Continue reading
The challenge of leadership
Do the qualities that make a good finance professional preclude leadership ability? Patricia Scott thinks not, and explains how finance can hone its leadership skills.
For any senior professional in finance, being good at what you do is no longer enough. No matter how technical your speciality, if you lead a function or are a manager then modern business demands that you be a leader as well as using your technical skills in ways relevant to the organisation.
According to one head-hunter,"The demand for good finance leaders is stronger than ever and they're being asked to transcend or widen their band width and their normal finance functions, become stronger and provide more counsel to the boards, rather than being the historical green eye-shade accumulators of data."
Admittedly, for leaders within rather than at the very top of an organisation, there are constraints. Any leadership provided must always be within the context of overall leadership from the chief executive officer (CEO) or collegiate board decision-making.
The finance leader also faces an eternal dilemma - to what extent should the drive for practical solutions be balanced against the need for technical and numerical accuracy? Knowing when accuracy is needed is critical, yet your contribution is at its most useful when supporting profitable business initiatives. Using analytical skills in such a way as to both enable and restrain can prove a considerable challenge.