Characteristic #3: Coaching. Coaches monitor and improve performance and, more importantly, they help guide career growth. Many managers consider one of their greatest accomplishments to be the promotion of an employee to another company or department as a result of the manager’s coaching and support for the employee’s career aspirations. Great leaders recognize an important measure of leadership success is the growth of people and the ability to develop talented performers who earn promotions, recognition, and long-term career security.
How to coach: Strive to develop skills in your salespeople that will give them levels of career security far beyond those that they possessed when they began working for you. Worry less about the results and more about the skills that your salespeople need for career growth—and the results will be obtained automatically.
Characteristic #4: Vision. Those who read mainstream works of business and psychology have heard the word “vision” so frequently that it has become cliché. Yet many salespeople are still confused about their purpose simply because the vision of their manager remains unclear. For example, “sell more” is not a powerful vision.
How to create vision: Rather than focus on the specific behaviors you seek in salespeople, define a vision. Then create priorities and boundaries that empower them to perform. For example, I worked with one manager who offered three simple rules for his sales staff in support of his vision. The vision was simple: “We sell only our standard products and services and honor special requests only when is makes profitable sense.” The criteria by which special requests could be honored were 1. Is the product available? 2. Can it be produced and delivered safely? 3. Is it a profitable decision for the long-term health of the company?” For a short period of time, members of his sales staff were in disbelief that they could make decisions without the manager’s pre-approval. Eventually they learned that the vision and the criteria to support that vision were clear. The result was a staff of happier employees that had great confidence in their leader and, most important, created more profits for the bottom line.
If you’re looking for examples of great leadership performance that fit all four of these categories, consider our first president, George Washington. Washington was a man that exemplified all four of these characteristics: 1. During the winter at Valley Forge, the care and uncommon concern he demonstrated for the welfare of his men is legendary. At other times, he granted his men leave so they could balance their military responsibilities with their need to support families at home. 2. He rode into battle with his men, demonstrating his willingness to do the very things he had asked them to do. 3. He ensured that his people had as much training as possible under stressful circumstances. 4. Working with his top advisers, he created a successful strategy, against overwhelming odds, that enabled the United States to achieve victory in the war for independence.
If these leadership performance factors were good enough for George Washington during the trying Revolutionary period of our country, then they must certainly be good enough for us as managers and leaders today. Make your New Year’s Resolution to be a better Performance Leader and everyone in your organization will benefit.
Rick Davis is president of Building Leaders, Inc., a Chicago-based sales training organization. 773.769.4409. E-mail: rickdavis@buildingleaders.com
