Leadership

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.

JOIN the Busy Season Barometer survey here.
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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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.

This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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 |
Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

“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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Brolin: Blueprint for Empathetic Leadership | The Disruptors

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Embracing empathy helped build a healthier, more profitable firm with a smaller, stronger team.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Originally published Aug. 19, 2025
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

After decades in public accounting, years emceeing national conferences, and a long stretch coaching college softball, Dawn Brolin has learned something most leadership books bury in footnotes: empathy drives performance.

“Empathy is, to me, the number one characteristic that a leader should follow,” she told host Liz Farr in her return to The Disruptors. Her latest book, The Elevation of Empathy: Leading for the W.I.N., digs into why the accounting profession needs a different kind of leadership—one rooted in awareness, humanity, and intentional care.

MORE STREAMING: Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years | Telka: Transform Fear into Fuel | Woodard: Move Past Reports; Deliver Results | Baker: Find True Purpose to End Burnout | Brolin: The W.I.N. Leadership Formula | Gertrudes: How EOS & “Unreasonable Hospitality” Reshaped GrowthLab | Vilms: The Power of People in a Tech-Driven World | Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption | Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It  | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week |

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Accounting firms often reward technical strength or revenue generation with leadership titles. But Brolin argues those metrics don’t create leaders; they create what she calls “appointed leaders.”

“You could be appointed a leader because of a skill or the amount of revenue you bring in. That doesn’t mean you are one,” she says.

Real leadership, in her view, has less to do with credentials and more to do with emotional intelligence, personal responsibility, and daily behaviors that elevate the people around you.

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Majchrzak: Marketer-Turned-CEO Redesigns the Modern CPA Firm | Gear Up For Growth

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Collaboration, transparency, and independence drive BeachFleischman’s growth.

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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When most people picture a CPA firm CEO, they don’t envision a former marketing director in the big chair.

That’s exactly what makes Eric Majchrzak worth listening to.

Majchrzak, CEO and Principal of BeachFleischman—Arizona’s largest locally owned CPA firm and a Top 200 firm in the U.S.—has been named multiple times to Accounting Today’s “Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting” and is an Association for Accounting Marketing Hall of Fame inductee.

More Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | More Gear Up for Growth

More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

On Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Capstone Marketing president Jean Caragher, Majchrzak pulls back the curtain on how his growth-minded, marketing-first lens is reshaping BeachFleischman’s strategy, culture, and business model—and what other firms can steal from that playbook.

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