Introduction
How do you continue leading effectively when the demands of the business keep growing, accountability challenges persist, and life outside of work is demanding your attention as well?
Andi, a Partner and Practice Leader at a 200-person accounting firm, came to coaching looking for a better way to manage her time, lead her team, and navigate increasing leadership responsibilities. What followed was not a quick fix, but an ongoing leadership practice of leading herself while bringing others along.
When Success Starts Creating New Challenges
Andi was accomplished, well-regarded, and highly successful. Yet the very behaviors that had contributed to her success were beginning to create challenges as her responsibilities expanded.
- Overwhelmed by the volume of decisions and responsibilities competing for her attention.
- Frustrated by inconsistent accountability among partner colleagues.
- Reluctant to ask for help or bring others into work she knew she could do herself.
- Carrying responsibility when others were not delivering.
- Struggling to balance client work, leadership responsibilities, and personal well-being.
The accounting profession was also changing rapidly. Expectations around work were evolving, particularly around the long hours traditionally associated with busy season. Technology continued to reshape the industry, and firms faced increasing pressure to outsource and offshore work. While these challenges were not Andi’s direct responsibility, they formed the backdrop for the leadership environment she was navigating.
At the same time, a close family member was experiencing a significant medical situation that required Andi to adjust her own expectations and the expectations of others around her.
Balancing Personal Leadership and Organizational Leadership
The organization needed strong leadership within the practice. Andi wanted to become more intentional about managing herself while developing and leading others.
First Engagement
Managing Self
- Manage time and commitments more effectively.
- Increase billable work without increasing total hours.
- Delegate more effectively.
- Use support resources, including her executive assistant, more strategically.
- Identify and prevent burnout.
Leading Others Through Accountability and Growth
- Mentor, coach, and develop team members.
- Increase business acumen and judgment.
- Create and communicate a vision for the team.
- Hold colleagues accountable when expectations were not being met.
Second Engagement
The second engagement focused on sharper, more strategic versions of many of the same themes.
- Communicate vision more clearly and consistently.
- Handle conflict more quickly.
- Strengthen connection with senior leadership.
- Continue managing energy and avoiding burnout.
Importantly, the second engagement was not a list of new problems. It was recognition that managing yourself and leading others is not a project you finish—it is a leadership practice you continue refining.
Building the Capacity to Lead Differently
The Patterns Driving the Challenge
Early in the engagement, we reviewed Andi’s IEQ9 results to better understand the motivations influencing how she approached work and leadership.
Several themes emerged.
A desire for harmony and a dislike of conflict influenced how she delivered feedback and held colleagues accountable. At the same time, her preference for structure and her high level of competence often made it difficult to ask for help, involve others, or resist stepping in when someone else was not delivering.
These patterns had contributed to much of her professional success. They were also contributing to the leadership challenges she was now facing.
Managing Time, Energy, and Burnout Risk
A significant portion of the engagement focused on helping Andi better understand how she was using her time and energy.
Together, we assessed how she typically spent her 168 hours each week and revisited that picture throughout the engagement as workloads fluctuated.
We explored:
- What could be delegated.
- Where barriers to delegation existed.
- How she was using her executive assistant.
- Activities that restored energy.
- Early indicators of burnout.
- What corrective action could be taken before burnout became a larger issue.
Over time, Andi became more intentional about protecting time to recharge and anticipating when periods of recovery would be needed. Noticing what gave energy and what took energy away became an important part of managing the demands of both work and life.
Creating Accountability Without Carrying It All
Much of the coaching centered on accountability conversations.
We worked through feedback messages and practiced delivering clear headline messages. The challenge was not simply what needed to be said. It was how to say it clearly and consistently when others around her were not always aligned.
In several situations, senior partners were not providing consistent feedback or holding colleagues accountable in the same way. Before difficult conversations could happen, Andi often had to align with senior leaders—sometimes multiple times—to ensure expectations and messages were clear.
Two partner colleagues became recurring leadership challenges. Both were struggling to deliver at the expected level and had not consistently been held accountable.
Andi’s work involved:
- Aligning expectations with senior partners.
- Clarifying accountability standards.
- Participating in difficult feedback conversations.
- Maintaining consistency in follow-through.
By the second engagement, one of those colleagues had departed the organization. The other remained an ongoing leadership challenge that continued to require time, energy, and accountability.
Alongside those challenges were several successes. Andi developed colleagues, successfully delegated work, and continued growing as a leader who could mentor, coach, and develop others while maintaining accountability.
What Began to Shift
The engagement resulted in meaningful progress while also reinforcing that leadership development is an ongoing process.
| Before Coaching Reluctant to ask for help or involve others Carried responsibility when others were not delivering Difficult conversations were often uncomfortable Burnout risk required ongoing attention Focused primarily on managing the work |
| After Coaching More intentionally assessed what could be shared, delegated, or handed off Increased focus on accountability and ownership Practiced and delivered clearer accountability conversations Became more intentional about recovery, energy management, and recognizing early warning signs Began showing up with a clearer point of view about where the practice was headed |
The second engagement reflected continued growth in these same leadership areas.
The dial moved on communication, accountability, leadership influence, and energy management during the first engagement. The second engagement focused on turning that dial further.
Andi also began showing up differently as a leader. She developed colleagues, delegated work that genuinely came off her plate, and increasingly contributed a point of view about where the practice was going rather than simply managing its day-to-day operations.
The Leadership Lessons That Endured
Two lessons surfaced repeatedly.
First, managing yourself is hard, ongoing work. Leaders cannot effectively support others if they are not taking care of themselves first. Time to recharge, awareness of burnout risk, and the willingness to establish boundaries are not extras—they are part of effective leadership.
Second, leaders cannot make other people change. Their responsibility is to be clear, concise, and consistent in holding others accountable. Some people will respond to that accountability. Others may choose a different path, or the organization may ultimately decide to move in a different direction.
What Stayed With Me as a Coach
Two things stayed with me from this work.
- Building trust and safety is not something that happens at the beginning of coaching and then remains fixed. It is an ongoing part of the coaching relationship.
- Coaching someone through burnout-prevention work has a way of holding up a mirror. Just as Andi was reminded of the importance of self-care, I was reminded of it as well.
Leading Yourself, Bringing Others Along
Andi’s story is not unusual for highly capable leaders stepping into larger leadership roles.
The hardest part is not the work itself. It is learning that leading yourself and bringing others along are ultimately the same job, viewed from two different angles.
The leaders who continue to grow are often the ones who stop treating those as separate challenges and begin treating them as one ongoing leadership practice.