Picture this: a stellar sales performer gets the opportunity to step up into a leadership role. What sets them apart? Well, they've consistently delivered stellar quarterly sales numbers, fostered incredible customer relationships, and displayed an unwavering determination to excel. While these traits are invaluable for individual success, do they guarantee a seamless transition into a leadership position? Can these skills be molded into a form that guides and inspires a team rather than just reaping personal rewards?
The truth is what led to their past success doesn't guarantee future triumphs. Succeeding in a leadership role necessitates a shift in focus. The new leader must adapt their skills to mentor and motivate their team.
Some of these rising leaders are achieving success, but the real question is: how are they doing it? Are they enabling their team to excel by enhancing their skills, or are they dominating the sales process, taking over meetings, delivering pitches, and closing deals themselves? Is their involvement driving better performance among team members, or is it fostering dependency and stifling individual growth?
Dr. Murray Bowen, the original family systems theorist, observed family dynamics as an emotional unit, labeling the intricate interactions as "Systems Thinking." Interestingly, business relationships, particularly among colleagues and team members, mirror this family unit concept. Under stress, relationships can exhibit over and underfunctioning behaviors. In a high-pressure sales situation, a new salesperson may feel overwhelmed and incapable, leading to anxiety and paralysis. The leader, observing this, may become equally anxious and try to control the situation by taking over, micromanaging, and exerting control. In contrast, the underfunctioner, often a counterpart in the same relationship, becomes anxious, dependent, and lacking in confidence, allowing the overfunctioning leader to take control, further diminishing their own involvement.
Instead of enhancing team effectiveness, the overfunctioning leader inadvertently fosters dependency and erodes team members' confidence, hindering their personal growth. Team members struggle under the new leadership, and eventually, they might need to be replaced. Leaving the new leader to question their ability to replicate their past individual success.
So, how do you identify if a high-performing individual can successfully transition into a team developer? How can you ensure they impart their skills without creating unhealthy dependency? Morgan Momcilovich, Revenue Enablement Manager at Sprout Social, Inc., and the recipient of Forrester's 2023 B2B Sales Program of the Year Award, introduced a winning approach to transform new sales leaders from individual contributors into top-notch field sales coaches who enhance the organization's sales talent.
This concept is rooted in Forrester's Winter Sales Survey, 2022, which highlights peer collaboration as one of the top preferred sales training methods. Field sales coaches, who have excelled as salespeople within the organization, bridge the gap between individual contributors and sales managers as part of their career progression. While they don't directly oversee sales representatives, they use their experience to benefit a broader team of sellers and develop their managerial skills. Field sales coaches provide guidance and resources that might take longer to acquire through conventional channels. They add value to the sales organization by directly coaching sales representatives in several key ways:
Reinforcing sales learning through practice and monitored execution.
Helping successful reps transition into leadership roles.
Building a stronger leadership foundation.
Fostering better relationships between sales and other functions.
Developing mentoring, coaching, and leadership skills within your most talented team members.
Taking deliberate steps to ensure a smooth transition to sales leadership is essential for an organization's ability to retain top talent and scale success. Successful organizations will cultivate the next generation of sales leaders by intentionally developing the sales leadership skills needed to inspire their peers to excel. It's not just about personal success; it's about building a self-sufficient, thriving team.
About the Author:
Terry Arnold is the principle and founder of TA Consulting Service a firm focused on providing Sales Enablement consulting services to mid-market and enterprise level customer-facing teams. He is a seasoned professional with a rich background in cultivating strategic customer relationships. As a collaborative innovator he is known to build and foster cross-functional relationships with enterprise level organizations to engineer complex high value sales by engaging the necessary people, tools and resources to get deals closed.
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