Are you a sales rep? You’ve got better leadership skills than most.

We’ve spent the last several weeks deep-diving into how power skills aka behavioral skills or what I often refer to as “fundamental skills” are critical to career acceleration and success. This is backed by research and grounded in science, so it’s not just me talking in a silo. It’s important to understand how skills such as Critical Thinking, Deep Collaboration, Effective Communication, Empathy, Initiative, Result Orientation (and so many more) can impact productivity at work. There is no doubt that these power skills are directly linked to your professional growth.

However, it is equally important to understand how certain behavioral skills that are critical to a particular job role can play a significant role later as you grow into leadership positions. Sales fits right into that box.

? Fun fact: Some of the most distinguished CEOs in the world actually started off as sales representatives - Warren Buffet, Howard Schultz, Nick Woodman, Mark Cuban, and many more.

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There are several success stories we read as we move ahead in our professional lives, but rarely do we pause and understand the underlying drivers for success. A big and common driving factor in the above case studies is the power of fundamental skills that all of them built as sales representatives. There are some critical skills that any salesperson needs to succeed in their jobs. Sales requires one to read another person well, understand their needs, problem solve, influence people, negotiate, handle rejection and the list goes on. These are commonly referred to as sales skills, but what backs these up are behavioral skills. These are in fact the skills you require to be a good leader. So, what being a good salesperson does is, prepare you to be a great leader.

Here’s a list of behavioral skills that are absolutely critical in a sales role:

1. Effective Communication
2. Initiative
3. Influencing People
4. Result Orientation
5. Professional Reliability
6. Critical Thinking
7. Systems Thinking
8. Resilience

Here you might wonder, isn’t that the case with most job roles?

Of course, as you grow in your career, you are bound to develop behavioral skills that eventually allow you to become a good leader. However, the reason customer facing roles like sales accelerate that growth is because you essentially press the pedal on development.

For example:

• To sell, you need to gain the customer’s trust (Influencing People, Effective Communication)
• To sell, you need to think on your feet, take charge and think critically (Critical Thinking, Systems Thinking, Initiative)
• To sell, you need to be constantly driven, goal-oriented and resilient to achieve targets (Result Orientation, Professional Reliability, Resilience)

Now, if I were to replace the word “sell” with “lead” in every instance, the statement would still hold true. That’s the power of sales and the reason it is deeply aspirational for highly-ambitious young professionals.