As a leader it is your responsibility to manage your people in such a way that you get the most out of them. To do this, you need to understand what people really want, and what they don’t want.

No one wants to be micro-managed. No one wants someone to hover over their shoulder directing their work. Nor do they want their manager nagging them about what they’re doing. Most leaders don’t want to micro-manage their people. Many worry so much about micro-management that they create a culture that lacks accountability.

Most of the time, what one person perceives as micro management is actually macro-management.

Macro Activity and Macro Outcomes

The most important outcomes you need as a leader are macro. They’re high value, strategic outcomes that lead to objectives being met. The failure to achieve these outcomes creates problems for the company, for divisions or departments, and for teams. These outcomes should command people’s time and attention because the effort of the organization must be aligned with the outcomes.

If what you are doing isn’t producing the necessary outcomes, then your leader is going
to ask you to focus your efforts on the activity. If the activity isn’t aligned to big outcomes, a conversation is necessary.

Accountability Counts

Yes, I touched on this topic in Part 2, primarily around leaders holding themselves
accountable. I’m returning to it again because it’s supremely important that leaders hold themselves and their teams accountable. If an outcome isn’t being achieved, something isn’t right. It could be that someone isn’t doing what they need to do. It could also be that they aren’t effective at the actions they need to take. But as a leader, accountability starts and ends with you. That means you have to start by making sure your team knows what is expected of them, understands what needs to be done and why, and has the resources to achieve their goal.

As a leader, you are responsible for the outcomes being achieved, and that means
you are going to need to inspect the results, ask questions, understand challenges, and
remove constraints. Asking questions is not micro-management; it’s macro-management.
Requiring more—or different—activities be taken in the pursuit of your goals isn’t micromanagement either, especially if not enough action is being taken. Much of the time those who complain about being micro-managed aren’t putting forth the effort to produce results, or they’re doing something they prefer doing instead of what they need to do. Correcting this is macro-management.

Great Leaders are Compassionate

I know a great leader who had an employee in trouble. It was rather serious financial trouble, and it jeopardized her family. She wasn’t a top performer. She wasn’t anyone’s favourite. But she was one of his people, and he did what was necessary to help her out of her financial jam.

I know another great leader who helps people who don’t perform well into other roles.
Sometimes those roles are within his company. Other times, he helps them find their way into new companies where they can be successful. He doesn’t throw people out onto the street. He cares about people. You’ve no doubt heard stories like these–or you have made similar decisions yourself. Maybe you’ve done what you believed to be right, even when it wasn’t popular, and even when you have stood alone.

Compassion isn’t walking a mile in someone’s shoes. Compassion isn’t the mental process of understanding intellectually what another person is going through. Compassion is feeling in your heart what the other person feels in their heart.

Think compassion is weakness? Think compassion means that you don’t have to make
the hard decisions? Compassion is an indication of your strength. It’s an indication that you are strong enough to do something to help.

Being compassionate doesn’t mean that you aren’t tough as nails when it comes to protecting your culture. It doesn’t mean that you don’t expect your people to perform. And it doesn’t mean that you ever allow anyone to walk all over you, abuse your generosity, or take advantage of you.

Compassion means you are a living example of what it means to lead, what it means to care, and what it means to serve. Your people won’t do what you say, but they will be who you are. If you lack compassion when it comes to the human things, so will the people you have the honour to lead. People are going to remember what
you do to help others. Are you strong enough to be compassionate?

Compassion Does Not Mean Being Too Empathetic

Some leaders believe that they always need to be patient and empathetic. There is no doubt that as a default approach, this is a pretty good choice. But it isn’t always the right approach. Sometimes, to make your point felt, you need to be impatient and demanding. Serious issues may need a serious, unrelenting response.

Empathy and patience can sometimes be the wrong response. Being empathetic at the wrong time can cause people to believe that a serious issue isn’t a big deal. It can
lead people to believe that they aren’t really accountable for change when they have a serious behavioural issue or when they aren’t producing results. But worst of all, when it is your only approach, you are a pushover, and you can just as easily lose your moral authority.

Some people and some situations call for patience and empathy. Some call for coaching
and an approach that fosters learning. Sometimes you need to explain yourself
carefully. But other people and situations call for a more self-directed approach.

You Can Also Be Too Self-directed

Some leaders believe that they need to be very self-directed to be effective. Self-directed can come across as self-oriented, selfish, and oblivious to what the other person needs or
the constraints with which they are struggling. I’ve met some leaders who pride themselves on their self-directed approach. And sometimes it is exactly the right approach. This is especially true when the leader is protecting the culture
they’ve built, or when they are dealing with a legal or moral issue. There are some issues that are non-negotiable.

But unless you have the relationship that allows for self-directed communication, every time you are self-directed when it is unnecessary takes a little something out of your moral leadership. When you are unnecessarily direct and short with people–even if it’s because you are short on time and under pressure–you are making a withdrawal from your relationship.

If you’ve ever seen a coach on the sideline during a game, you’ve no doubt seen them grab a player and light them up when they are trying to make a point, rev them up, or change their state. If your approach is always high negative energy, then when you really need to call on that approach, it won’t mean anything. You will have worn out the approach.

When Problems Arise. And there will be problems.

Invariably, in business, things go wrong. People make mistakes. Sometimes they make mistakes even when they have the best of intentions. Other times, they are simply negligent. People also fail to follow directions, sometimes because they misunderstand what was necessary, and sometimes because, mistakenly, they think they know better.

Focusing on People Is the Problem

It’s easy for a leader to focus their attention on the person who made the mistake, failed, lost the client, or generally botched things up. That leader can blame the person for what went wrong by yelling at them, by embarrassing them, by threatening them, or by somehow penalising the individual. This choice is often made by a leader who believes that people are the problem. The leaders of this variety are eternally plagued with people problems.

When people don’t feel a sense of psychological safety, they don’t do their best work. They also don’t stay long.

Focus on the Problem, Improve People

Another leader, a more enlightened leader perhaps, would focus on the problem instead of the person. Instead of focusing on trying to discover “what’s wrong” with the person, they focus on the mistake, using it as an opportunity to teach the person how they made the mistake, why it is important, and how to do something different when faced with the same scenario in the future.

Instead of focusing on the failure, the enlightened leader works on recovering from
the failure. They allow the person to help with the recovery, teaching them how to do better in the future, and how to recover the next time they fail, something that is almost a certainty.

Instead of threatening, embarrassing, or punishing the person who botched things up,
they help them un-botch things. By working with people to solve problems, the enlightened leader solves the problem and builds their people at the same time. They get problems solved, and they get better people. They also create a culture of psychological safety.

If you believe that people are your problem, that belief is your problem.

Coming soon:

Part 4 – Protecting Culture & Legacy

Did you miss?

Part 1 – The Do’s & Dont’s?

Part 2 – The Non-negotiables and Accountability

The post An Expert Guide To Sales Leadership (Part 3) – Managing People appeared first on Head Of Sales.

A leader needs a list of non-negotiables that cannot be allowed to change because someone doesn’t like the culture, the values, the business model, or doesn’t want to treat other people well.

The Non-negotiables:

Culture:

A leader must create and sustain a positive, empowering culture. Culture is non-negotiable. If someone or something threatens culture, the leader is obligated to take action. Allowing a positive empowering culture to be destroyed is to allow the organization to be radically changed for the worse.

How people are treated:

People who are treated well perform better than people who are treated poorly. People who are trusted are more trustworthy, and people who are expected to take initiative and be resourceful try to do those things. When people are treated like their workplace is something between a prison and daycare, you lose great people. Leaders set the tone and ensure people are treated right. You can’t attract and build new leaders otherwise.

Values:

Values are what sustain an organisation, especially through times of great change. Values are what persist, what provide a foundation. If one of the values is integrity, then allowing people to colour outside the lines is a non-starter. The leader not only has to embody the values, she has to enforce them.

Business models:

This isn’t to say that business models can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t change. They can, will, and should over time. But only at the right time and for the right reasons. Allowing price reductions that inhibit your ability to produce results breaks the model. Selling products and services that don’t create the value your clients want, need, and expect from you
changes the model, too. A leader cannot allow the model to be negotiated.

You Can’t Need to Be Liked.

You will find that this is a short chapter, but because it is one of the greatest challenges leaders face, it needs to stand alone so that you don’t overlook or set aside its importance. If you are to lead, you are to be unpopular and disliked at times. One cannot exist without the other.

Leadership is a tricky subject. There are so many attributes, beliefs, and behaviours that make up a good leader that it’s impossible to come up with a single defining characteristic. And the same could be said for mistakes that would-be leaders make. One of the most common, and most damaging mistakes leaders make is the need to be liked.

One thing that leadership is not is a popularity contest. A leader can’t have an overwhelming need to be liked. This isn’t because leadership requires a hardness or uncaring persona; it is for very real, very fundamental reasons.

• The need to be liked can prevent a leader from having the tough conversations that
are necessary to good leadership.
• The need to be liked can cause some leaders to avoid taking action because they are
afraid that someone will think less of them for making a decision—even when it is the
right decision.
• In the worst of all cases, a leader with a strong need to be liked will refuse to hold
people accountable for fear of that person not liking them.

You Do Not Need to Be Feared, But You Must Be Respected.

None of this means that a leader should want to be disliked. How you achieve outcomes as a leader is every bit as important as the outcomes themselves. The idea that it is better for a leader to be feared than loved if she “can’t be both,” is 500 years old. Much about leadership has changed.

• The best leader you had cared enough about you to have the tough conversations
necessary to help you see your blind spots. They weren’t mean-spirited in their
criticism. They just saw something more in you than you could see at the time.
• The best leader you will ever have will make the decision to do what is right even when
it is the unpopular decision. That leader will weigh their decisions carefully and do what
is best for the people that they lead.
• A great leader will hold you accountable for producing results, even when those results
are difficult to achieve.

The leader that you love won’t be one that you fear. It will be the one that you respect and who care about you and the people they led. By not needing to be liked, the leader earns the love and respect of the people they have the privilege to lead.

The Absolute Necessity of Accountability

Next to shedding yourself of the need to be liked, the need to hold yourself and your team accountable is critical. The lack of accountability is why sales funnels are full of false opportunities, why cultures become stagnant, and why companies fail.

In order to hold people accountable, they must see you hold yourself accountable. You must prove that you have the will to accomplish your stated goals, and the ability to hold yourself, and your team, accountable.

Be the Leader Your Team Needs

Managerial will is the leadership to tell your people that you are going to take the hill, and then driving the action to actually take the hill. Regardless of compensation. Regardless of plans and metrics. You achieve the goal through your personal leadership.

You establish the goal, and you employ all your resources, including time, energy, money,
and people in achieving that goal. Come hell or high water.

Inspect and Adjust

The second part of managerial will is holding people accountable for their role in achieving the goal. You ask them about their progress. And then you ask them again. When they’re struggling, you help remove the obstacles to their performance. You coach them. You help them with whatever will enable them to do their part in producing the results you need them to produce as part of the larger goal.

Without the leadership component to managerial will, compensation and other levers rarely produce the results desired. If you had to choose between the two, managerial
will is the safer bet—especially with a great actualised leader. Without the accountability component, you will achieve results that are far less than what you are capable of producing.

This resistance to managerial will comes from the great—and real— fear that people will be hurt when managerial will is exercised by an unenlightened dominator who makes poor leadership choices. But this too stems from a lack of managerial will, namely that of the manager’s leader in allowing bad behaviour.

Managerial will, when exercised by a thoughtful, enlightened, caring leader is a force multiplier that allows their team to outproduce larger, better resourced competitors who lack this discipline.

Everything Is Your Fault

Being accountable to yourself means having the belief that you control your own destiny.
You cannot hold anyone else accountable if you believe your success is dependent upon, or due to, anyone else. In order to be accountable to yourself, you must believe that everything is your fault.

Your team didn’t deliver the numbers you needed. It is time to assess what went wrong
and how to fix it. Here’s where you start: Don’t be unhappy that your team didn’t deliver
the numbers you needed them to deliver. Be unhappy that you didn’t lead them well enough to produce those results. As the leader, you were responsible for holding them accountable and making whatever changes were necessary to reach your goals.

Don’t be miffed that your team didn’t perform up to their abilities. Be annoyed with yourself for not developing and coaching them to deliver that performance. Once you hire someone, you are responsible for giving them everything they need to succeed. That means the mindset, skill sets, and tool kits. It also means the training, development, and coaching.

You shouldn’t be angry with people who are disengaged and who don’t buy into your vision. Be upset with yourself for not transferring your emotion to them strongly enough to engage them. People want to be inspired. They want to dream bigger. They want to make a contribution to a cause greater than themselves. You can give them that.

There are people who bother you because they destroy the culture you are creating with their negativity, dragging many good people down with them. Be bothered by the fact that you didn’t act soon enough to prevent them from doing so. One of your primary roles as a leader is to protect the culture you create from anything or anyone who would harm it.

The most successful people in life believe that they are responsible for the results they produce. People that struggle to find the success they are capable of look to externalities to explain away their lack of success.

If you are responsible for the outcomes you don’t like, you are also empowered to change them. Everything is your fault.

Tough Decisions and Harsh Realities

Leaders make tough decisions. It means you deal with complicated client issues, doing what is right, even if it is unpopular, and even if it isn’t easy. You deal with problem employees based on your values, even if it costs you an A-Player. You make decisions based on non-negotiables by making them known, and by holding people accountable. You make decisions, knowing that you have incomplete information, and knowing
that you cannot always be 100% certain that you are making the right decision at the right time.

Right or wrong, you must decide. This is what leaders do

In addition to making tough decisions, a leader must face harsh realities. This is as true
for one who would lead themselves as it is for one who leads an organization. The only thing that happens when you avoid harsh realities is that you suffer the harsh consequences you wish to avoid.

If you don’t have enough opportunities to be able to reach your goals, avoiding that reality will do nothing to improve it. By shining a light on the fact that you don’t have the potential deals you need, you can create a burning platform, determine a new course, and take massive action. By facing the harsh reality of too few opportunities, you can take steps to avoid the negative consequences.

“But wait,” you say. “That will take too much time.” The time will pass whether you take
action or not. By acting, you may be able to mitigate the harsh consequences.

You may not relish the idea of letting go an employee who is a top performer with massive character flaws, and who is so negative that they are destroying your culture. The harsh reality is that they are disruptive and damaging your workforce. The consequences are a culture unlike the positive culture of high performance
you have built. Facing the fact that you’ve allowed this employee to run roughshod for
too long and removing them prevents you from paying a higher price than you are paying now.

“But what about the revenue they bring?” you ask. You can replace their revenue, and
you can replace it by hiring someone who can perform at that level without the character
flaws and baggage.

The harshest reality that a leader has to face is that they are ultimately responsible for what happens on their watch. The harsh reality is that the leader has to make hard calls, calls where the cost of making the decision is high and the cost of not making it is even higher. A leader is charged with making decisions that move the people they lead forward, even when they are unpleasant.

There are harsh consequences for not facing harsh realities. It is a mistake to think that
avoiding the decisions you need to make doesn’t come with a stiff penalty. Over time, you pay a higher price.

Coming soon:

Part 3 – Managing People

Part 4 – Protecting Culture & Legacy

Did you miss?

Part 1- The Do’s & Dont’s?

The post An Expert Guide To Sales Leadership (Part 2) – Non-negotiables & Accountability appeared first on Head Of Sales.