Leadership coach and mentor Sue Milne, FCMA, CGMA, describes key strategic and interpersonal skills that can help finance professionals keep pace with evolving business expectations, along with key questions that can help them grow as leaders.
Milne also shares essential attributes for managing finance teams today, how leaders can maintain awareness of potential blind spots, and what core values contribute to inspirational leadership.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- What inspired Milne’s career transition.
- How to build better relationships with stakeholders.
- Key skills professionals can hone to manage blind spots.
- What transformational leadership is and how to make it work.
- Key components for becoming your own kind of leader.
Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:
— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.
Transcript
Steph Brown: Hi, listeners. Welcome to another episode of the FM podcast. I’m Steph Brown. Today I’m joined by Sue Milne, FCMA, CGMA, a leadership coach and mentor for finance professionals. Before launching her career as a coach and mentor, Sue managed finance teams, process, and change across large corporations.
We’ll be discussing the skills and attributes needed for managing finance teams in this era of constant change, how leaders can keep on top of potential blind spots, and skills and behaviours required for navigating uncertainty.
Welcome, Sue. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Sue Milne: Hi, Steph. Brilliant to be here.
Brown: I’m interested in your journey from managing finance teams to coaching and mentoring leaders. What inspired that career transition?
Milne: So, I suppose the original change started to happen around 2020 at the beginning of COVID. And I find this a lot with people that come and work with me, but I was going through a very similar process. I was asking myself the question — I got to a point in my career where I was sort of saying, “Is this it?” and “What’s next?” And probably a combination of those two things.
So, [in] 2020, I was working in financial services during COVID. Working lots of hours, incredibly busy, probably the busiest I’ve ever been in my career, and actually, in some very stressful situations. Not having an awful lot of time to myself, even though I wasn’t doing any commuting or anything like that.
And when I’d kind of started to think about, well, “Is this what I really want to carry on doing?” I’d started to think, I really love managing teams and I really love managing people and developing people. And I’ve always been really curious about what allows people to go further and do more and what holds other people back. And I think my thought process had gone down the route of, well, “What if I could do more of this?”
Although I did like my role — I was in a finance data management team at the time — the bit that I really loved was the people part and the developing, you know, the people and the teams.
And so, I decided that I wanted to do something about it. And I actually spent some time with a career coach. What I did as part of that is I looked at some of the things that interested me, what had happened in my career. And as a result of that, the decision came out of it that I wanted to train as a coach.
Brown: That’s really interesting, talking about the importance of actually the people side of things in finance now, because finance leaders are having to grapple with more complexity when they’re managing teams in their everyday roles.
Obviously, we’ll be looking at quite a lot of skills that leaders need to navigate throughout this era. But are there any notable pressures in sessions with finance and other business leaders that stand out to you?
Milne: Yeah, I think, and although I say unsurprisingly, I still think it needs to be talked about. Stakeholders in the business want finance to do more than just report the numbers. They want them to add value as well. And this is something that has been coming up a lot and for quite a while. And I think it’s something that, as finance professionals, we really need to take note of if we’ve not already done that.
I think part of that is they want us to be part of that strategic decision-making. So, I suppose instead of us being — as perhaps the profession has been in the past — very historical, looking backwards, reporting the numbers. We still need to do that. But what we also need to do is add a layer on top of that now, where we are keeping in step with the business, we’re keeping in step with the decision-making, and the strategic change that the business wants to make.
But what we’re doing in order to do that is we are embracing new technology, we’re embracing automation, and that will allow us to do the faster close, to get the right numbers, to support the decision-making in better time.
And I think out of everything — and there are lots of challenges for finance professionals at the moment — I think it’s being that professional and that business partner that can really keep in step with the business and help drive the business forward as well.
Brown: You touched on the sort of technology aspect that’s a big part of adding value in finance leaders’ jobs now. And trying to stay ahead of the technology curve is of course putting leaders under considerable pressure.
But employee expectations alongside these process changes are also shifting quite rapidly as well. What are two or three key attributes that are essential for managing people and teams today?
Milne: I mean, we’ve just touched on talking about working with the business and keeping in step with the business. And a big part of that is the stakeholder relationships that you have. And aside from the technology and the automation, I think one of the biggest areas where finance professionals can really hone their skills is around stakeholder engagement and especially helping their teams to do that as well.
When I say stakeholder relationships, what I’m thinking about is developing the relationships with the right people in the teams that you support. And that doesn’t always necessarily mean it’s the most senior people. You really need that person that sits on the other side from you and to be able to develop a really good relationship with them.
The stakeholder is the person who understands the area, but they’re also the person that will advocate for you and your team. Because I think it’s really important that when you’re making those relationships with the stakeholders so that you can help them make those strategic decisions and you can help them with the planning and also the implementation of what’s happening as well, that you’ve got some really strong relationships.
I think part of that is having those relationships with people who you can call upon when there’s quite a lot of pressure or, you know, it’s the person that you can go to and have that conversation with.
The other thing I would say is don’t be scared of asking for feedback. Feedback when you’re managing people. Feedback when you are supporting stakeholders. I know sometimes people are a little bit scared of doing this. But if it’s asked for in the right way and contextualised, it can help you identify where those blind spots are. It can help you understand what you’re doing well. And it can help you see perhaps where some of the areas are where you need to improve as well.
So, I would always say, think about feedback. Spend time with your stakeholders and their teams. I think it’s really important for finance not to be, I suppose, seen as a bit of an island. We’re not just out there on our own, we’re part of a larger business. So go and spend some time with your stakeholders and their teams.
And I think above everything, be approachable. Try and have an open-door approach that works for you. There will have to be some boundaries because you can’t have everybody knocking on your door all of the time. But make yourself approachable so that people can come and talk to you about what’s happening in the business as well.
Brown: You mentioned about blind spots, which I think is a really fundamental area. When the stakes are getting so high in business and demands are evolving and they keep piling up, I imagine it can be quite challenging to track what is happening across the business.
For leaders, aside from feedback, what two or three techniques can help them ensure that they are checking in on potential blind spots in their business?
Milne: So, I think the first thing is flexibility. It’s very easy to have a particular way of working or a particular way of doing things, especially with different stakeholders. But I think it’s really important for people to be flexible because businesses are changing fast, technology is changing fast. And what we need to be able to do is we need to be able to keep step with that.
One of the things that I would encourage people to do is to think about flexibility and to think about what that looks like in the context of your role, how you support the business, and how you support the stakeholders as well.
The other skill that I talk to people quite a lot about is emotional intelligence. And it comes from having that self-awareness of ourselves, but also others as well. So really think about — when you’re having conversations, when you’re looking at what’s happening either with your team or around the business with stakeholders — really take notice of what people are saying.
Also, think about what you can see as well in terms of people’s behaviours. It can start to go down to things like intonation in the voice. The person sat in front of you, have a look at the expression on their face. What kind of feedback are you getting in terms of that conversation?
And I think a big thing is being open to learning. And I think that’s both from your team, but the wider business as well. Because I think if you can show that you are flexible and that you’re open to learning, I think that can really help you go far in your career because people know that you are not static, and that what you will do is, you will adapt over time to be able to either support people within your team or to support the stakeholders as well.
Brown: I’d like to touch more broadly on leadership styles. What types of leaders in the current climate are best positioned to guide both their team and organisation through the sort of unprecedented levels of uncertainty that finance teams and businesses are facing now? And what makes them more capable?
Milne: So, I think when we think about styles of leadership, I’m going to take it back one step so that we’ve got a comparison. When I think about when I first started my career — which was quite a long time ago — what I was seeing in terms of leadership was very much probably what people would recognise as being kind of command and control. It was very directional. It was very autocratic. It was very, “This is what I want you to do.” And there wasn’t an awful lot of feedback.
What I’m seeing and what I’ve seen over the last, especially over the last five to ten years, from a leadership style point of view, is the style called “transformational”, where people are inspiring and motivating the teams that they’ve got and the people that they’ve got around them.
For this to work, there’s probably about two or three skills that would help somebody to work in this way. But I think what’s really important is that when you’ve got the pressure building and there’s a lot going on and there’s a lot expected of you and your team, what you need to be able to do is to be able to help them see a way through. And also, to be able to, I suppose, inspire them to have the right mindset in terms of how they deal with the day-to-day pressures, but how they can keep going as well.
Definitely one of the biggest things is curiosity. Keeping an open mind. Continual learning. Asking questions but being genuinely curious.
One of the skills that I think that we don’t pay enough attention to — and I’ve learned so much more about this since I’ve been through my training as a coach — is listening skills. We’re very busy on a day-to-day basis. We could be on a Teams call, but we’re typing an email at the same time. We’re always multitasking and doing lots of things.
And I think if you can hone your listening skills and improve them so that you are actively listening to the person that you’re talking to, that you’re in meetings with. And when I mean actively listening, you’re taking in what you can see in front of [you]. So, you can see that perhaps they’re saying one thing, but their expression says something else. It might be that somebody actually isn’t saying something, but you can see on the video call that the expression on their face says that they’re not very happy.
And I think it’s helping to develop those skills that will really massively help you develop as a leader but will help you with your other relationships that you have as well.
Lastly, delegation is a big skill that we have to learn as leaders. We can’t do everything ourselves. We have to trust our teams. We have to work as a unit together. And I think one of the hardest skills that people struggle with sometimes in leadership is delegation. Because what you want to do is you want your team to get to a point where you’re working with them, but they’re relatively self-sufficient.
When you can start to think around those three skills that I’ve just been talking about, I think they make a massive difference in the impact that you can have for people on a day-to-day basis.
Brown: Thank you for sharing those skills and that advice with listeners.
I guess in such a noisy world, it can be relatively easy to try to be the kind of leader that you think that you should be, or you feel expected to be, rather than the kind of leader that actually works for you. What advice would you give leaders who might be putting themselves in a box that they don’t quite fit into?
Milne: I think this is a brilliant question because it’s really common. And I’ve been in situations like this and I’ve seen lots of people in situations like this as well.
There are two aspects to this that I’m going to talk about. I think the first one is, if you are early on in your leadership career, something that I would encourage you to do is to get to know yourself, to really understand how you like to work, to understand what’s important to you.
I’ve got a few questions that sometimes I use with people, and I think they’re quite effective for people to help them reflect on their management and their leadership. The first one is, “How do you want to work with your team?” So really thinking about on a day-to-day basis, how do you want to interact with your team? If you’re not doing that, what do you want to be different?
Another great question is, “If someone came along and described you as a leader, what would they say?” Because what you’re doing then is you’re kind of stepping back from yourself and you’re looking back at yourself and going, “Well, actually, if I was this stakeholder, what do I think that they would say about me as a leader?”
And the last question, which is really effective, is, “Who’s inspired you as a leader and why?” If you think about someone that’s inspired you and you think about why they’ve inspired you, the chances are that’s because either the way that they work or their values are very similar to you. And that will help give you some clues to perhaps how you might want to change, or some of the things that you want to do differently.
One of the biggest questions you can ask yourself is, “Can you change the environment you’re in?” Because a lot of, I suppose, that feeling of not being in the right place and feeling as though you’re having to lead in a particular way is driven by the organisational culture.
Now, when we think about that, there’s going to be some aspects of that we can change, and there’s going to be other aspects of that we can’t. And so, it then becomes the decision around how much of that can I change? What might I need to compromise on? And if there is too much of that you’re compromising on, perhaps it is that culture and the environment that you’re in that is putting you into that position where you’re not being the leader that you want to be.
When you think about that and the change that you might want to make. What I would say is also think about, how much control do you have to initiate change? And work on the things that you can control. Because lots of times we try to push against things. We try to think, “Oh, well, actually I’ll change this because it will help me to get on better with the person that’s leading me, and I’ll have a better relationship with them.”
Actually, what you need to do is to think about what things you can change that are within your control. I think one of the best ways of doing this is to seek out feedback. I think it’s also good to have that third party that’s not directly involved. And as we know, CIMA has an amazing mentoring scheme. I know it’s in the UK and I know there are other countries that are supported now.
You can, as part of your yearly subscription, have access to a mentor for free. You can work with coaches like myself. There are other ways of doing it as well: Looking at your learning and development. But I would really encourage people to find somebody who they can have an honest conversation with and help them perhaps to see a bit of a way forward.
Brown: Thanks so much. That’s great advice.
And it’s really good to highlight how much of it is perhaps not within your control and how much is driven by culture and if that is the right fit for you.
Sue, it’s been a really great conversation. I’ve loved speaking with you today. I feel that we’ve covered a lot of elements of leadership and team management, but if there’s anything that we haven’t touched on in this conversation that you think is important to highlight, please share that with listeners.
Milne: You know, thinking about all of the different things that we’ve touched on, I think the last one is really important in leadership. You can try to be something that you’re not, and people will see through that. Think about you, think about what makes you tick, think about what motivates you, and bring yourself into leadership in a way that helps you feel confident.
And I think a lot of that is helping people to get to know you as well. You don’t have to share everything about yourself. There are things that you can keep private. There are things that you can bring into your work environment. But really help people to get to know you so that you’ve got that two-way relationship with them. Because I can guarantee that if you do that, you will become a much better leader. People will want to work for you, and you will find, hopefully, that you will grow into leadership and it will be something that you really love doing, as I’ve done over my career as well.
