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10 sales leadership characteristics to seek & cultivate

Back to Top


Sales Transformation


10 SALES LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS TO SEEK & CULTIVATE

Sales leaders have to be both exceptional sellers and have a range of “soft”
skills that give them the emotional intelligence necessary to lead.

June 16, 2022

Home
 1. Insights
 2. Featured Topics
 3. Sales Transformation


Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Leaders aren’t born; they
are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” Sales
leaders are no exception.

Research shows that leadership is 30% genetic and 70% the result of lessons
learned through challenging experiences and assignments. Your organization’s
next great sales leader may be among your salesforce right now. But it can be
hard to find the right talent without knowing the traits to look for and
cultivate as you build a sales leadership pipeline.

In part, that's because sales leaders have a three-pronged role. First, they
must lead the sales team, retain and expand the customer base and ensure the
team remains profitable. Second, they have to develop the organization’s sales
strategy across sales channels and verticals. Finally, they must analyze their
strategy’s effectiveness, adjusting their sales forecasts and sales methodology
accordingly.


BUILDING EXCEPTIONAL SALES LEADERS

So what does it take to make an exceptional sales leader? Sales executives need
the experience of working in the trenches as a salesperson to understand the
opportunities and challenges of selling. But not every exceptional sales rep has
the skill set necessary to lead a sales organization.

To manage all of their varied responsibilities, sales leaders must have the
capacity to lead, think entrepreneurially and thrive through disruption, among
many other skills. In other words, they need a range of emotional intelligence
skills that can be developed.

Here are 10 key traits to look for and cultivate that will help you build a
sales leadership pipeline.


1 VISIONARY

Sales leaders are responsible for everything within the sales organization. They
have to recognize that details matter but never lose sight of the big picture.
They need the courage to think of innovative ways to help their organization
achieve goals.

To succeed, sales leaders have to articulate a clear, compelling vision for the
sales organization’s future. Then they have to convince their sales team and
other stakeholders to buy into it. To achieve buy-in, they have to create an
emotional climate that inspires people to give their best effort toward their
goal.


2 ANALYTICAL EXPERTISE

Sales leaders are responsible for shaping the organization’s go-to-market
strategy. They set the buyer journey, product mix and pricing decisions. And the
way they arrive at conclusions for everything they do must be data-driven.

Sales leaders should study buyer behavior to determine how to reduce friction
and make it easier for customers to purchase. By studying this buyer behavior,
they can discover what actions lead to more sales. It will also be important to
analyze customer service to determine how to turn one-time purchasers into loyal
customers.

To draw these conclusions, sales leaders must be comfortable with technology,
including CRM platforms and predictive sales analytics. It is important to be
able to derive meaning from data in sales systems and insights that propel the
sales team forward.


3 RESILIENCE

Sales leaders must be prepared to manage a sales environment that’s constantly
becoming more complex. Consider just a few of the challenges that sales leaders
face today:

 * Customers expect a highly personalized, connected buying experience. They
   want flexibility, so they can purchase across channels and through different
   revenue models.
 * Stiff competition for top talent makes it harder than ever to attract and
   retain top sellers.
 * Hybrid work environments make it difficult to build a sales culture that
   strengthens ties to top talent. It’s also harder than ever to engage sellers
   during training and coaching. Sales leaders must find new ways to engage and
   develop the workforce virtually.

Sales leaders must be able to rebound from setbacks and adversity quickly. They
must have strong problem-solving skills that enable them to move forward when
faced with internal and external challenges.


4 LEARNING AGILITY

Learning agility is a leader’s ability and willingness to learn from their
experience, then apply those lessons to new situations. Sales leaders who are
learning-agile continuously seek new challenges, solicit direct feedback and
self-reflect.

There are four key types of learning agility that should be nurtured in future
sales leaders:

 1. Mental agility is a broad curiosity about the complex issues, challenges and
    novel situations that leaders face. It sets the stage for effective
    problem-solving. This curiosity about issues and problems helps with
    spotting patterns, trends and relationships.
 2. People agility is understanding the value of influencing others to help get
    work done, being skilled at reading people and being attuned to others’
    needs and motivations.
 3. Change agility means embracing change and taking reasonable risks even in
    the face of that change. It includes openness and acceptance of change and
    willingness to take chances.
 4. Results agility is being energized by new, tough assignments and overcoming
    obstacles to achieve stretch work objectives. It includes the enjoyment of
    being judged against external standards of achievement.


5 SELF-AWARENESS

Self-aware leaders understand how their emotions can affect performance. It’s an
awareness of their strengths and blind spots, but it’s also a recognition of how
others see them. As a result, they have an accurate sense of their strengths and
limitations, which fuels their self-confidence.

With greater self-confidence, sales leaders can be more decisive because they
fully understand their values and have a strong sense of purpose. They can also
be more authentic, which allows them to speak with conviction about their vision
and goals.


6 FOCUS

Focus is the willingness to let go of personal attention to details and seek a
bigger-picture perspective. Focused leaders avoid pursuing the minor details at
the expense of the big picture.

Sales leaders with focus are capable of pursuing long-term goals despite
obstacles and distractions. They must also be determined to reach their goals
even in the face of discouragement. This sense of focus helps sustain sales
leaders through the inevitable difficulties and detours in their work.


7 TOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY

Today’s sales environment has never been more uncertain. The norm for sales
leaders is that there is no normal. Facing highly disruptive business challenges
is the daily routine.

That means sales leaders must work productively even when they lack a clear view
of the future. They must have a high tolerance for ambiguity, given the
volatility of today’s complex sales environment. Sales leaders should find
energy in uncertainty, not discomfort.

To cope, they must be able to sustain the relentless pressure of change and lead
through it. They must also be willing to reframe challenges as opportunities.


8 ASSERTIVENESS

Assertiveness is the willingness to take the lead in projects and initiatives
with little hesitation. Successful sales leaders are comfortable taking charge.
They naturally gravitate toward leading the way. And they have confidence that
when they take the reins, it will lead to good outcomes.


9 COLLABORATION

Sales leaders must build relationships with people at every level of their
organization, mentoring their leadership team and sales managers. They must
ensure their sellers feel connected to their organization’s purpose. But most
importantly, their sales organization must be a two-way street, where they’re
willing to accept differing viewpoints and learn from others.

In other words, sales isn’t an island. To succeed sales leaders have to work
across functions, enlisting help and support from other teams. The best sales
leaders aren’t just managers, they’re also builders of relationships.


10 OPTIMISM

Optimism is the degree to which leaders tend to disregard disappointment.
Optimistic leaders are satisfied with who they are and expect the future to be
bright. Successful sales leaders must maintain positive expectations for the
future — even when that future is unclear.


INTELLIGENCE CLOUD

Get ready for the future of work with HR technology that delivers at the speed
of now

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HOW TO IDENTIFY FUTURE SALES LEADERS

If great sales leaders are made, not born, there’s no time like the present to
start cultivating them. But how do you know which sellers and sales managers
have the potential to progress to sales leadership roles?

It starts with getting a deeper understanding of the talent you have with the
Korn Ferry Intelligence Cloud. In addition to developing managers’ ability to
coach their teams and sellers’ understanding of sales methodology, the
Intelligence Cloud also helps sales leaders recognize future leaders. Its
detailed, thorough talent assessments can help you distinguish who has potential
that you can develop with additional training.

Contact us to discover how the Intelligence Cloud can help you start making
great sales leaders today.

FEATURED INSIGHTS

 * The CRO's guide to creating an effective sales process
 * Top 12 sales practices for 2022
 * 5 sales operations challenges and how to overcome them
 * How can a native CRM app improve sales performance?

Related Capabilities

 * Intelligence Cloud


RELATED INSIGHTS

 * Sales Transformation
   
   THE CRO'S GUIDE TO CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SALES PROCESS
   
   Learn how you can help your sales organization align with the buyer's journey
   and progress to sales process maturity with these 6 steps.
   
    * Read more

 * Sales Transformation
   
   TOP 12 SALES PRACTICES FOR 2022
   
   The world’s leading sales organizations do things differently from the
   chasing pack. Discover the 12 sales practices that will boost performance.
   
    * Read more

 * Sales Transformation
   
   5 SALES OPERATIONS CHALLENGES AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM
   
   Sales operations teams can help organizations formalize sales processes,
   improve their data quality and sales forecasts and streamline selling
   workflows.
   
    * Read more

 * INSIGHTS TO YOUR INBOX
   
   Stay on top of the latest leadership news with This Week in Leadership -
   delivered weekly to your inbox.
   
   Subscribe now

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