Meihaus: The Courage to Say "Enough" at the Top | Gear Up For Growth

Partners who cap their own comp can solve staffing, retention, and motivation in one bold move.Gear Up for GrowthWith Jean CaragherFor CPA TrendlinesWhen public accounting firms talk about “leadership challenges,” the conversation often turns into a soft focus on communication styles or vague culture issues.Michael Meihaus goes straight for the hard truths.On Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Capstone Marketing president Jean Caragher, Meihaus—owner of Meihaus CPA in Escondido, California—lays out the structural leadership failings he sees across the profession: outdated ownership models, harmful work expectations, broken incentives, and leaders who resist change because the current system works for them, even as it burns everyone else out. More Gear Up for Growth here. | More Jean Caragher here |  Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here |  More CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here “It’s simply that we don’t change unless we have to,” he tells Caragher. In a profession that’s been “stable, profitable, successful” for decades, too many people at the top have little incentive to transform how firms actually operate.  One of Meihaus’s most provocative arguments is that many “partners” aren’t really owners in any meaningful sense.