JasperRose’s 2022 Finance Leadership Takeaways
This year been a year with many changes, from political, to environmental, to social. In the world of Finance Leadership, this is no different. In this article, we will go over some of the key Finance Leadership Takeaways that we saw throughout 2022 at JasperRose and offer insights into how to take learns from this year into 2023.
Finance Leadership Demographic
In 2022, we saw a lot of changes in Finance Leadership. Among the key topics that we have seen reoccur, Diversity, Inclusion, and Female Leadership has appeared again and again. In the Financial Reporting Council’s 2022 report on trends in accountancy, they state that “since 2017, all the accountancy bodies have increased their percentage of female members worldwide.”
In our August 2022 Finance Leadership Trends research, we also saw that there is an increase of a multigenerational workforce of three of more generations in companies, meaning that financial leaders are having to adapt to these group’s variations in working styles and values within teams.
Moving forwards into 2023, it will be great to observe whether these trends continue and to monitor how businesses are adapting to these changing working environments and encouraging further diversity within Finance Teams.
Mental Health in Finance Leadership
This year, speakers at JasperRose’s Aspiring FDs Event covered a multitude of topics about the challenges of leadership and advice for those pursuing careers as Finance Directors. Notably, during this event, Finance Director Gemma Craddock spoke about the reality of impostor syndrome. She stated that “the more responsibility you hold, the more it will be looming over your head.”
Emotional Agility described individual’s ability to process their thoughts, emotions, and experiences in a way that can be used for personal development. It has been described as an “essential skill in the complex modern workplace.”
Emotional Agility in Finance Leadership is a topic that we have heard of more this year in the context of mitigating burnout in finance leaders and creating a positive working environment for finance teams, and it will likely continue to be a theme in 2023. Gemma Craddock recommends mentoring schemes to help with impostor syndrome. In-house, readily available counsellors in charge of employee support, motivation, and wellbeing are also being implemented by some businesses.
Overcoming Changes and Challenges in Financial Leadership
As we have established, in 2022 there have been a lot of changes to the ways that businesses think, and to what is being prioritised. But change is nothing new to business as it constantly evolves throughout the years. Finance Director Stuart Gunning was another speaker at our Aspiring FD event this year, and he offered words of advice to getting through challenges in the workplace: “a lot can be solved with a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and an eraser.” His message here was resilience and self-forgiveness. As a leader, you won’t always make the right decisions, and you will learn until the day that you finish. It is okay to stop, start again, and move forwards in the face of adversity. Practicing stoicism and learning through change was a topic that came up repeatedly in our FD event, and this this ideology is a great principle to be taken forward into 2023.
Moving into 2023
This year has focused on diversity and inclusion and emotional wellbeing in the workplace, alongside so many other topics that we can’t cover here today like rising technologies, automation in accounting, AI, the cloud, digital accessibility. These topics will continue to evolve throughout 2023, and we are sure that new ones will arrive throughout the year as well. This dynamic working world with so much information available can seem overwhelming, but by practicing emotional agility and stoicism in leadership, this ever-changing working world is an ultimate opportunity to learn and grow within business.
