The Power of Coachability in Public Accounting

Coachability may be one of the most important skills available to an accounting professional. It is not a technical skill, and it is not simply a willingness to receive advice. It is the ability to seek, receive, and implement feedback in a way that improves performance.

I learned this in an unexpected place: disc golf.

Like many things, improvement accelerated when I stopped trying to figure everything out on my own and became more intentional about being coached. That required three separate behaviors.

Seek It

Coachability begins before feedback arrives. Ask for it. Seek perspectives from people who see your work differently than you do. The best feedback is often information you would not have discovered on your own.

Receive It

Feedback is difficult to use when we are busy explaining, defending, or deciding whether we agree with it. Receiving feedback does not mean accepting every opinion as truth. It means hearing it completely before deciding what to do with it.

Implement It

Feedback has very little value if nothing changes afterward. The evidence of coachability is not that you listened politely. It is that something in your behavior, performance, or thinking changed.

In professional settings, this can be remarkably practical. Ask after a board meeting what you could have done better. Ask someone to count your filler words during a presentation. Ask how your posture, pacing, tone, or even an unfortunate burp affected the room. Small observations can create meaningful improvement when we are willing to use them.

My friend Jake Weiss has helped me think more deeply about coachability and its relationship to performance, promotion, and adaptability. As the profession changes, the ability to learn from others and adjust quickly becomes more valuable, not less.

Public accounting has a pipeline problem. It also has a development opportunity. Reports like the National Pipeline Advisory Group’s work make clear that the profession needs to rethink how people experience accounting and how they grow within it.

We cannot control every disruption coming toward the profession. We can become more coachable in how we respond to it.

Seek feedback. Receive it. Implement it. Then repeat.

Turn Feedback Into Action

What feedback have you heard but haven’t acted on? If you’re a CPA firm partner, owner or leader, executive coaching gives you space to examine your approach, challenge assumptions, and turn insight into action. Bring a leadership challenge you’re working through, and we can explore what progress would look like for you.

Explore coaching with The CPA Coach →

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