A few months ago, President Biden announced his plans to decline the Democratic nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Regardless of your political views, he made a decision that went against his interests for the greater good of the country. That, at its core, is transformational leadership.

As a venture investor and founder of Inspired Capital, I spend much of my time contemplating the strength of someone’s leadership.

Companies can reap great benefits from digitalizing their sales organizations—that is, using technology, data, and analytics to improve the sales process. Done well, digitalization increases customer engagement, boosts the skills and performance of salespeople, and supports a more customer-focused business model. But digitalization initiatives are often plagued by slow progress, poor adoption, or low sustained impact. This article discusses why that happens and recommends five actions to increase the odds of success.

In my newsletter several weeks ago, I hypothesized that we may experience a recession. It is our job as leaders and sales professionals to prepare for such an eventuality. You don’t want to be caught off guard and find yourself in the dangerous place of being reactive. Well, it looks like the likelihood of a recession is a lot higher.

It’s hard to think of a word that triggers more reactivity and drains more trust from conversation than “but.” Notice how often you hear it (and say it) when you’re negotiating or arguing. Notice how this one word changes the temperature and tone in the moment. To prevent the damage that “but” inflicts, the author offers three hacks: 1) Focus on what’s said before “but,” 2) Replace “but” with curiosity, and 3) Stop before the “but.” Each of these moves requires courage, patience, and practice — and the return on investment is impressive.

The Edelman trust barometer measures levels of trust in governments, businesses, NGOs, and media around the world. Nearly 50% of all respondents viewed government and media as divisive sources in society. Fake news concerns are at an all-time high, fears are on the rise, and businesses must lead in breaking the cycle of distrust.

The past two years haven’t been easy—they’ve shown that true disruption is forced on businesses, not chosen. While every industry, company, and team has been disrupted in some way, no other aspect of the business world has been more affected by disruption than sales teams. Whether it’s growing customer expectations, labor shortages, digital transformations, or market uncertainty, sales professionals are facing more pressure than ever. But there is a solution: creating a connected sales organization.

For decades, salespeople have been taught that there is only one possible reason for lost sales: that salespeople have failed to defeat the customer’s status quo. Perhaps the customer doesn’t fully appreciate the problem that their solution is designed to solve. Or maybe they don’t yet see enough daylight between their company’s solution and that of the competition. So, salespeople break out their arsenal of tools to prove to the customer the many ways their solutions will help them win. And, when all else fails, they dial up the “FUD” — or, fear, uncertainty, and doubt — to tap into the customer’s fear of missing out.

One of the most important characteristics of strong leaders is their confidence in themselves. If you find a leader who is not confident in their ability as a leader, you will find a team or organization that is less than fully engaged. We are positively influenced by confident people. Developing Your Confidence Day-by-Day

Leading the transformation from a transactional business to selling broader solutions is a major challenge for most companies. Especially when you have a sales organization that is already very good at what they do. So how do you communicate and execute on your vision for the organization? It starts with a change in mindset –– a different mental model.

As a leader, do you feel like you have to know it all? Or that expressing uncertainty or revising your viewpoints would undermine your effectiveness as a leader?

Unfortunately, this way of thinking can backfire. Nurse-leader and author Karlene Kerfoot, writing about health care, suggested that when leaders become entrenched in their routine thought processes, they are more likely to disregard others’ helpful ideas and innovative models of leadership.

According to a CareerBuilder survey of over 3,600 workers, most people don’t want to be managers. Of the subset who are interested in rising to management, they make up slightly over one-third of organizations (34%). This slim percentage does not provide enough innate appetite from individual contributors to fill company’s need for aspiring managers.

January 20, 2022 Planning for the future of work has always been important. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the next big organizational shift—turning a hypothetical future into an immediate reality. In this rapid pivot, organizations gathered key learnings with long-term potential to improve operating models, employee experience, productivity, and more.

‘Just in time’ manufacturing has become next to impossible in a period of supply chain disruption and material shortages. In the same way, organisations can no longer take a ‘just in time’ approach to talent acquisition during a period of talent scarcity. It’s time to get creative about how you recruit, retain and reskill your people.

In my experience as a consultant who has transformed 16 companies, and as an entrepreneur who has built or bought almost as many of my own enterprises, I’ve learned that managers and leaders often miss one crucial point about emotional intelligence (“EQ”): EQ requires intolerance for the intolerable just as much as it requires empathy.

Recent transformations in the market have put power squarely in the hands of buyers. As a result, the world revolves around buyers and their needs.

That means sellers have to work harder than ever to attract buyers and convince them to purchase — not just once but every time. To forge these lasting customer relationships, sellers must create a world-class customer experience that engages customers and keeps them coming back.

The business world has changed drastically during the pandemic. It demands innovative ways to speed up the skill acquisition of employees. Training organizations now require a training design that enables much faster development of employees’ skills and performance. Not all training designs are equipped to achieve or support that speed.

Sales leaders today agree that there’s an increasing gap between buyers and sellers. In our annual sales performance studies, sales leaders tell us that organizations struggle with advanced engagement capabilities and they’re challenged to strengthen sales relationships.

Whatever managers previous fears about remote work, the pandemic has proved that most knowledge workers can get their daily tasks done just as well from their living rooms as from the office. Study after study confirms most people's personal experience that, at least for those without child care, health, or other challenges, productivity has actually inched up with the advent of widespread remote work.

How is the issue of personal accountability viewed in your organization? Seasoned workers have undoubtedly seen their share of finger-pointing, dishonesty, and “CYOA.” However, personal accountability is a critical step toward improving leadership. When people are accountable for their own decisions, work, and results, the effectiveness of an organization can greatly increase.