CFOs in the digital age
If you have ever attended a work retreat or participated in a team-building exercise, you will be familiar with various tests and quizzes designed to reveal your leadership style.
While these tools can offer valuable insights for engaging with colleagues and promoting self-awareness, they often fall short of capturing the complexities faced by C-suite executives.
In times of unprecedented change, executives must have a good understanding of how they lead and how this fits into their broader organisational context. For CFOs, the stakes are particularly high.
The past few years in South Africa have seen the private sector battling to keep up with external factors like loadshedding, political instability, and infrastructural collapse. Things are looking up.
Recently, our Government of National Unity marked 100 days in office, and over the same period, the rand has gained 5.8% in value against the dollar. But we are not out of the woods yet.
According to Accenture’s CFO decision-making survey, 67% of CFOs say they feel paralysed at times by the number of decisions and volume of choices they are expected to make. As South Africa is reaching a turning point now is not the time for decision paralysis.
Navigating the unknown can be daunting for any executive, yet the most astute leaders understand that the greatest rewards often lie just beyond the boundaries of fear.
To keep up with shifting organisational demands in the digital age CFOs must steer the process of Total Enterprise Reinvention – that is, a holistic approach to transformation that integrates a strong digital core into all aspects of an organisation, enabling it to adapt continuously to technological advancements and set new strategic imperatives for enhanced performance.
Throughout this process, they must also balance financial risks to ensure future-proof organisations. According to research the successful outcome of this process depends on CFOs adapting to shifting organisational demands and laying the foundation for confident decision-making.
Accenture identifies three variables to consider for optimal decision-making: CFO leadership style, strategic imperative and company culture.
While each element is integral to success, change begins on a personal level. Leadership style is a stronger predictor of organisational success than a company’s strategy or culture.
Accenture’s research identifies four key leadership types: Financial Engineers (analytical), Problem Solvers (tactical), Collaboration Creators (inspiring), and Change Agents (strategic).
Financial Engineers (32%) excel at analysing the economic impact of decisions but may lack strategic perspective, requiring a balance of empathy and communication skills. Problem Solvers (32%) are tenacious in resolving issues but must focus on long-term strategy and collaboration.
Collaboration Creators build strong teams but need to make timely decisions, while Change Agents drive transformation but must gain stakeholder buy-in to avoid overwhelming their teams.
Each style has unique strengths and blind spots, influencing how leaders navigate diverse organisational cultures. Ideally, we would want a good mix of all these styles, balancing their positive and negative attributes.
As South Africa’s risk landscape – dubbed a polycrisis by risk experts – dominates the C-Suite agenda, I have observed a strong need for Problem Solvers and Change Agents who bring a balance of long-term strategy and short-term solutions to the table.
CFOs must adapt these leadership styles to navigate multiple strategic imperatives—continuous improvement, acceleration and growth, disruptive change, and burning platform crises—each demanding a distinct approach.
The most common imperative, with 52% of CFOs operating under it, is Continuous Improvement. This requires leaders to focus on enhancing processes and aligning practices with long-term goals, even amidst market disruptions. CFOs in this category must balance the need for immediate, actionable results with future innovation, strategically managing resources to ensure sustainable success.
Meanwhile, 28% of CFOs are focused on Acceleration and Growth, a strategy that demands flexibility and a forward-thinking approach. These CFOs are tasked with driving business expansion by identifying growth drivers, working closely with the C-suite, and proactively addressing potential roadblocks.
Disruptive Change, currently only impacting 17% of CFOs, is expected to rise as global industry disruptions have surged by 200% over the past five years. CFOs navigating this landscape must embrace change as a catalyst for innovation, stay ahead of market trends, and cultivate agility within their teams.
On the rare occasion that CFOs are faced with a Burning Platform imperative (3%), they must act swiftly, focus on immediate critical issues, and lead their teams with clear, urgent communication.
Although a small percentage of CFOs globally are dealing with a Burning Platform Imperative, this is more common in South Africa as volatility breeds crisis. This has prompted the need for urgent and swift action and for CFOs to make ruthless decisions and enact complex solutions with laser precision.
CFOs’ leadership styles and imperatives operate within their broader organisational cultures. They must navigate various organisational cultures—whether consensus-driven, growth-oriented, focused on big bets, or top-down—and tailor their leadership approach accordingly.
In consensus-driven cultures, securing stakeholder buy-in and ensuring clear, transparent communication are key to balancing collective decision-making with agile execution. In growth mindset cultures, CFOs must champion resilience and bold action, fostering an environment where fast failure is embraced, and innovative ideas can flourish.
Big Bet-focused cultures require leaders to prioritise high-impact initiatives and remain adaptable to disruptions, while in top-down cultures, CFOs succeed by clearly articulating decision-making rationale and addressing any knowledge gaps within their teams.
No matter what leadership style guides decision-making, it is essential that CFOs also keep digital transformation and solutions at the forefront of the agenda. In the long term, a strong digital core supports not just efficiency but also resilience, allowing organisations to adapt quickly in the face of future disruptions.
The most successful CFOs will be those who can balance short-term tactical responses and long-term strategic vision, all while leveraging digital transformation to enable Total Enterprise Reinvention.
In South Africa, where economic volatility, regulatory challenges, and political instability frequently reshape the business landscape, CFOs are uniquely positioned to drive sustainable growth.
By adapting their leadership styles to fit both their organisations' strategic imperatives and cultural contexts, they can guide their teams through uncertainty, instil confidence in stakeholders, and lay the foundation for future success.