Customer Reviews

Auditing Leadership: The Professional and Leadership Skills You Need

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Auditing Leadership by Brian Kush is an empowering book from beginning to end. The title is almost a misnomer as the valuable information in the book transcends the auditing field and can be applied to other service oriented and business professions. When reading this book, I felt empowered to implement the skills and tactics embedded in the chapters. In particular, the chapters pertaining to `interruptions from co-workers' and `soliciting feedback' are topics that have a huge impact in the any profession, but are often given little significance or thought.

Furthermore, reading each chapter allows you to analyze the various roles you possess and provides insightful ways to become an effective leader in all aspects of your life through networking, time management, communication, feedback, and managing clients. More importantly, the book is extremely easy to read and the information is relatively concise and straightforward. The book reads as if the author is actually having a dialogue with the reader in an actual coaching session.

The book also has thought-provoking quotes from Mohandas Ghandi, Ben Franklin, and others, and contains funny anecdotes in the section "You know you're an auditor when..." For those new to the accounting field, I highly recommend reading this book as it offers a fresh perspective on improving and developing leadership skills and practices which will help you to achieve your personal and professional goals.

The book is very well written and very easy to read. I like how it's broken up in to small chapters (bite size) and as a reader I can go directly to the topic that interests me the most. For any person fresh out of school or really early in their career this book will be very helpful in many aspects of work life no matter what profession they are in. As an experienced auditor and a person who has read quite a few business books, I did not find many new ideas. However, it still served as a good refresher of things I should be doing or ways of handling different situations. The author of this book would make a fantastic mentor.

I enjoyed the Auditing Leadership book. It is well organized and is a fast read. The book gives constructive practical examples of things to do and to say to become a leader.

For example, there is a whole chapter dedicated to the "Most Important Question an Auditor Should Ask". I now use this question all of the time.

There is another chapter that discusses how to most effectively use your time. A precious resource many auditors have little of.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is beginning a career in auditing or as a refresher to those who have been auditing for awhile. This book is also an excellent "coaching" tool.

I was a bit skeptical before reading Auditing Leardership that it would be the same old soft skills repackaged in auditor language. The book is a pleasant suprise and was an eye opener to remind us of all the things we should be habitually doing. Frankly, this book could apply to almost anyone in a professional environment and not just auditors. Some of the takeaways for me:

- Where are you going? The book starts with helping you define your roles and where you are headed. Makes you ask yourself what direction is your internal compass pointing or are we drifting along aimlessly without a sense of direction.

- Asking the question "Why"? The book reminds you that its OK for someone to ask why. When delegating tasks we should make sure that the person understands why they are doing something to do the task more effectively. The book quotes Ben Franklin, "The person that knows HOW will always have a job but the person that knows WHY will always be the boss."

- To Do Lists. The author helped me understand why many to do lists fail because we are never specific enough about what all is involved with a particular to do item. The reconciliation of to do lists with goals is something that many of us lose sight of.

- Eat Your Frog First Thing In The Morning. This phrase borrowed from best selling author Brian Tracy emphasizes us to do the most difficult task first thing in the morning and you can ride that wave of momentum the rest of your day.

- The Power of Routines. There seems to be a negative connotation associated with routines like we are in the commercial where the guy makes the donuts every morning. The book shows us how we can make our routines work for us and give us a sense of fulfillment.

- How do we reeingeneer our e-mail practices? The author has some great tips on becoming more effective with e-mail. The book challenges us to look in the mirror and ask how are we currently using e-mail? Or better yet, how is e-mail using us! The book gives suggestions on how to craft e-mails, what to say in an e-mail, calls to action, how to process and when to check e-mails. I believe I can save 10 hours per week by following the guidelines of the book.

- Uhm...Like...You Know... Do you ever realize how much you use these different fillers in a conversation? The book examines how we are using these word fillers and what it says about the person using these words. It made me open my eyes and ears to how I communicate with others.

- Power Point Presentations. Ever go to a presentation and watch the speaker read off of each slide? Assuming all of us can read, is there any need for the speaker? Couldn't the person just hand out the power point presentation and tell everyone to read it to get the same effect? The book gives some common pitfalls of power point presentations and what are some of the common attributes of successfule presentations.

- Generational differences. Throughout the book the author gives insight into situations where there are generational differences between younger staff and the older partners. Many young staff people grew up in an electronic world of IMs and texting and are more comfortable with mulit-tasking. Their communication skills can be lacking due to less face time with people. The book gives suggestions on how to understand such differences and methods of dealing with them.

Overall I was very impressed with this book. It has short chapters and filled with inspirational quotations that fit in well with the subject matter. I would recommend this book for anyone looking to improve their productity at work or some of us that know many of these things but need to be reminded from time to time.

Auditing Leadership is an interesting management book. But it has little to do with leadership and the connection to auditing is in the examples used to clarify the concepts. The chapters are well-organized and the text is well-written. Newcomers to the field of management will find the guidance useful and those who have been in management for a long time will be able to relate to the issues raised in the text and possibly glean a new approach to solving those issues. I was expecting a book written for Audit Committee members, Chief Audit Executives and senior audit management, discussing leadership in an audit organization. I was disappointed to find the book did not cover these areas but once I got over the initial surprise, found the book to be an interesting and informative read.