Why Accounting Firms Need Clearly Defined Director Roles
When a role isn't clearly defined, the work drifts back to the owner — or it gets done twice by two people who each thought it was theirs. Rachel Dillon, who leads DBA alongside Marcus, describes the old version of DBA plainly: “Marcus was the beginning, the middle, and the end of everything that happened in the business.” That works for a while, but it puts a ceiling on how much the firm can grow and how much the owner can ever step away.
A written role definition fixes that by answering questions like: What is this person responsible for? How will we know they're succeeding? And just as important, what isn't theirs to handle? As Rachel puts it, “If people don't know how they're being measured, they're kind of just throwing darts and hoping one hits in or around the bull's eye.”
The 7-Part Template for Defining a Director Role
1. Primary Focus
Start with a single sentence that captures the point of the role. “If you can't say it in a sentence, then the role isn't clear,” Marcus says. If you find yourself writing a paragraph, the role may be trying to do too many things, or it may be two roles in one.
2. What the Role Owns
Next, list the specific responsibilities the director owns. Ownership here means more than doing a task when it's assigned. Rachel describes it as taking something "from conception, like having the idea, to all of the parts of planning to execution." Keep this list concrete. A director who owns hiring should own the entire process, from the job description to the first week on the job, not just the interviews.
3. How the Role Is Measured
Decide what outcomes will show that the role is working. "If you aren't measuring that person or that role, you have no idea if they're really owning that and successful in it," Marcus says. Think about results rather than activity. For a Director of Operations, that might look like work delivered on time and teams staying within capacity, rather than how many meetings they held.
4. What the Role Is Not Responsible For
Marcus calls this "the most underrated section in the whole document." Spelling out what a director doesn't own prevents overlap, avoids turf battles, and makes it clear where a request should go instead. At DBA, for example, the director who leads sales and marketing isn't responsible for capacity planning, because that belongs to the Director of Operations. Writing that down saves a lot of confusion when a new client is signed and someone has to decide which team takes it.
5. A One-Line Tagline
Give each role a short tagline that captures its spirit, something the whole team can remember and repeat. DBA's taglines make the boundaries between roles easy to see:
- Technology and AI: "They build the machine, they don't run it."
- Operations and people: "They run the machine."
- Sales and marketing: "They bring in the right work, they don't execute it."
When two roles start to overlap, the taglines are often the quickest way to sort out who should take the lead.
6. KPIs
Choose a few numbers that keep the role honest. "We live and die by the numbers," Marcus says. The right KPIs connect directly to what the role owns and how it's measured, so a director can look at them each month and know whether they're on track. Keep the list short enough that each number gets real attention.
7. A Weekly Question
Finally, give each director one question to answer every week. A good weekly question points the director toward the risks and opportunities that matter most. DBA uses questions like these:
- Operations: "Where are we overloaded or at risk of missing a deadline?"
- Technology: "What are we still doing manual that we could do in other ways?"
- Sales: "Do we have enough right fit opportunities coming in?"
An Example Director Role Definition
To show how the pieces fit together, here's a version of a Director of Operations role, built from the template.
- Primary focus: Keep client work moving on time and within each team's capacity.
- Owns: Workflow, deadlines, capacity planning, and the systems the team uses to track work.
- Measured by: On-time delivery, teams working within capacity, and few missed deadlines.
- Not responsible for: Technical tax decisions or bringing in new clients.
- Tagline: Runs the machine.
- KPIs: On-time delivery rate and team capacity used each month.
- Weekly question: Where are we overloaded or at risk of missing a deadline?
How to Roll Out New Director Roles
Defining a role on paper is the first step, and introducing it well matters just as much. Try to make structural changes during a slower stretch of the year. DBA uses what it calls Improvement Season, from mid-April to mid-August, so new roles have time to settle in before the busiest deadlines return.
From there, connect each role to a monthly scorecard so directors can see how they're tracking and flag problems early. DBA reviews its directors' metrics every month, and when something is off track, the conversation starts with "what do you need?" rather than "what went wrong?" That approach keeps directors focused on solving problems together instead of defending their numbers. Expect roles to change over time, too. As a firm grows, one director may be covering two areas that eventually become two separate roles, and the template makes that split much easier to plan.
Next Steps: Define Your First Director Role
You don't have to restructure your whole firm at once to get value from this template. Start with the role that would take the most off the owner's plate, write it out using the seven parts, and share the draft with the person who will hold it. Their questions will show you where the definition still needs work.
- Pick one role to define first. Choose the area where decisions most often wait on the owner.
- Write the primary focus in one sentence. If it won't fit, the role may need to be narrowed or split.
- Spend extra time on "not responsible for." Clear boundaries prevent overlap with other roles.
- Choose a few KPIs and one weekly question. Keep both short enough to review every week and month.
- Review the role together after a few months. Adjust the definition as you learn what works.
Get Help Building Your Firm's Leadership Structure
If you're ready to move beyond an owner-led firm but aren't sure which roles to create first or how to define them, Collective by DBA is here to help. Our advisors work one-on-one with firm owners to design leadership roles that fit their size, team, and goals. And our community is full of your peers who’ve gone through this before.
Schedule a call with Collective by DBA to talk through your plans or explore Collective by DBA membership. Members get access to a community of accounting firm leaders working through the same questions, plus templates, CPE-eligible webinars, and Streamlined OS to help them decide what to focus on first.
