Leadership

The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | ARC

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Label intent, clarify tone and choose the right channel so feedback lands as coaching, not conflict.

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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Leaders in accounting do not need to choose between being “nice” and being effective.

In this ARC episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, make the case that the best bosses aim for something tougher — kindness with clarity.

The conversation starts with a story familiar to anyone who has ever hovered over the “Send” button on a difficult message.

MORE Accounting ARC: Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

Mason, founder and CEO of High Rock Accounting, recalls proposing a conference talk with a deliberately provocative title — a reminder that most professionals feel the tension between holding the line and keeping the peace. The point, she says, is not to sanitize reality. It is to learn how to hold people accountable without turning it into a personal attack.

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Are You Walking the Leadership Walk?

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two women walking together outdoors in a city

Eight questions to check.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

To me, all of the planning to become a mid-market sustainable brand becomes a reality through persistent and consistent leadership. In the end this, arguably, is the hardest part of the equation, as mistakes are very costly.

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A leader in a CPA firm, be it the CEO, managing partner or a senior partner, is the quarterback. He or she is the one who has to set the tone at the top and has a very big impact on the firm’s culture, behavior and compensation of the other partners in the firm.
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Busy Season 2026: Firms Look to Pricing for Growth

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Revenues and client rosters outpace profit gains as firms battle cost pressures.

On the front lines (clockwise from left): Clockwise from left: Hall, Langworthy, Lenz, Kwiecinski, Dickerson

By CPA Trendlines

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CPA firms heading into the 2026 tax season expect revenue gains driven primarily by higher prices, not by adding clients, even as a majority anticipate another heavy extension season.

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MORE TAX, PRICING, and THE 2026 OUTLOOK

According to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, about 6 in 10 firms expect total revenue to increase this year, while roughly one-third expect revenue to hold steady. Profit expectations trail revenue slightly, a pattern that points to continued cost pressure even as clients and would-be clients clamor for more, and more high-end, services

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The CPA PE Playbook: Private Equity 2026 Outlook & Strategy Guide

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The Definitive Guide to Private Equity’s Transformation of the CPA Profession

The Definitive Guide to Private Equity’s Transformation of the CPA Profession.

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By CPA Trendlines Research

The accounting profession is changing faster than at any time in its modern history—and private equity is driving the shift. More than $30 billion in new capital has entered CPA firms since 2020, igniting a powerful wave of consolidation, modernization, and strategic reinvention. Firms that once relied on incremental growth and traditional partnership structures are now operating as high-performance platforms built for scale, technology adoption, and national reach.

The CPA PE Playbook is the most comprehensive analysis available today on this historic transformation.

If you want to know where the profession is heading, how PE-backed firms are competing, and what it will take to thrive in the next decade, this is the report you need.

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Meihaus: The Courage to Say “Enough” at the Top | Gear Up For Growth

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Partners who cap their own comp can solve staffing, retention, and motivation in one bold move.

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Originally published Sept. 4, 2025.
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When public accounting firms talk about “leadership challenges,” the conversation often turns into a soft focus on communication styles or vague culture issues.

Michael Meihaus goes straight for the hard truths.

On Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Capstone Marketing president Jean Caragher, Meihaus—owner of Meihaus CPA in Escondido, California—lays out the structural leadership failings he sees across the profession: outdated ownership models, harmful work expectations, broken incentives, and leaders who resist change because the current system works for them, even as it burns everyone else out.

More Gear Up for Growth here. | More Jean Caragher here |
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“It’s simply that we don’t change unless we have to,” he tells Caragher. In a profession that’s been “stable, profitable, successful” for decades, too many people at the top have little incentive to transform how firms actually operate.

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