By Steve Jensen
4 min read
What sets great sales leaders apart from their less effective peers? What habits and personality traits make them different? Exceptional sales leaders share a number of traits that make them great, and each trait can be cultivated to enhance leadership skills and become more effective.
Empathy
Although this trait has taken on new importance in the workplace, it has always been a key differentiator between managers and leaders. To inspire your reps, you need to know what they find inspirational—how they think and feel about their role in the company.
The best approach is to learn about each person individually. What are your reps’ strengths and weaknesses, their needs, and their career aspirations? Sales leaders should know everyone on their team, personally. They should care about the things that their reps believe are most important.
One of the best tools for developing empathy is the weekly one-on-one. It provides the perfect opportunity to discuss the challenges and aspirations of each person on your team.
“At the core, leadership is ultimately about others. It means inspiring them to take actions beyond their capabilities, leading them in a direction that is compelling and inspiring. And empathy is the foundation of those actions.” —Lolly Daskal
Vision
A sales leader must understand the sales team’s mission in the company. They have to be in touch with the potential of the team and be able to tap into it. Sales Leaders are builders. They know how to take ideas and create processes to bring them to fruition.
Great sales leaders know how to share the vision with infectious enthusiasm. They are evangelists, both for their team and for their customers.
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”– Warren Bennis
Passion
What does it mean to have passion? You must be driven to perform and excel. You must enjoy what you do and be an evangelist to your team.
A process without passion is monotonous and unfulfilling. Morale is directly related to the passion you have for your job—it bleeds over into the job satisfaction of your reps. It’s contagious. The key is to share that passion—make it tangible for your reps. When it starts to spread, devote time and energy to nurturing it. Passion isn’t about being a workaholic, it’s about having a love of what you do and the people you do it with.
“Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.” —Robin S. Sharma
Humility
Great sales leaders understand that their job is to serve their reps. Their focus is on providing the tools and environment for their reps’ success, not on personal recognition, compensation, or reward. They are willing and eager to share hard-won knowledge and are happy to help with calls and ride-alongs.
“My research debunks the myth that many people seem to have . . . that you become a leader by fighting your way to the top. Rather, you become a leader by helping others to the top. Helping your employees is as important as, and many times more so than, trying to get the most work out of them.” –William Cohen in The Stuff of Heroes: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership
“The goal of many leaders is to get people to think more highly of the leader. The goal of a great leader is to help people to think more highly of themselves.” -J. Carla Nortcutt
Urgency
Sales leaders know that they are the lifeblood of any organization—the fuel that makes companies go. Without sales, the system fails. Great sales leaders get things done now and are not distracted from their current goals. No matter the task, they are committed to seeing it through on time. They never put things off, and they always favor action over inaction. Expediency rules the day.
Urgency also includes prioritization—knowing what needs to be done first. Which opportunities are “must-win”? Are there opportunities that are larger or time-sensitive? An exceptional leader knows what to work on first and how quickly it must be completed.
“Time is the fire in which we burn.” — Delmore Schwartz
There are, no doubt, many other traits that help define great sales leaders, but these five are shared by most. There are many resources for cultivating these traits—one useful source is the Xvoyant Sales Leader Resource Library. You can also see the books that top sales leaders are reading in the Sales Leadership Podcast Book Library.
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Steve Jensen is VP of Marketing at Xvoyant. Xvoyant coaching technology provides reps and sales leaders with insights to improve performance and engagement through analysis and the one-on-one. Visit Xvoyant at www.xvoyant.com