Why Do You Need Engaged Leaders for Your Business?

Engagement is more than a blinged-out ring on your left ring finger. 

No, no– we’re not trying to minimize the excitement around your proposal experience, if you’ve had one. We’re sure it was glorious. 

What we mean is something else entirely. 

We’re talking about engaged leaders here. You know, the people who make your other employees look forward to coming into work and putting their best foot forward every day? Yeah. Those ones. 

But with the pressure to find engaged leaders who will last and bring further success to your company, comes many questions. 

How to engage is one of them. How to engage employees, a question you might ask your leaders, is yet another. 

But hold up. You might not even know what we’re talking about at all. No worries– we’re going to get right into that below. Only then can you begin to ask the more thoughtful, intensive questions. 

Shall we begin?

What is an Engaged Leader?

Before we get any deeper, we have to address what is perhaps the most important question of all. 

What are engaged leaders? What’s all this hubbub about? 

Engaged leaders are exactly what their name implies. These are the leaders, in this case on your sales team, who motivate and inspire those who work around them. It is not so much a matter of telling their employees what to do. It is more so a matter of them engaging with others to the point that others want to do better, and cannot help but do so. 

This is peak leadership. This is what you strive for when you run a business: Team members who want to be a part of that business. And as the term “leadership engagement” dictates, you cannot have one without the other. 

There are a lot of benefits and there are a lot of habits and traits that engaged leaders will display. We will get into each of those topics below. But let’s go over a couple real-world scenarios first. 

Here’s scenario numero uno for you… 

Susan is a sales rep. Miranda is a sales leader. 

Susan is struggling. It’s nothing terrible, but she’s struggling nonetheless. She’s having some trouble managing her time. On top of that, she’s not sure if she’s fulfilling her responsibilities at the company. All this together makes her feel left out, anxious and unsure of herself as a sales professional. 

But Miranda is here to save the day. She’s been planning, trying to figure out how to get employees engaged. She’s up for the task. Miranda sits down with Susan. First, she makes a genuine connection with Susan. She gets to the root of the problem. She follows up with a crystal-clear plan and loops Susan in on company strategy. 

Susan succeeds because of engaged leaders like Miranda. 

The second scenario? It’s not quite the same. 

Susan is struggling. That part stays the same. Her pain points stay the same. 

In this case, though, Miranda rolls her eyes at the thought of boosting Susan’s confidence in sales. She meets with her, but the whole vibe feels judgmental from Susan’s perspective. Susan feels discouraged. Nothing changes. 

You need engaged leaders like the first-case-scenario Miranda. Let’s talk about how you can make them. 

How Do You Make an Engaged Leader?

There are a lot of things you can do to make an engaged leader on your sales team. Likewise, there are a lot of things you cannot do to help a leader along this journey. Some things happen to form this type of vital team member way before they join your company. 

What were their first handful of experiences in the sales industry? Were they positive or negative ones? Did your leader succeed in their entry-level role(s), standing out as a leading employee before they came to be an actual leader on paper? 

A lot of rockstar leaders had a mentor who shaped them into who they are today. They had a workload that required them to be the best. 

What is their belief system like, relative to sales? What morals do they have that help them succeed? 

Like we said, those are all more of the things that are out of your control. You might want to work on transforming some of your reps into engaged leaders themselves. 

Unfortunately, that won’t always pan out. A rep who is super successful at being a rep does not often have that same level of success when it comes to being a leader. Your reps have worked for a long time at becoming skilled with certain traits and behaviors. They might not have to be as strategic as a sales leader or manager does. 

There is something you can control in this situation, though. You can provide supplemental resources and training to your leaders and employees. 

Though not the end-all, be-all of effective leadership, certain training programs do remind your team of why they started with their careers in the first place. 

Why Are Engaging Leaders Important for Any Business?

The success of your employees is the success of your business. One depends on the other, and vice versa. Count on that success. Prioritize it. 

Also, engaging leaders are the ones who encourage and inspire your team. This sort of support promotes productivity and instills dedication in your other employees. 

This means you will have an entire employee base who offers excellence to your customers. That’s what sales is all about. 

Plus, everyone will have a morale (or mood) booster with engaged leaders doing their part. 

That positive energy translates into all client communications. 

In essence, then, engaged leaders drive revenue and profitability for your business. 

What Are the Habits and Traits of Engaged Leaders?

Now it’s time for the part we mentioned earlier. We have to talk about the habits and personality traits of engaged leaders. 

This is an important step for a myriad of reasons. 

But one of the biggest reasons you should reference this list is full of traits that you cannot instill in a leader yourself. 

When you are looking for a qualified leader to join your team, you do not want to sacrifice any of these traits. So do not think to yourself, “I can teach them these things! I’ll sacrifice a few of them just to have the extra help in my sales department!” 

Nope. These are the personality traits and habits that you want to look for in (or as) an engaged leader

  • Honest – You need someone who can and will provide honest feedback for your team. They should offer constructive criticism on sales performance and share that feedback with the right people (like you). 
  • Neutral – Drama has no place in the work environment or on the sales floor. Conflict arises, but the way you and your team deal with that conflict is what really matters. Look for leaders who will remain neutral in times of conflict to reach the best possible outcome for your business. 
  • Optimistic – Nobody wants (or should have) a Negative Nelly to answer to. Make sure that your sales leadership team upholds that. Reward good behavior, and show that there is always room for improvement when someone starts to lag behind. 
  • Passionate – Sales reps know when their team lead couldn’t care less. Then, that feeling of boredom starts to spread like a plague. Avoid that with a passionate and engaging leader. 
  • Caring – Like being passionate, being caring will always bring benefits to your company. You need someone who will care about results, care about their team and care about meeting quotas and goals. 
  • Empathetic – Being honest does not mean you should skip out on being empathetic. It’s the opposite, in fact. Have empathy for customers and employees, and both parties will want to stay on with your company. 
  • Full of Energy – This one works closely with being passionate. Bring an unmatched level of positive energy to the team. 
  • Expressive – Do not hide your feelings. Leaders who do so diminish trust instead of building it. When you feel pleased with someone’s performance, share it. When you feel dissatisfied with someone’s performance, share it constructively
  • Fair and Just – Leave favoritism at the door as a leader. Weigh the pros and cons of each decision and each conflict. Make a decision from there. 
  • Problem Solver – Like conflict, problems also arise in the workplace. Come up with strategic and long-term solutions for each problem that pops up. 

We Have the Secret to Bring Engaged Leaders to Your Sales Team…

Everyone loves a secret, right? 

Well, we have one for you: We know how to get engaged leaders on your sales team. We also know how to get you top-selling sales reps who can work for the benefit of your company. 

But before we tell you that secret, we have to first tell you about who “we” are.

Answer: Selling Revolution. 

Our expert team, with decades of combined experience, started Selling Revolution for a reason. There are tons of evolutions in the world of sales. Change after change, new technology after new technology. 

With so many evolutions, don’t you want to stand out with your own revolution

You can. We’re ready to offer you a fully customizable Selling System™. With that comes better leads, higher conversion rates and sales training that actually works. 

First, though, we ask that you offer us some of your time… 

Book a call with Seling Revolution today to get started.