Through the passage of a five-year accidental journey (isn’t most of life like this?) I sped from unemployed, to ‘business development’, to de-facto customer relations guy, to marketing manager, to business line leader/manager, to being appointed ‘business line executioner’, to unemployed, and back again to business development. My very own circle of life. During this process, I learned a great number of things about life, leadership, corporate politics, and about the human side of business (I never was a numbers guy). Where it gets interesting is where my polarity toward the teachings of the great philosophers, academics, and practitioners of modern leadership and management have intersected my current role in the development of new business for my company. I hope to share these experiences in a useful way in this forum.

My Topical Responses:

1. I wholeheartedly agree that Leadership = Sales.
2. I also wholeheartedly agree with the opinions of many of those responding to this string that being great at sales does not necessarily mean that you have even a remote chance of concurrently being a great leader. As I mentioned to Ron in an off-line discussion, there are certainly exceptions, but the hard drive toward the bottom line, and the typical ‘self-oriented’ nature of the high-level, high-producing sales person does not lend itself to being the kind of leader that I would want to follow.

HOLD THE FLAMES! One of the greatest things about getting educated about leadership is learning that you can get educated about leadership… let us take an intermission to cool those flames and let me go over how I perceive that Leadership = Sales…

So, why does Leadership = Sales? Because life is a sale, and a good leader has convinced you to buy. Does it sound cliché? Yeah, but this one is the real deal.

What is a sale? I am talking about a real sale, not the grocery store. The sale that I am talking about is the sale where you take the time to build a relationship with the prospective buyer, come to an agreement, and be it written or verbal, you close the deal.
You Close The Deal.

Have you ever worked for someone who closed the deal with you? Someone who you considered a leader that you respected, trusted, and could count on? Someone whose stories you still tell to this day in respectful emulation of greatness? I hope you have, because everyone should have the privilege of following a great leader. Can you honestly say that you were not “Closed” by them? Did they build that relationship with you? Did you buy in? Were you sold, or did they convince you to buy? Real salespeople do not have to ‘sell you’ — you want to buy.

Sales

• Build the relationship
• Communicate the value proposition
• Generate a buying attitude
• Close the deal
• Repeat

Leadership

• Build the relationship
• Communicate the value proposition
• Generate a buying attitude
• Close the deal
• Repeat

Ok, let’s fan those FLAMES!

Please note: some of these sales types can get ambitious about more than the next fat commission check!

Learning to lead is about wanting to learn how to lead. Not all of us are natural leaders, in fact, those who we consider ‘natural leaders’ likely are the ones sitting in a dark house under a small reading light at 4am, listening to the coffee perk, while staring at a book about leadership, wondering if they too can learn to be a great leader.

Being a leader is a lifelong journey that begins with fertile soil within the mind of the pilgrim. The process is continuous, a Mobius strip, no beginning, no end.

Here are my tips for a high-producer who is stepping out of a direct sales role, and into a Leadership role:

• Stick a pin in that big ego balloon!
  • It served you well, but it is no longer about you! It is about your people! Learn to take pride in their success and your role in helping them to achieve their goals. If you cannot find pleasure or pride in doing this, you will find no pleasure in your new role.
• Listen to the way you speak about YOU, and do less of it. Work hard to keep conversations about we, our, the team, etc. See first bullet for additional guidance.
• Get a copy of The Courageous Follower by Ira Chaleff. Read it, and do not forget its message when one of your followers calls you out on something. Remember, without followers, there are no leaders and you can only follow yourself around for so long.

I would like to close this with a call to others to add to this incomplete list of tips for the newly hatched leader coming out of a sales role. What is the next step? To pass this information along to those who might benefit from it. Put theory to practice and see what you can grow.

Over the next few weeks I will share some of the responses I received and my thoughts on the comments and advice. I have to say I do not agree with everything shared. I do believe in seeking common ground so rather than rail on those whose opinions differ I will share where we agree. This first post is no exception. The writer Suresh Srinivasan an Information security consultant form India believes that leaders are made not born. Hmm didn’t I write about this a while ago…
The implication of the made side of the leadership argument is that the person has natural abilities that help them to be a leader. The need to develop per se is not that great, they already have it. They can hone their craft but learn it from first principles, no.
Here is what Suresh shared were the traits of great leaders. For the record he is right, these attributes can be found in most effective leaders no argument on this point.

1. Learn Decision-Making Skills. Great leaders have the ability and courage to make decisions… Rather than dwell on a wrong choice, they learn from their mistakes and move forward.

2. Motivate. Persons who lead a team or organization can usually motivate or upbuild others. In order to inspire someone else, leaders recognize the main objective or common goal, and wholeheartedly believe in a vision.

3. Learn to Listen. A good leader will come up with useful ideas. However, a great leader will also listen to his or her team and take their ideas and thoughts into consideration.

Man is he right here! Listening is absolutely critical to leadership success. I think this is one of the seven key tips I shared!
4. Recognize personal shortcomings. Great leaders make mistakes. Rather than feel that their feelings and opinions are always right, they take a candid look at their behavior and traits.

5. Improve oral communication skills. Effective leaders can express their thoughts and visions in a clear and understandable manner.

6. Be a risk taker. There are risks associated with every decision… However, a great leader knows that certain risks are worth taking

7. Be trustworthy. People want leaders who are honorable, dependable and responsible.

A great list indeed! Communicate, be trustworthy listen, take risks, know your shortcomings decide and motivate others. A great list, thank you Suresh.
I believe that leaders are born and made and that great leaders never stop learning how to be better. So maybe leaders are born as Suresh says but certainly in every person their resides the inner potential of leadership they just may never discover it for a myriad of reasons.

The role of leadership development is to help those that have not found it to do so and those that have to be even more of the leader they already are.

Lead well
Ron

Last week I traveled to

During his presentation Jim waged in on the age old leadership development debate of born versus made. Clearly this was a home town audience; a crowd full of leadership development zealots. I have never heard it put as well as he did this afternoon. His arguement made me chuckle at the thought of updating the argument on this topic on this blog.

Leadership development is hard work. It demands sacrifice. It demands that the leader have the best interests of the institution as their priority rather than their own. However, when someone claims that leadership is a born condition or genetic endowment, this implies that working at it is relatively pointless since you either have it or you don’t. By extension those who believe that leadership is solely a born condition must be inherently lazy. After all there is no value in developing it so why bother…

So is leadership made or are you Lazy!?

What a deliciously provocative question!

Lead well

Ron

Even the theorists cannot agree. Some say it can be taught and judging by the  1.8 MILLION hits leadership development gets on Google, many would agree.

My take may appear to be a cop out, you see I believe that leaders are born…and made.

In fact I will go a bit further. I believe almost anyone could be a leader if they chose to and would pay the price of admission.

So what do you think? Born… Made… or both