You've heard something like this before: "He's not a leader, he's a salesman." Or: "She was trying to motivate me but gave me a sales pitch instead!"
Being a sales person can provide a poor foundation for leadership. Because leading and selling, though they share certain qualities, are different activities. Most people go along in their jobs and careers without thinking through those differences and thus mix up the two in self-defeating ways.
I've seen good sales people fail when moved into leadership positions; and conversely, good leaders fail when they become sales people or use certain sales techniques to lead.
In both cases, they misunderstood the differences or missed them altogether and so couldn't align their words and actions to take advantage of those differences. You can manifestly improve your leadership and sales skills by understanding what such differences are.
Clearly, on the surface, both sales and leadership focus on ways to influence people to take action. Both sales people and leaders must be knowledgeable, skillful, enthusiastic, and convincing.
However, when we drill down into the functions of the relationships involved in selling and leading -- getting customers to purchase products or services as opposed to getting people to achieve organizational results -- the differences emerge.
Here are three defining differences between sales and leadership that can help you both as a sales person and a leader. Note the differences are variations on a single, decisive theme.
(1) Sales people must satisfy customers. Leaders often have to dissatisfy the people. People in most organizations are in thrall to a powerful force, the status quo. The status quo is simply the existing state of an organization. You might ask, "What's wrong with the existing state of an organization?" My response is, "A great deal." In fact, the status quo of any organization is almost always wrong.
The trouble with the status quo isn't that it gets poor results. After all, if you know you're getting poor results, you can do something about it. You can start taking steps to turn them into good results. The trouble with the status quo is that it gets mediocre results but represents them as good results. And poor results are less harmful to an organization than mediocre results misrepresented as good results.
Leadership is not about maintaining the status quo (as management does), it's about transforming the status quo to achieve big increases in results. Such transformation cannot be accomplished unless and until people are infused with a powerful dissatisfaction with the way things are. Sales people want customers to like them; but leaders may have to get some people angry with them and what they are challenging them to do. (If they don't have some of the people angry with them, those leaders might not be challenging all the people enough. Though watch out when you have ALL of the people angry with you.)
(2) Sales people get people to do what they want to do. Leaders aim to get people to do what they may not want to do and be ardently committed to doing it. Having people get out of the status quo to achieve great results means challenging them to be uncomfortable, do things in new ways, learn new skills, and take on perplexing tasks. Good leaders live by the rule that it is better to do the new, right things in the temporarily wrong ways than to do the old wrong things in the right ways.
(3) Sales people must counteract bad feelings on the part of customers. Leaders may have to live with and even accept bad feelings on the part of the people while getting them to move toward their organization's greater goal. When you lead people to go to the metaphorical mountain, for instance, many of them will want to go to the nearby hill or to stay where they are. Standing pat is more comfortable and less risky than going to the mountain. But the organization badly needs them to move to the mountain. That's where leadership comes in. In sales, you hop on people's disapproval right away and try to mitigate or eliminate it. However, in leadership getting people to change from standing pat to being the cause leaders of going-forth can involve having to temporarily put up with their initial misgivings or even their outright defiance. A CEO told me, "The hardest thing I've had to learn as a leader is grace under pressure. How to keep focused on our company's objectives while weathering the criticisms from the inevitable naysayers."
Keep in mind that despite their differences, sales and leadership share useful similarities. Many sales techniques, especially with the art of persuasion, can be effectively used in leadership. Conversely, many leadership methodologies can be used in sales. My article on "Stepping Up Sales Results Using A Leadership Process" shows how. htttp://www.actionleadership.com/articles/0030.html
2006 (c) The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Management And Leadership Differences
As women become more and more prominent within corporations the challenges for female leaders in male-cultured organizations begin to crystallize. The accepted practices of their male counterparts are not always working for women. Women need a new map of how to continue to succeed as a female leader. Executive coaching for women addresses these challenges.
LDI has experience working with women executives and other women in leadership roles. We assist women in navigating the politics and bringing their strengths to the table. At LDI our leadership coaches have over 15 years of experience in executive coaching for women and supporting all levels of leadership for women.
Intelligent, aspiring and hard-working women have come to realize that what they produce, by itself, will not necessarily get them recognized and elevated. Somewhere in their career they begin to realize that to be successful in business a woman needs to develop specific leadership skills for women. That is made even more difficult if she has no female mentors above her to carve the path, or none with any time or ability to teach her. LDI's executive coaching for women helps female leaders develop the capabilities that are essential to women including leading from the front, communicating from a place of certainty,(without becoming overbearing) setting the tone for her organization, communicating her worth in many forums including asking for a promotion when it has been earned, gaining visibility, confidence and accelerating her development.
Leadership for Women:
Essential Female Leadership Traits
Vs. Female Socialization
Tenacity vs. Compliance
Women have been taught to be compliant rather than to persist and persevere for what we believe. Tenacity is essential for women to get comfortable with in order to be seen as credible. This goes hand-in-hand with a wilingness to really compete.
Communicate from a place of certainty about yourself vs. "Don't brag?
Leadership for women feels like foreign ground for some women when they need to highlight their accomplishments. Being willing to report out their accomplishments needs to become as normal as breathing.
Asking vs. Attaining by merit only- Assignments, promotions or salary. ?I shouldn't have to ask. My boss should realize I deserve this.?
Women need to get past the idea that they can earn what they deserve through merit alone. Women need to get comfortable being able to ask for deserved promotions etc. in order to not be regularly overlooked.
Lead vs. Help
Men are very conscious of hierarchy. Women tend to ignore hierarchy and believe that it is unimportant. Men see women's reluctance to grasp for the upper hand as a sign of weakness. We need to understand this as we strive to excel in a hierarchy.
Setting Direction vs. "Be cooperative and build consensus with everyone."
Building consensus with everyone, while great in theory, is not always time effective and looks indecisive from the male viewpoint. When men see a woman gather people together for every decision they conclude that this is a person who cannot make a decision.
Setting Limits vs. "It's not nice to say 'no'. People won't like you."
Often women find themselves having to say ?no? or set limits/boundaries in leadership roles. With all of the socialization around being nice many women find it difficult to keep the best interest of the company at hand and to say no, firmly, when necessary.
Taking Risks vs. "If you're making unpopular decisions or you have unpopular opinions, you'll be unpopular."
Especially in meetings and other large forums, women need to be willing to have their voice and speak out with an unpopular opinion. To be seen as a leader a woman must not be seen as a person who waits for the popular opinion and then agrees.
Dealing with Conflict vs. "Being nice"
Women need to be willing to walk right toward conflict. Period.
Being Direct/Having the Tough Conversations vs. Communicating indirectly so as not to offend anyone.
While women have often been taught well to cloak a difficult message, not clearly stating issues in a tough conversation appears weak and deferential. It also leaves people unclear about what you were needing or requiring.
Leadership for women cannot be discussed without mentioning The Power Dead-Even Rule which is well described in the book, ?In the Company of Women? by Pat Heim and Susan A. Murphy. It is an unspoken rule that women can witness and accidentally participate in, over and over if they are unaware of it. Many women, at heart, don't really relate to hierarchy. They often believe that we are all in this together and all more or less at the same level. This creates particularly difficult dynamics on female teams when an internal woman is elevated. If not handled well, there is often indignation throughout the team, if not out and out rebellion, regarding why she got promoted. In order to successfully promote women it is critical that we understand this dynamic.
Executive coaching for women is a powerful tool in navigating organizational dynamics, and accelerating her won leadership strengths. In LDI's programs we discuss successful strategies in dealing with all issues regarding women and leadership. For more information on leadership coaching for women call 408-725-1083 or email info@contactldi.com, our URL http://www.contactldi.com/.
We believe that developing women is essential to creating great organizations.
Both Brent Filson & Jeff Lugerner are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Brent Filson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Leadership, Difficult people and Leadership. The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 21 years has been. Brent Filson's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.
Jeff Lugerner has sinced written about articles on various topics from Leadership, Management. Jeff Lugerner and Karen Cooley bring a combined 30 years of executive coaching, team development, and business management experience to Leadership Development Institute. Their experience with both high level executives and high-powered teams uniquely posi. Jeff Lugerner's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.
