Retained by Choice is a three-month leadership and retention experience built for the people accounting firms most need to keep: experienced Seniors, Managers, Senior Managers, and emerging leaders carrying more responsibility in an environment that keeps asking for more. This is not a one-time burnout workshop. It is a structured development experience designed to change how participants work, lead, and make decisions under pressure. The program begins by helping participants identify the stress, workload, disengagement, and over-functioning patterns that put sustainable performance at risk. From there, participants build practical skills in prioritization, time management, communication, delegation, boundaries, mindset, goal setting, stress management, resilience, and leadership readiness. The experience combines approximately 20 hours of curriculum and tools, including roughly 12.5 CPE-eligible hours depending on delivery format, with worksheets, implementation resources, selected audio content, and live coaching or facilitated implementation. Rather than asking professionals to simply become more resilient inside an unsustainable system, Retained by Choice helps them make better decisions about capacity, ownership, expectations, and how they show up as leaders. For firms, the program supports multiple business priorities at once: developing stronger managers, increasing leadership capacity, reducing burnout risk, improving retention, and helping high performers stay engaged long enough to become the leaders the firm needs next. Participants leave with a practical operating system they can use during busy season, staffing shortages, difficult client situations, periods of rapid growth, and the everyday pressure of professional services.
Course ID: RCLLDR
Retained by Choice: Live Leadership Development & Retention Program
Learning Objectives
- Assess the workload, stress, disengagement, and behavior patterns that are limiting sustainable performance and increasing retention risk.
- Apply practical tools for prioritization, time management, communication, delegation, boundaries, goal setting, and stress management in accounting-specific situations.
- Use and strengthen leadership readiness by shifting from reactive execution, over-functioning, and individual contribution toward more deliberate, higher-value leadership.
- Distinguish and improve confidence and decision-making around workload, client expectations, team responsibilities, and competing priorities.
- Identify and build a personal sustainability plan for busy season, staffing shortages, difficult clients, growth periods, and ongoing career advancement.
- Recall and translate the program into repeatable workplace behaviors that support stronger performance, engagement, and long-term retention.
Major Topics
- Sustainability Audit: stress, workload, disengagement, overload, and capacity
- Burnout prevention and early-warning signals
- Mindset and thought management under pressure
- Goal setting, prioritization, and time management
- Communication, expectation-setting, and difficult conversations
- Delegation and moving from doer to leader
- Healthy boundaries without lowering performance standards
- Perfectionism, people pleasing, procrastination, and Type-A patterns
- Resilience, recovery, and high-demand protocols
- Busy season, staffing shortages, and difficult client scenarios
- Career ownership and leadership readiness
- Live implementation, coaching, accountability, worksheets, and tools
Advanced Preparations
None
Who Should Attend
Experienced Seniors, Managers, Senior Managers, and emerging leaders in accounting firms who are taking on more responsibility, managing teams and clients, and need stronger leadership and workload-management skills without relying on chronic overwork.
Fields of Study
Business Management & OrganizationPrerequisites
None