This book is designed for all leaders. While primarily written with sales leaders in mind, your company’s entire senior leadership team will all benefit from this book to unlock insight into the world of sales leadership, and some of the fundamental principles in building a great results-oriented culture.
For sales leaders in new roles, this book will bring perspective, a view of the whole battlefield, and some assurance in knowing that what you are doing is on the right path. Sales leadership is a mix of art, science, inspiration, and hard, often repetitive work. Most sales leaders however do not train for their roles. They are either promoted from the role of a successful seller, or are thrust into the position through corporate need. It is no wonder therefore that many fail, and in truth, there is very little guidance for sales leaders that is practical and holistic.
How many of us can identify with stories about challenging work environments? In that first sentence, each of us will have imagined a slightly different situation. A tough boss, a culture that does not build trust, a manager who favors his or her own ‘favorite’ employees, or perhaps a senior leader who has no empathy. Any one of these dysfunctions can result in incredible hardship, and here you are, on your own leadership journey, and I ask the simple question – “what culture will you build, and how do you want to be remembered?”
In this book, I lay out the different points of the compass from the science to the art and from the inspiration to the grind of ordering your day-to-day activities into a meaningful outcome. It is my belief that we all enter leadership positions with the intention to do well and to be a positive contributor to our results, our culture, and our environment.
Why is it then that the experiences of our employees differ, and how can we learn to balance our approach? Winning is the obvious objective when setting out on a race, but how we win, and the people we help or hurt along the way, builds legacy upon which we will be remembered, and can determine the extent of our achievement, and the repeatability of the outcome.
There are many facets of sales leadership roles to consider, and this book is broken down into specific segments so that you can choose which parts you believe would benefit you the most. I hold firmly to the belief that management can be learned if you are prepared to invest time and effort, and leadership can be learned if you care deeply for people. Finally, there is a thinking process called “the ladder of inference” *. It is often called the ladder of assumption, and simply put, the lack of all the facts sometimes leads to the wrong conclusions or resultant actions.
If you are currently sitting in judgement of your sales team, or are about to fire someone for not making their number, please take a moment to consider your data and whether there may be other contributing factors. Sales is a system of systems, it is hard, the results are binary, but the inputs are not, and sales leaders need all the help they can get.
By the time you have been through the various sections of this book, you will have a more complete picture of what balanced leadership means, a perspective on the hard work that sales leaders need to do within their cadence, and some inspiration on how you can adjust your own style to take on-board some fresh ideas in in engagement and execution.
* Developed by Chris Argyris in 1970
In this book, I lay out the different points of the compass from the science to the art and from the inspiration to the grind of ordering your day-to-day activities into a meaningful outcome. It is my belief that we all enter leadership positions with the intention to do well and to be a positive contributor to our results, our culture, and our environment.
Why is it then that the experiences of our employees differ, and how can we learn to balance our approach? Winning is the obvious objective when setting out on a race, but how we win, and the people we help or hurt along the way, builds legacy upon which we will be remembered, and can determine the extent of our achievement, and the repeatability of the outcome.
There are many facets of sales leadership roles to consider, and this book is broken down into specific segments so that you can choose which parts you believe would benefit you the most. I hold firmly to the belief that management can be learned if you are prepared to invest time and effort, and leadership can be learned if you care deeply for people. Finally, there is a thinking process called “the ladder of inference” *. It is often called the ladder of assumption, and simply put, the lack of all the facts sometimes leads to the wrong conclusions or resultant actions.
If you are currently sitting in judgement of your sales team, or are about to fire someone for not making their number, please take a moment to consider your data and whether there may be other contributing factors. Sales is a system of systems, it is hard, the results are binary, but the inputs are not, and sales leaders need all the help they can get.
By the time you have been through the various sections of this book, you will have a more complete picture of what balanced leadership means, a perspective on the hard work that sales leaders need to do within their cadence, and some inspiration on how you can adjust your own style to take on-board some fresh ideas in in engagement and execution.
* Developed by Chris Argyris in 1970
