Should You Send Your Leader Back to School?

Source: Possibilities for CPA Firm Leaders

The following blog post by Rita Keller is reproduced in its entirety, with permission.

What kind of special training does your firm provide for the firm leader? I am talking to and hearing about more and more managing partners who are fairly new to the role. Yes, some Baby Boomers are beginning to step aside although not actually "retiring" from the firm.

I also notice there is a lot of "assuming" inside CPA firms. It is a pretty big assumption believing that the incoming leader (or the outgoing leader, for that matter) actually knows how to lead a professional service firm. Honestly, is the education they receive during their career special in any way as it relates to being a CEO (as opposed to a CPA)?

Most owner groups are willing to spend the money to have the CEO/MP represent them at their firm association managing partners' meetings. They will also fund attendance for at least one MAP conference per year and involvement in state society activities. To me, those are routine, yet necessary, activities for a proactive MP. It is not specialized, targeted education. Successfully managing a professional service firm is a balancing act that requires extraordinary leadership abilities. Why not INVEST in the success of your top leader and your firm?

Harvard Business School offers a program titled Leading Professional Service Firms. It attracts participants from all over the world. I personally know managing partners who have participated and they rave about the quality of the program and the total experience at Harvard.

If you are not the CEO/MP reading this post, please forward it to that person and talk about it at your next partner meeting.

To read the original blog entry, click here.

From Possibilities for CPA Firm Leaders, the blog of Rita Keller, president of Keller Advisors, LLC, [email protected], April 5, 2010, "Invest in Your Leader." Visit http://cpamanagement.blogspot.com.