Part Two: Sales Leadership

Part Two:
Sales Leadership
3-1
Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall.
Sales Management: Shaping Future Sales Leaders
Leadership and
the Sales Executive
Chapter 3
3-2
Learning Objectives
 Understand historical development and different
approaches to examining leadership
 Recognize contributions made by contemporary
leadership approaches
 Identify issues today’s sales leaders face
 Use the information in this chapter to develop
your own leadership skills
3-3
What is Leadership?
 A process whereby an individual influences other
group members to move toward or achieve a
common goal
Leadership
1 2
Is a process Occurs in a group
3 4 Involves movement
Involves influence
toward a goal
3-4
Leadership Practices vs.
Management Practices
Leadership Practices
Aligning Motivating
Direction Change
People & Inspiring
Management Practices
Controlling
Planning Organizing
& Problem Predictability
& Budgeting & Staffing
Solving
3-5
Research Findings
too many people with strong management

skills but weak leadership skills
too few people with both strong leadership and

management skills
did less than a very good job at attracting,

developing, and motivating people with
leadership potential2
2/3 of sales VPs indicated that <60% of their

sales managers were meeting expectations3
3-6
Discussion Question
 Think of one person you know who is an effective
leader
 What actions or traits does the person
demonstrate?
 What behaviors does he or she engage in?
 Now do the same for an ineffective leader
3-7
Understanding Leadership:
An Historical Perspective of Approaches
 1900s to 1940s; 2000s

Trait  These are the traits you need to be a leader
 1950s to 1960s
Behavioral  This is how leaders behave
 1960s to 1970s
Situational  Assess the situation and adjust behavior to it
 1980s to 1990s
Contemporary  Motivate your followers through your leadership
 1990s to 2000s
Emerging  Develop your followers
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The Trait Approach:
The Great Man Theory of Leadership
 People are born with traits that help develop leadership
skills
 Intelligence: higher verbal, perceptual, and reasoning skills
 Self-confidence: ability to be certain about competencies and skills
 Determination: demonstrate the ability to get the job done
 Integrity: demonstrate honesty and trustworthiness
 Sociability: ability to interact in a comfortable, outgoing, pleasant
manner
 Limitations
 Lacks a universal list of traits
 Not evident which trait is more important and how they interact
 Traits and their strength change, but that doesn’t appear to reverse
leadership ability
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Mandela’s 8 Lessons of Leadership
 Many would consider Nelson Mandela to have many of
the traits of a leader. How can you apply his ‘8 Lessons of
Leadership’ to sales management?
1. Courage is not the absence of 5. Keep our friends close – and
fear – it’s inspiring others to your rivals even closer
move beyond it
6. Appearances matter – and
2. Lead from the front – but don’t remember to smile
leave your base behind
7. Nothing is black or white
3. Lead from the back – and let
others believe they are in front 8. Quitting is leading too
4. Know your enemy – and learn

about his favorite sport
For more see “The Secrets of Leadership,” by Richard Stengel, Time, July 21,2008, 172(3), 41-48.
3-10
The Behavioral Approach:
This is How a Leader Behaves
1. Consideration behaviors and initiating structure
 Maintaining good social interactions and relationships
with a group’s members and building respect and trust
within a group
2. Employee-centered vs. production-centered
 More productive leaders were more employee-centered
3. The Leadership Grid®

 Concern for people, concern for production
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The Behavioral Approach:
This is How a Leader Behaves (continued)
4. Application
 Leaders should engage in behavior addressing both
social needs of individuals and task accomplishment
 Demonstrating more consideration should result in
more group satisfaction
5. Limitations
 No theory found one best way to lead; leadership
depends upon the characteristics of the situation, not
just the person doing the leading.
 No empirical evidence linking leadership styles and
effectiveness
3-12
Self-Assessment Library
 Go to http://www.prenhall.com/sal/
 Access code came with your book
 Click the following
 Assessments
I. Working with others
B. Leadership and Team Skills
5. What’s My Leadership Style?
3-13
Situational Approaches: Assess the
Situation, then Adjust Behavior to It
1 Fred Fiedler: Contingency theory of leadership
 A leader’s style is stable and not open to major changes
 Only the situation can change, and this impacts effectiveness
 Leadership approach focuses on
 Leader-member relations
 Task structure
 Position power
 Weaknesses
 Findings not replicated
 Doesn’t consider that a leader
can learn and adapt to situation
3-14
2 Hersey and Blanchard: Leader can adapt to situation
 Must diagnose group’s level of task competency and
commitment
 Adapt behavior based on directive and supportive behaviors
 Leadership approach (The Situational Leader ®)
 Directing
 Coaching
 Supporting
 Delegating
 Weaknesses
 Are leaders truly able to diagnosis level of development of
followers?
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3 Vroom and Yetton model: Group decision-making
 Examines situation structure, information available, and how
important acceptance is to implementation
 Proposes how much followers should be involved in
decision-making
 Benefits
 Followers typically will be more committed
 Followers may have additional information that can help
better decisions
 Weaknesses
 group decisions take more time
 Can have conflict when course of action is not clear
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Contemporary Perspectives: Motivate
Your Followers Through Leadership
1 Leader-member exchange 2 Transformational leadership
(LMX) theory theory
 Unique relationship between a  Leader is determined and has
leader and each group charisma to inspire, change, or
member (dyad) otherwise transform followers
 In-group and out-group  Stimulate followers intellectually,
 Out-group more formal, less encourage them, support
satisfied and productive development
 Give personal attention and
 Led to leadership-making make each feel valued and
concept important
 Every leader should work to  Followers trust, respect, and
have as many in-group want to emulate leaders
relationships as possible and  Positively correlates with job
few or no out-group satisfaction and better
relationships performance
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Emerging Concepts:
Develop Your Followers
1  Steven Covey Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People: Principle-centered leadership model
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win-win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw
8. Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs
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Emerging Concepts:
2 Robert Greenleaf: Servant leadership model
 Leaders should serve their followers, set an example
 Emphasizes collaboration, empathy, and ethical use of
power
 Listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion,
stewardship, commitment to growth of people, building
community
 Starbucks, Men’s Wearhouse, ServiceMaster, Southwest Airlines
mission statements
 College / University service learning projects
3-19
Ethics in Sales Management:
Ethical Leadership at Ken Vance Motors
Golden Rule Truth

 Follow the Golden Rule, treat  Never tell lies or distort the truth;
others the way you would like to it’s easier to tell the truth from
be treated; it’s simple and it the beginning
works
Trust & Respect Communication

 Trust and respect must be  Good communication is critical,
central in the relationship with be it with your customer or your
your customer employees; time spent listening
to them is time well spent
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Emerging Concepts:
3 Jim Collins: Level 5 leadership model
 Leaders of great companies
 Modest and willful
 Humble and fearless
 Set up their successors for greater success
 Diligent
 Individual’s level of skills builds successively on skills
and abilities of previous levels
 Hierarchy describes skills and abilities individuals
should possess as they move into more skilled and
esteemed Level 5 leadership positions
 Combines concepts from earlier leadership research
3-21
Leadership Challenges
for the Sales Executive
Recruiting & Selecting Removing Limitations

Good Employees Facing Females
Keeping Avoiding
Good Employees Ethical Mistakes
Executing Maintaining
Virtual Leadership Motivated Sales Teams
Diversifying Integrating
the Sales Force Technology
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Discussion Question
 Question: Where will tomorrow’s leadership
training come from?
 Answer: Multiple-player online video games
 According to some experts, the online gaming
environment, where teams may be located
around the globe, may never meet face-to-face
and there is little or no formal authority, may
provide a rich training environment for
developing leadership skills
For more see “Leadership’s Online Labs,” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone and Tony O’Discoll,
Harvard Business Review, May 2008, 86(5), 58-131.
3-23
Discussion Question
 What behaviors or actions can you engage in to
help develop your leadership skills while you are
still in school?
3-24
Role Play: Jackson Kramer Clothiers
 Sells business suits directly to mgrs and execs
 Salespeople meet clients at workplaces or homes, take
measurements, and help with wardrobe decisions
 Strategic goal is to grow younger-client business
 Youngest sales managers campus recruiting
 Try to identify candidates with leadership traits
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Role Play (continued): Action Steps
 Break into groups of 3
 2 people play the roles of recruiting sales mgrs
 Develop a list of at least 4 or 5 questions that can be
used to identify the leadership potential in each
candidate
 3rd person should play the role of JK and
develop his or her own list of questions
 The 2 sales mgrs need to convince JK why the
questions they have chosen should be asked of
candidates
3-26
Caselet 3.1:
I Never Thought About It
 Salesperson Elena is interviewing for sales
management position
 Manager Liz asks Elena, “When they ask you in
your interview about your style of leadership, what
will you tell them?”
 Elena: “I’ve never thought much about it. I’ve just
done things”
 Liz: If you don’t think about your leadership style,
how can management get a handle on what it is?”
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Caselet 3.1 (continued):
What Would You Do?
 Put yourself in Elena’s position
 Based on what you know about different
leadership approaches, how would you describe
your leadership style?
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Caselet 3.2:
“Coach” Charlie Hustle
 David’s sales manager acts as a coach
 We come in, and Coach tells us what to do; I never
have to wonder what’s up or how to deal with a
problem, he tells me what to do
 He is super results-oriented
 You always get pats on the back
 He has a miniature scoreboard in his office where he
displays our sales
 He calls them “points”
 If you don’t produce points, he’ll be on your case and tell you
what to do
 Reminds me of my old tennis coach
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Caselet 3.1 (continued):
What Would You Do?
 Michael wonders about a supervisor who is
always telling his salespeople what to do
 David thinks, “He seems like the perfect leader.
What else should he be doing?”
 What should Michael tell David about other
leadership behaviors Coach could use?
3-30
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a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

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Part Two:

too many people with strong management

too few people with both strong leadership and

did less than a very good job at attracting,

2/3 of sales VPs indicated that <60% of their

 1900s to 1940s; 2000s

4. Know your enemy – and learn

3. The Leadership Grid®

Golden Rule Truth

Trust & Respect Communication

Recruiting & Selecting Removing Limitations

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