Bonus Episode 64: Mastering Evolving Career Skills in the Financial and Accounting Profession

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Ever puzzled over how your career skills need to evolve as you climb the ladder in your financial and accounting career? Join us as we delve into the transformation from mastering technical skills to becoming an effective communicator, strategist, and organizational leader.  Also, as the year-end approaches, it's time to review your 2023 accomplishments and begin strategizing for 2024.


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1. Instagram: stephen.mclain
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For more resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy:  financeleaderacademy.com. 

1. On the website, you can download the Become a Finance Leader Guide. You can use this guide to build your Finance Leadership skills so you can help senior leaders develop and execute the strategy.
2. I also offer a course, Advance Your Finance and Accounting Career: Developing a Promotion Strategy that Sets You Apart.

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Episode Transcript

Stephen McLain (00:00):
Hi, this is Stephen McLain of the Finance
Leader Podcast.
This is Bonus Episode Number 64.
This week I am doing a quickcheck-in with everyone.
Next week I will share anepisode on the importance of
communicating to your team onhow much of an impact they can
have.
I think this will help yourteam understand how their role

(00:20):
shapes the company andpositively influences how the
company operates.
It's important to show yourteam members how their daily
responsibilities can make a hugedifference.
Many may not even realize theimpact and influence about the
work they perform every day.
I want to share one importantthought this week.

(00:40):
As you grow in responsibilityand in the type of role you have
, what skills you develop andutilize must change.
We start off our finance andaccounting careers with the
hopes of becoming the technicaland knowledge experts For
example, how to organizeinformation in a chart, how to
process our journal entries andmonth-end close, how to do a

(01:03):
simple projection or how toprepare the profit and loss
statement and many otherentry-level skills and tasks.
Our technical skills defined us.
We could pull some informationand put together some analysis.
Our daily focus was oncompleting or assigned routine
tasks and some analysis that maynot even have fit together in a

(01:25):
larger sense.
As we become more senior, ourskills range expands and our
focus must shift.
We go from a technical expertto a better communicator, to a
strategy expert and then toorganizational leader.
Our focus initially goes fromlearning about the company, then
to being an industry expert.

(01:46):
We start out learning simpleanalysis and reporting and then
we move on to more advancedprojections and modeling.
Once we have developed ourindividual technical skills and
in order to transition tofinance leader, we have to grow
our critical soft skills as weadvance.
Our tasks become more conjoinedas we help shape and execute an

(02:09):
organizational strategy.
What are the next set of skillsthat you need to develop for the
career stage you are hoping toadvance to?
I have spoken about skillsdevelopment many times and I
want to talk about it even moreas this community develops and
to the finance leaders, I knowthat you all can become more to

(02:31):
come on this topic in the future.
Also, how are you on your goalaccomplishment for 2023?
It's almost that time to startthinking about what you did
accomplish and did notaccomplish, so you can start
shaping up your 2024 plan.
And here is another reminderabout accomplishing any missing
CPEs for the year.

(02:52):
Don't wait until December tostart.
I hope you have a great rest ofyour week and weekend.
Get some rest and enjoy thechange in seasons, if that is
happening where you are at.
Thank you for listening to theFinance Leader podcast and
please visitfinanceleaderacademycom for more
resources.
Take care.