Anthony Zecca, Author at CPA Trendlines

Leadership Must Focus on Talent, Talent, Talent

Acquisition vs. recruitment.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

In my recently published book, “Leading From the Edge – Creating a Standout, High-Performing Organization,” I focus on the leadership accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors.

MORE: Teamwork Drives Firm Success | The Two Sides of the Culture Coin | Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success | How to Build a Standout Team | Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | The 4 Traits of Great CPA Leaders
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Leadership has a responsibility and impact on creating the standout, high-performing talent necessary to drive the firm’s long-term strategy. We all understand and believe that at the end of each day, the firm’s greatest asset walks out the door (or in today’s world, disconnects). The quality of a firm’s talent directly relates to the success and performance of the firm.
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Teamwork Drives Firm Success

A team can’t become a standout team by dictate.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

Leadership has responsibility and impact on creating a powerful and united team throughout the firm and an environment that motivates every single team member to their highest level of performance for the benefit of the firm, and not their own career advancement. Teamwork and not individualism is a cornerstone of a strong culture that results in achieving the level of a standout, high-performing firm.

MORE: The Two Sides of the Culture Coin | Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success | Assessing Your Firm | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | Leadership Must Drive Culture
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In fact, a strong culture cannot thrive in an environment where silos exist, and individuals are more focused on what is best for their career versus what is best for the firm. Teamwork is not only a key aspect of the firm’s culture, but a key factor in driving the firm’s performance to become a standout, high-performing firm.
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The Two Sides of the Culture Coin

And how they relate to strategy.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

As we focus on the leadership of accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors, we must address leadership’s responsibility, and impact on creating a culture that results in an environment that motivates every single team member to their highest level of performance.

MORE: Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success | How to Build a Standout Team | Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | The 4 Traits of Great CPA Leaders | Why Leaders Must Ensure Clarity | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Do You Lead or Just Manage? | Managing Vs. Leading | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | 6 Leadership Challenges Through COVID and Beyond | Edge Leaders Share 7 Strengths | Leadership Must Drive Culture | Leading from the Edge
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There are two great quotes that I would like to start with to frame this discussion. The first is from Bryan Walker (partner and managing director at Ideo), who stated that “Culture is like the wind. It is invisible; yet its effect can be seen and felt” in every single organization that exists from the family to the biggest company on the planet. The second quote is from author Tanya Mann: “Your organization’s culture is either an asset or a liability; either helping business performance or hurting it.”
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Four Accountability Steps for Firm Success

Plus four challenges to address.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

I’ve been focusing on the leadership accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors. We began with strategy, then empowerment. This third post will address the critical element that makes empowerment work – accountability.

MORE: The Art of Leadership: Empowerment | The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy
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A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone and understanding that as a leader, your responsibility is to lead and not manage. If you are the type of leader that manages, you own accountability since you can’t manage and empower at the same time. As I defined it in my previous post, a simple definition for empowerment that applies to all organizations is, “Authority or power given to someone to do something.”
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The Art of Leadership: Empowerment

But there has to be accountability.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zecca’s new book, “Leading From the Edge – Creating a Standout, High-Performing Organization,” focuses on the leadership needed for accounting firms to succeed in a future of seismic disruptors. In this special series, he addresses key aspects of “Edge Leadership” and the challenges most accounting firm leaders (all leaders for that matter) are facing today. The first article in this series focused on strategy because leading a firm without a strategic roadmap is like walking on a treadmill – no matter how fast you move or how long you tread, you end up just looking at the same wall.

A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone, understanding that your responsibility is to lead and not manage as a leader. If a leader does not have the confidence in their leadership and/or their leadership team to empower those who they lead, the result is managing everything versus leading everyone.

MORE: The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy
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Why is empowerment the second leadership concept in this series? A characteristic of a great “Edge” leader is the ability to empower everyone, understanding that, as a leader, your responsibility is to lead and not manage. If leaders do not have the confidence in their leadership and/or their leadership team to empower those who they lead, the result is managing everything versus leading everyone.
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The Art of Leadership, Lesson One: Strategy

The “best” isn’t enough. “Unique” is the secret ingredient.

In his new book, “Leading From the Edge – Creating a Standout, High-Performing Organization,” Anthony Zecca focuses on the type of leadership that accounting firms need to succeed in a future driven by seismic disruptors. This is the first in a series of articles that will focus on key aspects of “Edge Leadership” and the challenges most accounting firm leaders (all leaders for that matter) are facing today. The next article will focus on “The Art of Leadership – Empowerment”. Empowerment without accountability is like making ice without water – can’t be done.

By Anthony Zecca
Leading From the Edge

Strategy: So much has been written about it and how to create it. Harvard’s Michael Porter famously said strategy is best based on being unique, and not being the best.

MORE on THE EDGE LEADER: Is Your Team Climbing the Right Wall? | How to Build a Standout Team | Competing for Talent in a Private-Equity World | Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | The 4 Traits of Great CPA Leaders | Why Leaders Must Ensure Clarity | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Do You Lead or Just Manage? | Managing Vs. Leading | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | 6 Leadership Challenges Through COVID and Beyond | Edge Leaders Share 7 Strengths | Leadership Must Drive Culture | Leading from the Edge
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Sounds crazy but the following quote (slightly modified) is what I think aligns with how an Edge Leader will think about strategy:

“Strategy starts with thinking the right way about competition. Many managers (leaders) compete to be “the best”—but this is a dangerous mindset that leads to a destructive, zero-sum competition that no one can win. Competing to be unique, on the other hand, is the basis of a sound business strategy…”

How many firms go through the annual ritual of budgeting and partner retreats that in the end, at best, create some tactics that might improve the firm’s results incrementally? How many leaders at these firm retreats focus on tactics versus strategy? How many leaders think that developing long-term strategies (3 to 5 years) is unproductive given the challenge of thinking about the future so far down the road? Finally, how many leaders, when strategy is discussed, focus on being the best versus being unique?

LEADERSHIP

Is Your Team Climbing the Right Wall?

Five ways to stay focused on the most important, not the most urgent.

By Anthony Zecca

Do you evaluate the effectiveness of your team by what they get done or on what they get done that matters?

MORE ZECCA: How to Build a Standout Team | Competing for Talent in a Private-Equity World | Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | The 4 Traits of Great CPA Leaders | Why Leaders Must Ensure Clarity | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Do You Lead or Just Manage? | Managing Vs. Leading | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | 6 Leadership Challenges Through COVID and Beyond | Edge Leaders Share 7 Strengths | Leadership Must Drive Culture | Leading from the Edge
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Simple question and for most firms, the answer is a focus on getting things done. However, getting things done too often does not align with putting effort into getting things done that matter. READ MORE →

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How to Build a Standout Team

Why everyone has to get on board.

By Anthony Zecca

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford, inventor, founder and CEO of the Ford Motor Company

MORE: Five Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Firm | Assessing Your Firm | Incremental Vs. Exceptional Success | Is Your Leadership Team at the Edge? | Leadership Must Drive Culture
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Let’s follow Mary as she works through the first principle – creating a firmwide, standout team.
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Anthony Zecca

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Anthony Zecca is a veteran CPA and management consultant who focuses on growth strategies and leadership.

He is the author of
Leading from the Edge – The Strategic Growth Handbook with Bonus Toolkit
published by CPA Trendlines.

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Zecca’s understanding of leadership was honed both by his career as a partner in a CPA firm as well as his work as a consultant with hundreds of leaders across numerous industries.

“Leading from the Edge” reflects Zecca’s belief in what makes a successful leader and challenges every leader, in any capacity, to have the courage to step out of what he calls “Center Leadership” to become an impactful Edge leader who can move their organization to the level of a standout, high-performance firm.

Zecca’s career began at J. H. Cohn & Company – a small $5 million dollar firm in New Jersey where his first exposure to leadership was gained. Zecca earned his CPA credentials early in his career and was promoted to partner in 12 years.

His successful career as an audit partner provided him with the opportunity to work with a number of large clients of the firm.

Zecca’s interest in how businesses worked, what made good ones good and bad ones bad, resulted in a career move from audit to management consulting. As a partner in the small consulting team at J. H. Cohn, he led a number of consulting projects for small to middle-market companies.

He used his work with CEOs of these companies as a “leadership laboratory” where he took the time to probe and observe so many different leaders and began to develop a deep understanding of what made great leaders great and their impact on how their companies performed. Zecca served on the management committee of the firm and was part of the leadership team at J. H. Cohn as the firm grew from a small firm to a $250-milion dollar firm and one of the top 20 firms among the top 100 firms.

He became the Managing Partner of the consulting division of the firm in 2001 when consulting revenue was less than $2 million with a team of five.

When he retired from the firm at the end of 2015, the consulting division had revenue of about $70 million with 24 partners and close to 300 staff. Half of that growth was from the firm merger with Reznick in 2013.

Over his career, he consulted for hundreds of organizations, interacting with leaders in family companies as well as publicly traded and large not-for-profit organizations.

It’s through his long career working with leaders and being active in the leadership of his firm that his concepts regarding leadership were developed and shared in this second book. Zecca was co-author of “The Performance Power Grid,” first published, by Wiley, in 2000, focusing on “business intelligence,” making it one of the first on the topic.

Anthony has presented at conferences and client company retreats numerous times on strategy, growth, and leadership. He has written numerous articles on these subjects and is recognized for his excellent presentation and facilitation skill.

He has been involved in various charitable organizations including being one of the founding members of the Medhen Orphan Relief Effort which is an organization that supplies financial support to an orphanage in Ethiopia.

In addition, he has been on various boards including his hometown Board of Education where he was elected President for 8 of the 12 years he served. Most recently his consulting work has been with a number of accounting firms as well as other professional service firms providing high-value advice on strategy, leadership, and growth.

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