A great salesperson transitioning to a leader often fails due to a 'selfish switch.' They hypocritically hold their team to the same work ethic standard as themselves, despite the team having significantly less financial upside. Effective leadership requires empathy for this fundamental motivational difference.
Related Insights
Transitioning to management is like moving to a foreign country; your identity, skills, and sources of fulfillment all shift. Success requires adapting to this new reality. Trying to operate with your old expert mindset will lead to frustration and feeling lost.
A common mistake for new managers is to do their reps' jobs for them, especially in tough deals. This approach, born from insecurity or a desire to prove worth, prevents the team from developing self-sufficiency and ultimately fails to scale. The manager's true job is to build skills and muscle in their reps.
Promoting top individual contributors into management often backfires. Their competitive nature, which drove individual success, makes it hard to share tips, empathize with struggling team members, or handle interpersonal issues, turning a perceived win-win into a lose-lose situation.
New leaders often fail because they continue to operate with an individual contributor mindset. Success shifts from personal problem-solving ("soloist") to orchestrating the success of others ("conductor"). This requires a fundamental change in self-perception and approach, not just learning new skills.
First-time managers, often former top performers, default to doing the work for their reps. This creates dependency and prevents the team from developing self-sufficiency, which is crucial for scaling. A manager's true role is to build the team's skills, even if it's slower in the short term.
Many top-performing salespeople operate on instinct and talent, making them "unconsciously competent." While successful in the field, they struggle to lead teams because they lack the self-awareness to deconstruct and teach the specific actions that make them great.
Transitioning from a top-performing rep requires a mindset shift from doing to enabling. A new leader's role is not to teach their specific 'Michael Jordan' method, but to align company and personal goals, then focus on removing obstacles for each team member's unique path to success.
The "treat others as you want to be treated" mantra fails in leadership because individuals have different motivations and work styles. Effective leaders adapt their approach, recognizing that their preferred hands-off style might not work for someone who needs more direct guidance.
Shift your leadership mindset from extraction to contribution. Success as a boss or investor isn't maximizing your return from an employee; it's being a net positive force where people gain more from the relationship than you do. This generosity builds loyalty and defines true victory in leadership.
Newly promoted directors often fall into the trap of "hero syndrome," trying to solve every problem themselves as they did as individual contributors. True leadership requires letting go, redirecting stakeholders to your team, and finding satisfaction in their success, not your own visibility and praise.
