Earlier this week, I was sitting in a strategic planning meeting with a client. It’s one of those days where the conversation is simply amazing. Five of us in the room and each one contributing ideas, sharing insights and collectively developing better outcomes.
Reason I’m sharing this with you is I’ve been writing up my notes from the meeting the last couple of hours, and I’m struck by the power of the conversation that took place. Each person in the room was demonstrating sales leadership at a high level, but what made it work is each person lives it, too. I know this from personal knowledge.
You can’t fake leadership. People are too smart and maybe I’ll say jaded from what they see happening in the world around us. Each of the other four people in the room shared insights that conveyed strong beliefs about how they lead others and how they see the business world. Surprising is the amount of push back there was on many of the ideas. Even though each idea shared was done so with confidence and a strong premise, this did not exclude someone else from challenging the idea.
As the day concluded, I realized two major things had occurred. Nobody at any time negatively bashed anyone’s ideas, and there weren’t any demeaning comments made about other people or customers. Don’t go thinking it was all lollipops and daisies. No, there were serious conversations about people’s performance, customer expectations, etc. The comments many times were very blunt, but it was never done in a manner that put a person or company in a negative light.
Getting on the airplane that night, I was reading through my notes and it became clear what I sat through was a meeting with four other sales leaders who approach their leadership roles not as a job but as a lifestyle.
The issues we covered could easily have taken two or three days, but we covered all of them in less than eight hours. I think the only reason we were able to accomplish so much so quickly is the fact each person in the room viewed leadership as a lifestyle.
How do you view leadership? Where in your life do you place it? When we allow leadership and how we act, combined with integrity and trust, to be at the forefront of who we are, I believe amazing things will happen.
Make it your goal to view leadership not as a job, but a lifestyle, regardless of the situation. That’s my goal for myself as well.
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Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results
