July 02, 2026

Is Your Boss Really the Problem? | ARC

53 minutes

The hardest workplace lesson isn't spotting a bad manager—it's recognizing when you're standing in your own way.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a candid, unfiltered episode of Accounting ARC, Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, senior product manager at Karbon and co-founder of TB Academy, confront one of the profession’s most relatable—and uncomfortable—topics: bad bosses.

But the conversation goes further than workplace horror stories. Mason and Patrick explore a more nuanced reality: sometimes the boss is the problem—and sometimes it's the employee.

MORE Accounting ARC: Most Accountants Are Missing This AI Shift | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |

“We wanted to talk about this topic because it’s really important to understand when you’re the problem, when your boss is the problem, and what acceptable boundaries are,” Mason says early in the episode.

Unpack real stories about bad bosses, miscommunication, and the career lessons that come with both. This episode challenges how accountants think about leadership, accountability, and growth.

Originally published May 28, 2026.

...more

View all episodes

By CPA Trendlines