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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Once you have listed your to leadership, communication, and empathy. If you
have a specific role in mind already, you could also
current skills, go through them look up detailed job descriptions and hold them up
against your current skill set to locate any gaps.
Those gaps will likely be more significant if
and try to objectively rate you’re trying to pivot into a different role or indus-
yourself as low, medium, or try. For example, when Jim Martin, CPA, profes-
sor at Washburn University School of Business,
transitioned from working at a large company to
high proficiency. teaching at a midsize university before moving into
an administrative role, he had to reassess his skills
to determine if he was up for the pivot.
“The world had changed, but in the end, it wasn’t
communication, empathy, resilience, and other less being a master of accounting that allowed me to
tangible skills. fulfill my administrative role, it was the ‘remastery’
For example, Cox recommended considering a of my management skills, the ability to commu-
skill like emotional intelligence and figuring out nicate, listen, and plan,” Martin said. “And that’s
what high emotional intelligence (EQ) would look the hallmark of a good CPA. It’s not necessarily
like in action. If one major component of EQ is being the best in the world at debits and credits; I
self-awareness, you can reflect on how you typically can shake a tree and I’ll find good debit and credit
act during work meetings and whether you truly people, but the successful ones have also developed
listen and allow others to finish their thoughts, or if those softer skills.”
you have a habit of talking over others. If you’re try- If you’re not planning a major pivot, you could
ing to assess your level of courage, you might think instead look at which capabilities your current
about times when you had an idea and consider employer or organization is lacking and grow to
whether you had the confidence to suggest it as a fill those gaps. For example, if you notice your
possible solution. company isn’t using data to drive decisions, you can
As you’re conducting this self-assessment, you bone up on that skill to bring greater value to the
might start to notice which skills could use some organization. Another way to pinpoint skills worth
improvement and which ones you probably don’t developing, according to Slaybaugh, is to speak with
need to worry about. Take note of any glaring your manager, colleagues, clients, and customers and
shortcomings as candidates for your skill develop- ask them what skills they expect or would like you
ment plan. to have.

PINPOINT ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR YOUR SELECT KEY SKILLS FOR IMPROVEMENT AND
DESIRED CAREER GOALS MEASURE THE GAP
Now that you have a basic idea of where you are, it’s After taking inventory and pinpointing which skills
time to figure out where you want to go and what might be most essential to achieving your career
skills you need to get there. For example, if you goals, it can be helpful to narrow the list to one or
know you want to be promoted into a managerial two that make the most sense to focus on, accord-
role, you will likely need to improve skills related ing to Jackie Meyer, CPA, founder of Meyer Tax,

IN BRIEF include technical, business, and soft improvement, find a way to measure
skills. progress as you work on your plan.
■ Taking stock of your current skill set is ■ Be specific about the skills you want to ■ Engage others to help evaluate your
an effective and efficient way to start improve to further your career in order assessment and ask them for honest,
improving your professional skills. to develop a focused plan. direct feedback.
■ Your personal skills assessment should ■ Once you’ve selected a skill for

To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Drew Adamek, the JofA’s lead publisher, at
Andrew.Adamek@aicpa-cima.com.

22 | Journal of Accountancy February 2022