Growing a Leadership Bench in Corporate Finance

When a Fortune 250 organization recognized that strong technical talent alone would not sustain future growth, it invested in developing the next generation of finance leaders. Through a structured leadership development program for managers across Accounting, Audit, and Tax, the organization strengthened leadership capability, improved cross-functional collaboration, and began building the leadership bench needed to support long-term succession and business performance. Client Challenge  A Fortune 250 company had a problem common to organizations built on …

Succession Planning Is Not Replacement Planning

During a recent succession planning session, I asked the room a simple question: what are you actually trying to build, a replacement, or leadership capacity?  No one answered right away. Not because the question was hard, but because most organizations have never actually separated those two ideas.  The Trap  Most succession planning starts the moment someone is expected to leave or already has. A retirement is approaching, a key role feels vulnerable, a high-potential employee has been identified. The conversation almost always narrows to …

When Teams Think They Agree…But Don’t

In a recent engagement with a large enterprise organization, an engineer on the leadership team had a moment of real clarity about himself.  He realized that every time a colleague brought something into the conversation that wasn’t a hard fact, a hunch, a wider view, a sense of where things might be headed, he pulled the conversation back to facts. Every time.  From where he sat, it had always looked like his colleague kept drifting off track. …

When 360 Feedback Does Not Lead to Change

Most leadership teams can point to at least one moment when a 360-feedback process seemed promising.  The report was detailed. The themes were clear. There was a sense that this, finally, would create the insight needed for a leader to shift.  And yet, three to six months later, very little about that leader’s day to day behavior had meaningfully changed.  This gap between insight and impact is not unusual. In a recent Conversation Among Leaders, a small group of …

Scaling Leadership within a Finance Team: A Case Study

When a high-performing finance leadership team at a rapidly growing transportation and logistics company began to outgrow its individual-contributor model, Accelus Partners helped transform the group into a cohesive, accountable leadership team. Through executive coaching and targeted team development, the organization strengthened trust, improved alignment, and freed its CFO to focus on strategic priorities critical to the company’s next stage of growth. Client Challenge  The finance and accounting leadership team at a publicly traded transportation …

Role Clarity in Mentoring: How Leaders Build Judgment and Confidence 

In a recent mentor workshop, I asked a simple question.  Which role do you think you are most likely to drift into as a mentor?  Several people immediately said coaching rather than supervision. When I asked why, the answer was consistent and well‑intended. They wanted to support people. One participant shared that her instinct would be to encourage others with reassurance. You can do it. You have this.  That instinct makes sense. Most leaders want to be helpful, …

Building Leadership Readiness During Organizational Growth: A Case Study

Leadership Transitions Are a High‑Risk Moment for Organizations  Leadership transitions are a critical inflection point for organizations. Strong technical leaders promoted into broader roles must shift how results are achieved through others or risk stalled execution, weakened engagement, and constrained bench strength.  This case study shows how a Fortune 250 organization used executive coaching to support a leadership transition, strengthen enterprise leadership capability, and realize measurable improvement in employee engagement during a period of expanded scope.  Context  …

Designing Leadership Feedback to Enable Behavior Change

How a strengths-based 360 design supports leaders and teams. Small Shifts. Meaningful Impact.  Most leadership development does not fail because leaders are unwilling to change. It fails because the changes required are often subtle, difficult to see, and hard to sustain without support. In our work with leaders and teams, we consistently see that small shifts in behavior around decision-making, feedback, and how tension is handled can create outsized differences in trust, execution, and results. …

What Pressure Reveals About Leadership

And why teams feel the impact long before results show it. Rather than starting with a formal presentation, I began a recent conversation with senior professionals by asking a simple question:  “What are the biggest challenges you’re seeing for your clients right now?”  The answers came quickly. Market uncertainty. Slower deal flow. External constraints that leaders cannot control. Frustration with systems that feel increasingly underfunded or poorly managed. A general sense that pressure is rising …

Collaboration Under Pressure – A Case Study

Building Capability Where Execution Breaks Down Collaboration matters most when pressure is high and execution is at stake. It shows up in how leaders adapt their communication, address tension, and keep work moving forward when time is tight, stakes are high, and emotion is present. The case study below shows how one organization strengthened collaboration by focusing on the specific skills leaders rely on under these conditions. Rather than treating collaboration as a soft skill …

Strategic Simplicity: Why Fewer Priorities Create More Progress

At the beginning of a new year, many of us feel energized by possibility. We set goals, outline objectives, and imagine what success will look like in the months ahead. That sense of momentum is powerful. It can also be misleading. Earlier this year, I found myself in exactly that space. Clear vision. Big ambition. Strong intentions. And yet, just a few weeks into the year, something wasn’t working. I operate my business using a …

When Progress Stalls: Why I Adjusted a Goal Instead of Abandoning It

By Barbara Stewart As January came to a close, I found myself doing something that does not come easily for me. I adjusted one of my goals for the first twelve weeks of the year. That decision mattered. I am persistent and determined by nature. When I set goals, I do so thoughtfully and with intention. I know my goals are often ambitious, but I also believe they are achievable. I have worked from a …

Leadership Insights from a Conversation with Dennis Tardan

Barbara Stewart on What Leaders Are Navigating Beneath the Surface Recently, I had the opportunity to join Dennis Tardan as a guest on his podcast, Tardan Today. Dennis is a skilled interviewer and communication coach, and our conversation created space to explore what many leaders are experiencing right now but do not always name out loud. At Accelus Partners, much of our work begins by looking beneath the surface. In this conversation, we talked about …

The Missing Ingredient in Leadership Success

The invite said: “Join us for a cookie exchange.” I thought, Perfect. Time to try that peppermint sugar cookie recipe I saved. I felt confident. I’ve baked plenty of cookies before. But this recipe called for two sticks of butter, more than I’d ever used. The next day, I pulled the dough from the fridge. It was hard as a rock. I waited for it to soften. It did, but then it turned sticky and …

Team Coaching with Lisa Walsh & Gary Nowak on Coffee House Coaching
team coaching with Lisa Walsh and Gary Nowak

Work with teams and individual clients is a confidential process. Rarely is there an occasion for a coach to share by demonstration how they do what they do.   What can be shared is a conversation on team coaching featured on this podcast hosted by Gary Nowak. In it, you will hear from me and my colleague Lisa Walsh. You can witness the different stages of a team as we form, do a little storm, and …

Leverage Your “I” For Better Team Collaboration
I in Team Accelus Blog

There is no “I” in team. But every individual in every team needs to have awareness of their “I” in order to be a strong and contributing team member. “I” in this case is knowing your strengths, weaknesses, preferences and your common stress responses as you work in a team. It sounds like: Teammate 1: I am good at seeing the big picture and can lose sight of the details. I prefer working more of …

Perception & The Power of Feedback
perception & feedback

Early in my career, I had no clue that at least one of my colleagues perceived me very differently than the warm, caring and friendly colleague I considered myself to be.  Out of the blue, and not part of a performance review, a colleague shared that I gave the impression of being an “ice maiden.”   Shocked by his feedback, and still trying to reconcile the vast difference between his perception and the one in my …

Managing Stressful Situations
Man stressing at work desk

The drop or churning in your stomach, the sweaty palms, the flushing of the face. Full-on signs that something or someone has just sent you on a path of worry, frustration, fear, or panic. While not always appreciated, our bodies send us instantaneous signals of our state of being. The trouble with these reactions is that they served us well when we needed to outrun the saber tooth tiger, but most of us are not …

Why is Communication so Challenging? 

The Latin base of communication is communicare, which means to share. To share something, you must hold or know it, and recognize that sharing will benefit you and the other party.  It then needs to be presented in a way that others will want to partake or engage. If the other party is not interested or does not know why they should be, the message will fall on deaf ears. This gives us three distinct …

Who wouldn’t want to be a Learner?

People especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.   This short definition of the Learner® talent theme from the Clifton Strengths® Assessment summarizes how those with Learner in their dominant strengths address the acquisition of knowledge. Second in frequency in the Top 5 strengths of the population, Learner is surpassed only by Achiever. …