ICAEW.com works better with JavaScript enabled.

Leadership

Learn how to become an effective leader.
Contents
Back to top

Latest on leadership

Read our latest features and articles on leadership.
Male wearing headphones working on his laptop
Closing the communication gap in your finance team
  • Article
  • 23 Apr 2025
Whether it’s building trust, navigating tough conversations or inspiring colleagues, strong communication is the cornerstone to building stronger teams, says Nick Elston.
Front cover of AI and the future of global chartered accountancy - research from Chartered Accountants Worldwide
Accountants embrace AI but need new skills and leadership
  • Article
  • 14 Apr 2025
A new survey on artificial intelligence by Chartered Accountants Worldwide reveals much willingness among chartered accountants to make use of it, but new skills are needed to properly bed it in.
Male wearing headphones working on his laptop
Five leadership lessons for a growth mindset
  • Article
  • 31 Mar 2025
Rachel Nutt, a senior partner at MHA, advises some of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs and has also overseen rapid growth at her firm. She tells us some of the leadership lessons garnered from those experiences.
Chair of the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA), Ayesha Macpherson Lau
Former KPMG leader on finding your leadership voice
  • Article
  • 18 Mar 2025
Chair of the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, Ayesha Macpherson Lau has channelled all of her leadership strengths into the governance and modernisation of the Authority.
5 multi racial hands placed down on table
FTSE 350 Women Leaders Review highlights continuing progress
  • Article
  • 07 Mar 2025
Latest report on women in leadership roles at FTSE 350 companies finds that the majority are within striking distance of the 40% target for women’s representation in boardrooms.
Male wearing headphones working on his laptop
How to influence as a finance leader
  • Article
  • 27 Feb 2025
Influencing skills are increasingly important for accountants; they need to communicate and persuade stakeholders to make informed decisions based on their analysis, alongside producing real-time, accurate financial data.
Access resources to help you meet ICAEW CPD requirements
Free CPD: soft skills for leaders
  • Article
  • 13 Nov 2024
If you’re in a leadership role, an aspiring CFO, or even a CFO looking to become CEO, having strong people skills is a top priority. ICAEW has a range of resources to boost your Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours while raising your EQ.
From CFO to CEO: the essential leadership skills
  • Article
  • 22 Apr 2024
Many CEOs have backgrounds in accountancy, but taking the leap from the finance function to the chief executive’s chair requires a much broader skill set.
Read more

How CFOs create a fairer future

Read our interviews with CFOs on how their role is changing. Access the CFO fairer future toolkit to help CFOs navigate the changing demands and how to make the most of it. 
CFO fairer future toolkit
City meeting room

Reports

Special Report 72 - The aspiring CFO
  • Report
  • 2021
A practical, realistic, hands-on and immense learning opportunity of all you need to know to become the CFO
Organisational culture: leadership styles
  • Report
  • 2021
It is recognised that an effective culture can reduce risk and improve performance of an organisation, and that the success or failure of the culture is greatly influenced by its leaders. This guide, written by Jenny Jones, explores different leadership styles and the impact they can have on organisational culture.
Special report 67: Problem solving
  • Report
  • 2020
This month’s special report focuses on solving problems of all shapes and sizes in the workplace. Whatever your position in the hierarchy, there are practical hints and tips included to make your day-to-day work easier and more efficient.
Exclusive Special Report 64: Managing People
  • Report
  • 2019
  • PDF (1,487kb)
Managing people is one of the most important skills needed to successfully navigate your way to the top of the corporate ladder. This report provides practical tips and advice on topics such as team management, dealing with difficult people and the effect of technology on recruitment.
Courageous Leadership
  • Report
  • 2017
Courage is one of the skills that great leaders are deemed to need and perhaps the most important. This report covers the key areas that leaders might want to focus on.
Exclusive Special Report 56: Soft skills that FDs need
  • Report
  • 2017
  • PDF (5,953kb)
A special report looking at the soft skills that FDs need to succeed
Leadership (Special report 39)
  • Report
  • 2012
This special report on leadership has been compiled to point you in the right direction in your leadership search. The authors all firmly support the idea that, although some leaders may be born, many more are made, and the appropriate training and support forms a vital component in this development.

Webinars

Exclusive Key coaching skills for modern leaders
  • Webinar
  • 28 Nov 2024
Discover how good coaching can be used by modern leaders to empower their individual team members and teams to reach their full potential and adapt in an ever-changing world.
Exclusive Critical Skills Workshop - Leadership and Executive Presence
  • Webinar
  • 19 Sep 2024
Expand your professional network, raise your profile, and increase your visibility in your industry- learn how with Eric Sampson.
Exclusive Inclusive leadership: navigating inclusion and psychological safety in the workplace
  • Webinar
  • 04 Sep 2024
This Diversity & Inclusion Community webinar provides actionable strategies for leaders and managers to create a psychologically safe environment and promote inclusion throughout the employee life cycle.
Lessons in leadership from ICAEW's CEO
  • Podcast
  • 02 May 2024
In this special episode of Insights In Focus, we meet new ICAEW CEO Alan Vallance to discuss the leadership lessons of his career.
So you want to be a leader?
  • Podcast
  • 17 Apr 2024
In this Insights In Focus episode, we discuss how accountants can build the skills needed to take on leadership and executive roles during their careers.
Motivating your team: A three-pronged approach
  • Webinar
  • 19 Mar 2021
This webinar explores three aspects of motivation that need to come together to get the most from your staff.
Leading resilient teams
  • Webinar
  • 07 Oct 2020
Learn practical tools and techniques to help you manage stress and build a resilience management framework.
Exclusive Decision making under uncertainty
  • Video
  • 28 Sep 2020
How to make the most of the different ways in which people make decisions.
More webinars

Training courses

Our leadership training courses cover a range of topics including finance, resilience, corporate governance and communication.
A-Z of CPD courses by topic
  • Listing
As a global leader of the finance profession, ICAEW offers a comprehensive range of training and learning options for every stage of professional development, designed for finance teams and finance leaders.
Business men and business women, hands together.
Leadership Development Programmes
  • Promotional material
Catering for those significant transitions in your career, these leadership programmes are instrumental to achieving your leadership ambition or fulfilling your succession planning goals.

eBooks

The ICAEW Library & Information Service provides full text access to a selection of key business and reference eBooks from leading publishers. eBooks are available to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users. If you are unable to access an eBook, please see our Help and support advice or contact library@icaew.com.

Exclusive Work revolution: performance and leadership in the modern world
  • eBook
  • 2023
  • Jonathan Males
  • Spiramus
Designed to allow you to become more effective and more human at work, in both team and leadership positions.
Exclusive Practice of corporate governance
  • eBook
  • 2022
  • Bob Tricker
  • CRC Press
Every corporate entity has a governing body, whether it is called a board of directors, a committee, a council, or anything else. Many people, when appointed to the governing body of an organisation, have little idea of what to expect and what is expected of them. Even those with some experience find that the culture and leadership style of other governing bodies differ. The aim of this book is to help them understand and improve their controbution to the organisation and governing body they serve. It is a simple guide to the work of every board member.
Exclusive Master your next move: the essential companion to the first 90 days
  • eBook
  • 2019
  • Michael D. Watkins
  • Harvard Business Review Press
Designed to be used in tandem with The First 90 Days. This book will help you gain insight into how to apply the principles and tools laid out in The First 90 Days in the specific types of transitions you are facing. Contains advice about how to succeed when you are moving to a higher level, leading former peer, joining a new organisation or dealing with a new type of business situation.
Exclusive Reach the top in finance: the ambitious accountant's guide to career success
  • eBook
  • 2017
  • Sally Percy
  • Bloomsbury
A career development guide for finance professionals who want to know how they can succeed as trusted advisors, business partners, senior leaders and innovators, regardless of whether they work in industry, not-for-profit or public practice.
Exclusive Financial Times guide to management: how to be a manager who makes a difference and gets results
  • eBook
  • 2014
  • Anne Francke
  • FT Press
A guide to becoming an effective manager, full of practical tips and advice on to the everyday challenges of: Managing yourself; Developing communication skills and emotional intelligence; Managing others; Setting strategic direction; Managing change; Managing money, resources and technology.
Exclusive First 90 days: proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter, The
  • eBook
  • 2013
  • Michael D. Watkins
  • Harvard Business Review Press
Contains tips and guidance for anyone being promoted or joining a new company.
Exclusive Communication strategies for today's managerial leader
  • eBook
  • 2012
  • Deborah Britt Roebuck
  • Business Expert Press
Provides the communication principles that are key for managerial leaders.
Exclusive Effective people management
  • eBook
  • 2011
  • Pat Wellington
  • Kogan Page
A short guide to team management and leadership.
Terms of use

You are permitted to access, download, copy, or print out content from eBooks for your own research or study only, subject to the terms of use set by our suppliers and any restrictions imposed by individual publishers. Please see individual supplier pages for full terms of use.

More eBooks

Articles and books in the ICAEW Library collection

The collection of the ICAEW Library & Information Service includes a range of articles, books and reports on leadership skills. Use the links below to see what we have available to request in our Library catalogue (Libcat).
Game of thrones on business: strategy, morality and leadership lessons from the world's most talked about TV show
  • Library book
  • 2015
  • Tim Phillips, Rebecca Clare
  • Oxford: Infinite Ideas Limited
Encouraging their readers to learn through stories, the authors have drawn parallels between Game of Thrones and today's business world. The authors also use examples from the series to breathe life into management theory.
Why should anyone be led by you? What it takes to be an authentic leader
  • Library book
  • 2015
  • R.Goffee, G.Jones
  • Harvard Business Review Press
The authors show how great leaders essentially act as 'authentic chameleons', consistently displaying their true selves throughout the changes of context that require them to play a variety of roles. They illustrate authentic leadership in action and provide practical advice on how both experienced and aspiring leaders can become more authentic - and more successful.
Act like a leader, think like a leader
  • Library book
  • 2015
  • H.Ibarra
  • Harvard Business Review Press
This book "offers advice to help you: redefine your job in order to make more strategic contributions; diversify your network so that you connect to, and learn from, a bigger range of stakeholders; and become more playful with your self-concept, allowing your familiar- and possibly outdated- leadership style to evolve."
Lean in: women, work and the will to lead
  • Library book
  • 2013
  • S.Sandberg
  • W H Allen
Examines why women's progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential. Sheryl Sandberg is a former Chief Operating Officer of Facebook/Meta.
The essential manager: 30 core elements of leadership
  • Library book
  • 2013
  • E.Larkin
  • Dublin : Chartered Accountants Ireland
Aims to encourage the reader to reflect upon, and perhaps consider changing, how they currently respond to some common trials and tribulations of managerial life. Divides "the 30 essential building blocks for management success" into three parts: about you; about employees; and about business.
Management in 10 words
  • Library book
  • 2012
  • Terry Leahy
  • Random House Business
Written by the former CEO of Tesco, this book draws on the author's experience and expertise to pinpoint the ten vital attributes that make successful managers and underlie great organisations. Chapters are headed: truth; loyalty; courage; values; act; balance; simple; lean; compete; and trust.
The essential Drucker: selections from the management works of Peter F.Drucker
  • Library book
  • 2001
  • P.F.Drucker
  • Butterworth-Heinemann
An introduction to Peter Drucker's expert writing on management and leadership, containing extracts from his books published between 1974 and 1999.

To find out how you can borrow books from the Library please see our guide to borrowing books.

You can obtain copies of articles or extracts of books and reports through our document supply service.

External resources

Acas guide on leadership
  • Website
  • Acas
Guide from Acas designed to support people with leadership responsibilities at all levels of an organisation. Outlines the essential qualities, actions, considerations and implications associated with leadership using the Acas framework for effective leadership.
Investors in People leadership articles
  • Website
  • Investors in People
Knowledge base of articles on leadership from Investors in People, covering topics such as motivating and empowering your team, democratic leadership and improving team wellbeing.
Leadership in the workplace
  • Website
  • Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
This factsheet investigates the concept of leadership and how it differs from management, the factors that can influence leadership development, and briefly examines how a principles-based approach to practice can support the development of leadership skills in people professionals.
The Gender, Leadership and Inclusion Centre (GLIC)
  • Website
  • Cranfield School of Management
The GLIC is a research community which collaborates with industry and produces high quality research in the areas of gender, leadership and inclusion at work. The centre, which is part of Cranfield University's School of Management, is responsible for an annual benchmarking report, The Female FTSE Board Report which has been published since 1999 and includes details of the number of female directors on FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 boards. The website provides information on the work of the centre, its research projects and published research papers.
The role and expectations of a CFO: A global debate on preparing accountants for finance leadership
  • Website
  • International Federation of Accountants (IFAC)
Discussion paper and selection of resources from IFAC. The paper looks at the changing scope of CFO and finance leadership roles and how accountants can prepare for career progression.
Terms of use

ICAEW accepts no responsibility for the content on any site to which a hypertext link from this site exists. The links are provided 'as is' with no warranty, express or implied, for the information provided within them. Please see the full copyright and disclaimer notice.

Can't find what you're looking for?

The ICAEW Library can give you the right information from trustworthy, professional sources that aren't freely available online. Contact us for expert help with your enquiries and research.

Everything business

Find out about the key benefits available for members in business and the support from ICAEW. We are proud of our some 60,000 members working in and running business all over the world.
Read More
Winding road
Information

Some of the content on this web page was provided by the Chartered Accountants’ Trust for Education and Research, a registered charity, which owns the library and operates it for ICAEW.