Succession Planning-Let’s chat about sales Leadership

Hey, this is Meridith Elliott Powell. And this week, when we talk about leadership, I want to talk about something that’s critical in leadership. You know, we speak so much about the importance of communication. and the words that you say, and all of that matters. But more importantly than the words are your actions, your team role models, what you do. Years ago, I was doing some work for a large firm based out of Southern Florida. And the CEO and all the partners worked really long hours, and they were losing a lot of young employees, people that they had in the ranks as high potentials. So the CEO came out of his corner office and asked the question WHY, “Why are you leaving the company?” We’ve done everything to create a culture here that invites you in, tells you, you have a future. And one after one, each high potential said, it takes too many hours. We don’t want to work 80, 90 hours a week. So immediately, the CEO instituted a policy that said, “You do not need to work over 50 hours a week” “and you’ll still be considered for high leadership positions.” Six months later, they were still losing employees. Again, he walked out of his corner office, started to ask, and one by one, each said the same thing. We heard what you said as the CEO, we’ve heard you at every meeting talk about that. But still, every weekend, we see the partners here burning the midnight oil. We see every partner’s car in the parking lot still when we leave. So we know by your actions that there’s no way we’re going to move into leadership positions in this company unless we work long hours. Wow. It’s a powerful lesson. Ensure as a leader that your actions match your words. If you do that, all of this uncertainty is going to become your competitive advantage.