If you haven’t read CSO Insights Sales Management Optimization 2013 Key Trends Analysis, you should. As always, it’s a fascinating read. The report begins with a quote shared at a CSO Summit by Jay Vanderbree, Senior Vice President, Home Entertainment Sales and Marketing at LG Electronics. He stated, “The goal of sales leaders is to create more leaders, not followers.” Jay further qualified this statement by saying this was regardless of “role or rank” in the sales leadership hierarchy.
If nothing else, this quote should cause us all to stop and think.
Leader or Manager
For me, the challenge begins with the definitions of the words ‘leader’ and ‘manager’. The dictionary tells us a leader is “a person who has commanding authority or influence,” and a manager is “a person who has control or direction of…a business, etc., or of a part, division, or phase of it.” That means the moment someone is given the title of sales manager, by definition (authority being control, influence being direction) they become a leader.
In my humble opinion, a manager is a leader by definition only.
Since we’re celebrating Father’s Day, I can get away with this. I hope. It’s been said that ANYONE can be a father. It takes something more to be a Dad. Whether it is from their own father’s good or bad examples, from observing other dads, or reading or trial and error, fathers learn to be good dads.
I believe the same thing applies to a sales organization. ANYONE can be a manager. It takes something more to be a leader.
The problem is many think leadership is an innate skill; that there is such a thing as a ‘born leader.’ That creates a significant challenge for most sales organizations. As you have probably noticed, these born leaders are in short supply. Because their skills are considered innate, even when they are found they are not replicable.
It’s a Process Problem
The truth of the matter is these ‘born leaders’ learned to lead. Leading, just like any other business function, is a logical, repeatable process. And that’s where I believe most organizations fail to create leaders. They think it’s a ‘people’ problem. It’s not. It’s a process problem. The ‘born leaders’ in their organizations are the ones who’ve figured out a process of their own. That’s why they are typically coveted, well paid, and in short supply.
So if your organization wants to create leaders, you first have to define the process and structure by which you want people in your sales hierarchy lead. Then it becomes part of your training curriculum and eventually part of your company culture. If you can’t or won’t do that, I promise you’re destined to be a business filled with a bunch of followers.
Good leaders are made, not born.
