The problem is that the sales team is under performing – and the leader doesn’t know how to solve it. Selling and leading are two different skills. There is an assumption that just because you can do one, you can do the other.
The shift to a leader who is not only present online, but also an active contributor has become less of an anomaly and more of what the best leaders are doing on an ongoing basis. By taking this approach their people get to learn from them by reading blogs they have written, tweets they have sent, or pictures they have shared.
It didn’t take long to realize who would be on the short list for promotions. They stood out like a lightning bug at night because they were doing things differently than the others.
Whether you’ve just come off a huge project that ended with a thud or are running at full pace in repetitive execution mode, there comes a time where you take a step back and ask yourself, “Why am I doing this? I don’t have anything else to give!”
But what about leadership? Do we choose leadership? If so, which category does it fall into; big or small; trivial or significant?
Leadership is a choice you make just like any other and it’s a big choice. Everyone has the capacity to be a leader but doesn’t mean they want to or even should.
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I have had five different people tell me they were struggling to be an effective leader. I wasn’t surprised; leading other people is one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. What did strike me as odd was that when pressed, each person mentioned various challenges, but always ended the conversation with the same response;
It’s time for leaders to act from the the front lines. During the first few nights of riots in downtown Charlotte, Public defender Toussaint Romain did just that. He parked himself right in the middle of a wall of policemen and an amorphous crowd of demonstrators.
The truth is, an organization’s core values aren’t based on the executives that run it. An organization’s core values are based on the collective values of all the employees that work there.
Unfortunately, when some individuals receive a leadership title it gives them a false sense of superiority over a team. This entitlement gravely affects his or her ability to lead, as it tends to make its owner devoid of any humility or awareness.
