Saturday 31 October 2009

Experienced, Responsible, Reliable, BORING

In a blog post about hiring leaders, Wayne Floyd asks, "How would you describe the most important skills or qualifications that you bring to the position of leadership?"  He then gives the standard list:  "experienced, responsible, reliable, organized, competent, skilled, likeable, supportive, flexible, collaborative, knowledgeable, proficient person to …."

He goes on to challenge the standard list, saying that we should think carefully about what we need and use the right words to attract the right kind of leader.  He is looking for church leaders at a time when most mainline churches are in decline, so here's his want ad:

Wanted: A compulsive networker and incorrigibly hopeful futurist and wooer of the straying, a lifehacker full of tips and tricks for getting things done among people who often seem to have given up already, a visual storyteller and verbal artist — strategy orchestrator, textologist, and Experience Engineer, to serve as ….


Now, I know that when you hire an accountant, reliability and responsibility figure high on the list, but I wonder whether we need to crib some of the qualities from the list above and add them to our tool box.  We accountants need to be good communicators if we are going to get our message across.  We have to be nimble and able to package what we say into 10 second sound bytes.  We are often the bearers of bad news, so maybe a hopeful attitude and a capacity for getting things done would also be useful.

What life skills would you add to the list of requirements for the modern accountant?

2 comments:

Steve Chapman said...

You are absolutely correct! Almost every accountant I know, sees themselves as the former, rather than the latter. Too bad. What's really valuable to an organization is the list of requirements you suggest.

Unknown said...

Hi Steve,

Thanks for leaving a comment. Hope all is well @ Rose!