These 4 leadership styles determine how CFOs execute change, new research shows

As a CFO, what’s your leadership style? 

That’s an especially vital question to ask yourself if you’re just starting in the role. And it’s one of the most important elements to realizing organizational and professional success, according to new Accenture research shared exclusively with Fortune. 

In a follow-up to The Paradox of Choice for CFOs, a global survey, which found that only 1 in 10 CFOs said they achieve their organizational and professional objectives, the newly released CFO Success Paradigm study delves into how a finance chief can be successful at getting the job done. There are three aspects that dictate how effectively CFOs execute decisions—leadership style, the company’s strategic imperative, and company culture, according to Accenture. 

“The study found that if you actually do align those elements, you’re 3½ times more likely to achieve what you’re setting out to do,” Jason Dess, Accenture’s global lead for CFO and enterprise value, tells me. 

Out of the three variables, leadership style has the greatest influence, according to the research. The study points to four types of leaders:

1) Financial engineers. Strength: using their analytical expertise to solve finance problems. Blind spot: narrow focus

2) Problem solvers. Strength: using focus and attention to detail to execute tactical solutions. Blind spot: inspiration

3) Collaboration creators. Strength: inspiring, motivating, and rallying people to solve complex enterprise issues. Blind spot: focus

4) Change agents. Strength: “big picture” strategic lens to enterprise-wide issues. Blind spot: consumed by change.

Collaboration creators are twice as likely to achieve their organizational objectives than peers, according to the report.

But can a CFO have a leadership style that’s a mixture of all these types? “Leadership style is not black and white,” Dess explains. “So you don’t fall in just one category. But you will have a dominant category and usually there will be elements from others that will come through.” 

What’s an example of a leadership style, strategic imperative, and company culture that all align for a CFO? Financial engineers are most effective in dealing with continuous improvement and “burning platform” strategic imperatives (where you need to move quickly), and “top-down” (where senior leaders are the decision-makers) and “big-bet” cultures (highly strategic and ruthlessly-prioritized actions), Dess explains.

On the other hand, if you’re a financial engineer-type, in a consensus-driven company culture where all voices matter, and the strategic imperative is disruptive change—you’ll need to be collaborative.

“Let’s say naturally, collaboration isn’t one of your core strengths,” Dess explains. “One of the things you should look into is bringing in team members that have that as a superpower, especially if the problem you’re dealing with, or your company culture demands that to be successful.” If you’re not collaborative, the leaders that you should have brought on the journey with you, aren’t supportive, “so the best idea isn’t successful, and you don’t execute as much,” he says. 

Is there a timeline for CFOs to make sure leadership style, strategic imperatives, and company culture are aligned? “If you have a burning platform issue that you need to solve in three months, you need to act very quickly, and a lot of those do’s and don’ts need to be put in place almost immediately to be successful,” Dess says. “If it’s more of a continuous improvement problem that you’re solving over a year, you have more time on your side to actually address those variables.”

“The biggest advice we can give to CFOs is to think about these elements early,” he says. 

It seems a finance chief who understands their strengths, blindspots, company culture, and can assess the problem or task at hand, has the upper hand. 

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Big deal

The report by Economist Impact and sponsored by Dataminr, reveals companies' value creation and resilience priorities. The findings are based on desk research, expert interviews, and a survey of 600 business executives across North America, Europe, and Asia. Respondents said their company prioritizes company resilience the most (48.7%), followed by technological resilience (48.3%), operational resilience (43.8%), and financial resilience (37.7%). The research revealed that when businesses proactively look for emerging risks, prepare for disruption, and implement operational flexibility, they outperform others, the research found.

Courtesy of Economist Impact and Dataminr

Going deeper

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Leaderboard

TJ Gordon was promoted to CFO at Welch's, a company of fruit-based food and beverages. Gordon served as interim CFO for several months. He has more than 18 years of finance and accounting experience. Before joining Welch's in 2020 as the head of the commercial finance team, Gordon held roles at Keurig Dr Pepper and served as the VP of finance at Clarks Americas, Inc. His career began at PwC, LLP.

Nate Speicher was named CFO at Ora, Inc., a clinical research organization for ophthalmology pharmaceutical, and device development. Speicher has more than 15 years of experience. He has held executive and C-level positions with life sciences organizations, and earlier in his career served as an investment banker where he primarily focused on raising capital for health care and pharma services clients.

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