INTHEBLACK December 2025 / January 2026 - Magazine - Page 41
F
or accounting and finance professionals,
decision-making is not an occasional task,
it is part of the job.
However, as people step into leadership
roles, the stakes of each decision rise. The job
is no longer just about reconciling numbers
or spotting trends, but about managing risk,
guiding investments and influencing outcomes
that ripple across the business.
The pressure in today’s workplace is only
intensifying. A 2024 Accenture study finds
that over 80 per cent of CFOs say the pace
for decision-making has become faster in the
preceding year.
Despite its central role, decision-making
is rarely treated as a core professional skill.
“One of the biggest traps is waiting until
you’re in a senior role to build decision-making
capability,” says Dani Fraillon, head of partner
development at Deloitte Australia. “But the
habits and frameworks you form early on are
what carry you when the pressure rises.”
Paul Gordon, author and CEO of boutique
consultancy Catalyze APAC, agrees. “As people
move into more senior positions, there’s an
unspoken expectation that they should already
know how to make the right calls.
“But decision-making is a discipline — it is
something you can learn, develop and support
with the right frameworks and tools.”
USE ADAPTIVE THINKING
Accounting professionals often rely on tools,
numbers and data to guide their decisions.
But as Fraillon points out, “people now have
answers at their fingertips on their devices,
which means they often haven’t taken the
time to think deeply”.
“There’s real value in the kind of intuition that
comes from years of working with data,” she says.
“It is that gut feeling when something doesn’t
seem right, even if everything appears fine.”
Alongside intuition, Fraillon emphasises
the importance of adaptive thinking, which
is the ability to approach problems from
multiple perspectives.
For example, when evaluating a new technology,
the technical specs might look perfect on paper,
but she encourages asking “What are the
elements of that technology that may not work
for this organisation based on our culture?”
EMBRACE PERSPECTIVE
Great decision-making starts with listening
to different perspectives. Fraillon says that
it is beneficial to harness others’ wisdom early
to make sure all sides of a decision are explored.
“Having the right people in the room to disagree
means you will not just go to your default,
which could be looking at the upside rather than
the downside.”
THE ART OF MODERN LEADERSHIP intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au 41
