Many books have been written on leadership and many workshops given for leaders on how to build sales teams and influence positive change in cultures. Some observations:
- Leaders grow people…or not.
- Leaders create positive cultures…or not.
- Leaders often confuse leadership titles with authority and then become managers rather than leaders.
- Authoritarians create a fiefdom with salespeople under their thumbs. They have created a sales engine that is running on heavily-leaded gas with spurts of energy that really doesn’t get anywhere efficiently.
- A positive, energized sales culture is the fuel that keeps the sales engine firing on all pistons and is led by a true leader.
The Leader as a Conductor
Look at it as if you’re conducting an orchestra with many different instruments. Alone, these instruments are, well, alone. Together, they make beautiful music. As a sales “conductor” your role is to harness the diverse talents and instruments of your orchestra so the beautiful sound they make while working together is the sound of success.
True leaders must understand that they are in the business of coalescing human energy. This may sound complicated but simply stated one of the best definitions of leadership, by Light Storm Consulting and Inventure Group, is “the capacity to take people to places where they realize their goals, unfold their talents and achieve things they would not or could not do by themselves.”
Any leader, whether with experience or not, should take this advice: “Make a careful list of all the things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do that to others ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them to others always."
Create a Culture of Positivity
The most successful revenue-generating sales teams have leaders who create cultures defined with words like optimism, hope, positivity, love, authenticity, fun and celebration that resonate in the actions of the leaders and their teams. As Steve Gladis has said, “By setting a hopeful vision for the team, leaders can create a clear, powerful path forward…and a hopeful path is one most likely to be taken and completed.”
Are you a leader or a manager? Is your team a well-oiled machine or is it slogging along on leaded gas? What are the possibilities if you made the decision to change the fuel to Premium Positive?
