Agency Versus Structure in an Accounting Career
One of the most important, and least explicitly discussed, dynamics in an accounting career is the balance between agency and structure. It quietly shapes how we learn, how we grow, how stressed we feel, and ultimately how satisfied we are with our work.
Most professionals feel this tension before they have the language to describe it. They know something feels off. Maybe they feel boxed in. Maybe they feel overwhelmed. Maybe they feel capable of more but unsure how to access it. Often, what they are really grappling with is whether they have too much agency, too little structure, or the wrong balance of the two for where they are in their career.
This balance is not fixed. It changes as you grow, as your responsibilities evolve, and as the environments you work in change. Understanding that dynamic earlier can save years of frustration and help you make more intentional career decisions.
What Do We Mean by Agency and Structure?
When I say agency, I mean the degree to which you can decide what work gets done, how it gets done, and when it gets done. Agency shows up as autonomy, discretion, and influence. It is the ability to shape outcomes rather than simply execute instructions.
Structure is the relative opposite to agnecy. Structure includes defined processes, clear expectations, training programs, review layers, and predictable career paths. Structure answers questions before you have to ask them. It reduces ambiguity and provides guardrails while you build competence.
Neither agency nor structure is inherently good or bad. The value of each depends heavily on timing and experience.
Early in a career, structure is often far more valuable than agency. Agency without experience is usually just guesswork. As experience grows, agency becomes more useful and eventually essential. Problems arise when the balance does not match the professional’s stage or goals.
Why Too Much Agency Too Early Can Be a Problem
There is a common misconception that more freedom is always better. In reality, agency without sufficient experience can slow development or create unnecessary stress.
A first year associate or staff accountant does not benefit much from deciding how audits or close processes should be designed. At that stage, learning how and why established processes work is the job. Structure provides repetition, feedback, and context. It allows newer professionals to build judgment safely.
Giving too much agency too early often leads to suboptimal solutions, inconsistent work quality, and anxiety. The individual may feel responsible for outcomes they do not yet have the tools to control. That is not empowering. It is destabilizing.
Good firms and good managers understand this. They intentionally limit agency early, not to stifle growth, but to accelerate it.
Why Too Little Agency Eventually Becomes Limiting
As professionals grow, the equation changes.
Once you understand the rules, the value shifts toward knowing when and how to bend them. At this stage, too much structure can feel suffocating. You may find yourself solving the same problems repeatedly without being allowed to fix the root cause. You may see better ways to serve clients but lack the authority to implement them.
This is often where high performing seniors and managers begin to feel restless. They are capable of more but still operating inside systems designed for learning rather than leadership.
Without increasing agency, growth beyond the stated role becomes difficult. Career progression slows, not because of a lack of technical skill, but because influence and ownership have not kept pace with capability.
Titles and Agency Go Hand in Hand
One way to understand this dynamic is to look at titles in a traditional corporate or public accounting environment.
An associate has limited agency by design. A senior has more discretion in execution. A manager has agency over planning, delegation, and client communication. A senior manager or director has agency over strategy, resourcing, and service delivery.
This progression is not accidental. Titles largely exist to allocate agency. With each step up, expectations shift from following processes to shaping them.
This also means that people who do not want management roles often do not want the level of agency that comes with them. That is completely valid. More agency also means more responsibility, more ambiguity, and more emotional load. The tradeoff is that opting out of agency often limits certain types of progression, influence, and compensation.
Understanding this tradeoff clearly is far healthier than stumbling into it by accident.
Firm Size and the Shape of Agency
Agency is also shaped by where you work.
Larger firms tend to provide more structure. They have learning and development departments, standardized processes, deep internal networks, and clearly defined career paths. Even at higher levels, much of the system already exists.
Smaller firms often provide less structure and more agency. There may be fewer established processes, fewer layers of review, and fewer people whose job is to design systems for you. In those environments, if you want something to exist, you often have to build it yourself.
In my own career, moving from a larger firm to a much smaller team meant trading structure for agency. I lost formal training programs and a large internal support network. In return, I gained the ability to shape my role, influence how work was done, and create structure where it did not yet exist.
That trade only worked because I had already benefited from years of structure earlier in my career. I could use what I had learned to build systems for others. Agency came with responsibility, and responsibility came with stress. It also came with growth that would not have been possible otherwise.
This is why firm size is not inherently good or bad. It simply determines how much of the structure already exists versus how much you are expected to create.
Finding the Right Balance for You Right Now
The key takeaway is not that you should chase agency as fast as possible. It is that you should be honest about what balance of agency and structure serves you best right now.
There are times in a career where structure and learning matter far more than freedom. There are other times when freedom is essential to avoid stagnation. Most frustration comes from being mismatched, not from being wrong.
A healthy career in accounting or finance often involves moving back and forth along this spectrum as your skills, interests, and life circumstances evolve.
Questions to Ask Yourself
As you think about your current role and your next one, consider the following questions:
How much of my day involves following existing processes versus deciding what the process should be?
When something does not work well, am I expected to fix it or simply work around it?
Do I feel energized or anxious when given open ended responsibility?
How much structure do I rely on to feel confident that I am doing good work?
Am I learning primarily through repetition or through problem solving?
Does my current role prepare me for the level of agency expected at the next title?
If I had more agency tomorrow, would I know what to do with it?
Am I seeking agency because I want growth, or because I am bored with execution?
Would a different firm size change the balance of agency and structure in a way that suits me better?
What kind of stress am I willing to accept in exchange for greater autonomy?
There are no universally correct answers. The goal is awareness.
Careers are rarely linear. The most satisfied professionals I know are not those who chased freedom or structure blindly, but those who learned when to value each and adjusted accordingly.
Understanding where you sit on the agency versus structure spectrum today is one of the most practical steps you can take toward shaping a career that actually fits you.