What characteristics does a good commercial sales leader have?

The basic part is about leadership and acceptance that you must perform your work with and through others. You must be able to see any situation holistically and understand the operational implications. It also means that you don't always have the right answer or that other alternatives are better in the situation, in other words, you also need to be able to listen to other people's suggestions.

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As a leader, you must be able to let yourself be challenged in order to develop, not just the organisation, but also yourself. I have personal experience from some country cultures (with a pronounced military hierarchical approach) where there is a general issue around challenging a manager. If you are that manager, challenge yourself, what can you win from a change in attitude? What potential can you achieve and develop? Personal trust (and security) between people is key.

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If a manager always thinks he or she knows best that person and thus the organization has lost in advance. You need management, but leadership is always a prerequisite for commercial success.

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Leadership is about being able to set vision and mission with clearly defined and achievable (sometime stretch) goals, follow-up on this is management. Motivating others to understand and accept the direction, including how their individual work can contribute, not via detailed kpi’s, but via a framework that means the individual or team can influence with their own experiences and knowledge.

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Part of leader's job is also setting the right team. Culture is a big part here; everyone is aware of it and unfortunately many falls into the trap where you hire so that everyone looks alike and think the same! This is where the much talked about diversity comes in, and it is much more than gender and race, it is also age, experience, education, cultural background, language and much more.

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If you work internationally or globally, this is one of the most important leadership areas to focus on. I have experienced a North American manager who think you can use the North American approach in, for example, Europe and vice versa, for a European manager operating in NA. They fail time and time again. This is not just an issue between different continents and cultures. In Europe, it is utopia to think that European countries and cultures are the same! Even in what many perceive as homogeneous region, such as in Scandinavia there are differences, you will have to pay attention to as a leader. Leader’s challenge and innovate the status quo, managers don't.

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A commercial organization always has customers, of course customers who pay according to agreement and contribute positively to the organization, in the same way that the organization and their services or products contribute positively to the customer. A B2B business should always be seen as a true partnership from all stakeholders (service/product organization and customer), in all organizational layers, if not you have a risk.

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There are quite a few who forget this banal premise and spend time and money on someone and something that should have been shut down early on or never started! The old story that the customer is always right is simply unfounded in many cases. Far too many are unable to say, no thanks, and focus on what makes good business sense! It is a clear leadership task to give a mandate, and support the operational organization, to be able to act accordingly!

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I know that some of the above is banal here on a Sunday afternoon and I'm only scratching the surface, but if my short comment has sparked some thoughts, then…. may the rest of your Sunday be good!!