
On the flippity-flip, those who ignore the human aspect of leading often create an emotional chasm between themselves and their team: the tainted soil of a breeding ground of resentment, disengagement, and unnecessary strife and stress.
Elevate teamwork, collaboration, and job satisfaction: Leaders who infuse emotional intelligence into daily operations tend to create teams that are more cohesive, collaborative, and perform better overall. These leaders are also more likely to inspire and motivate team members to positive action. These are all good things that lead to greater job satisfaction, sustained empowerment, and a teamwork-driven, we’re-all-in-this-together culture.
To achieve this requires that leaders put time into curating knowledge across the roles of the people they lead. When you understand what your employees do, the workflows in which they operate, and their respective skill sets, you’ll be far more effective in supporting and leading individuals (and your team as a whole) to greatness.
Show some love
Accounting firm leaders who possess emotional intelligence and apply it within the workplace are far more likely to build a culture of open communication, collaboration, connectedness, reduced conflict, and higher employee engagement and morale. It’s how you build a staff that sticks.
Emotions are part of being a human. And good, bad, or ugly, they’ll always seep into the workplace at some point. It’s your job as a leader to maintain a healthy, open culture—one where vulnerability and honesty are encouraged and rewarded. When employees feel safe, they’re more willing to share when they’re struggling—enabling firm leaders to proactively fix an issue before it becomes one.
When leaders are closed to EI, it can foster a culture of secrecy and mistrust—limiting their ability to identify signs of distress and conflict among staff. This opens the door to quiet quitting and self-inflicted perceptions of incompetence. Negativity left untreated can quickly infest your firm, making it difficult to combat. It’s like trying to ward off a swarm of locust with a single can of Raid.
Get on board with emotional intelligence to create a culture that’s a healthy blend of logic, love, and good business practice. Your team will thank you. And you can start looking for that “World’s Best Boss” mug in the mail.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Kristy Short is senior director of content strategy at Rightworks.
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Tags: Accounting, Firm Management
