Four qualities of effective leaders

Do you see yourself as a future leader in your profession?

Becoming a great leader calls for a complex suite of skills. Although we recognise that talented bosses need to be equipped to rise to challenges and make tough decisions, we sometimes forget that the ability to communicate, delegate, remain positive and be creative are equally intrinsic to leadership success.

Whether you dream of heading up an accounting or law firm or serving as a tax adviser to large corporations, there are ways to hone your leadership credentials now.

Here are four attributes of great leaders, along with fail-safe tips for acquiring them.

When an interviewer asks about your weaknesses ...

For some graduates, it's the toughest question in a job interview:

Tell me, what is your biggest weakness?

How should you answer? And what do potential employers really want to hear?

There was a time when saying you were a perfectionist or a workaholic were the only acceptable answers to the question about professional weaknesses. However, unless you really are a perfectionist or a workaholic (and have supporting evidence), those answers are now considered insincere.

We asked employers in the tax profession to explain what they really want to learn when they ask this question.

Negotiating your first (or next) promotion

Whether you’re an experienced tax professional ready to take the next step in your career or a junior accountant or lawyer who wants to make your first move up the corporate ladder, knowing how to negotiate a promotion is an essential workplace skill.

Asking your boss for more responsibility – and money – can be daunting, no matter how many times you’ve done it before.

Here are four tips for negotiating with your employer and landing the role you aspire to.

Lifelong learning – the key to optimal earning

After you have completed a decade and a half of primary, secondary and tertiary education, it can be tempting to call it quits when it comes to further tax training.

However, if you’re smart enough to make it to the end of a university degree, you’re probably also smart enough to realise that taking it easy is, eventually, a recipe for career and income stagnation.

Career alternatives for tax graduates

An assumption often made about students pursuing a degree in tax is that they’re on the fast track to a certain career in accountancy. However, not every tax graduate follows suit. So what are some of the other career options available?

Tax-based education gives you a unique combination of skills, including the ability to be a team player, the ability to not be a team player, communication skills, research skills, maths skills, analytical skills and commercial awareness. The combination of these means you’re equally well prepared for a numerical, analytical or communication-based role. After completing postgraduate tax training, you are spoilt with a unique spread of career options.

Here are five paths you might consider.