How Long Is Your Leadership Shadow?

Working with sales teams over many years, I am often asked by sales executives with aspirations of sales leadership as to what the key elements are to master, in order to make the leap to Sales Leader. As we know all too well, many sales executives receive the tap on the shoulder to step into a leadership role based on their excpetional levels of performance as an individual contributor, and yet, in many cases, they do not yet possess the necessary leadership competencies in order to make the transition a successful one, or a sustainable one. The result? Many flounder in the role, and unless they are able to find a suitable coach or mentor to work with, the vast majority will return to an individual contributor role, and be reluctant to try sales leadership again.

For those who do make the 'successful' leap to sales leadership, there are a core set of principles they live by, which enables them to create an environment of empowerment, autonomy, engagement, and high performance. These principles are non-negotiable and enable the sales leader to create a platform to become exceptional. One of these principles is the awareness of, and intentional focus, on their leadership shadow.

If there is one certainty in leadership, it is that change and disruption is inevitable and will only continue to accelerate. Hence, as leaders, it is critical that we understand and embrace change (we do not necessarily have to like it!) and continue to be flexible and adapt to it. A vital element of this is understanding and becoming intentional around our leadership shadow-essentially the impressions we are creating every single day through the words we speak and the actions we take.

Through the actions we are taking, our role modelling, our conversations and the decisions we are making, are we casting a shallow leadership shadow, where the team's performance is inconsistent, and as a leader, we find ourselves having to be directional, or are we casting a longer shadow, where there is an environment of empowerment, autonomy and certainty, leading the team to drive consistent behaviours that lead to excpetional results?

That is the topic for today's episode of The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast. When we can be consciously aware of the shadow we are casting, and then become more intentional as to how long our shadow can be, the game changes.

To listen to the episode, please click here.

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