Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions: A Tactical Playbook for Managers and Executives

CHAPTER 8

Vulnerability-Based Leadership

It is the very drive for perfection that many leaders obsess over that ultimately exposes our next manager’s greatest weakness: his inability to welcome himself to the human race. Vulnerability is taboo in many business cultures and causes panic and trepidation in the hearts of managers who are afraid to be exposed.

While counterintuitive, it’s critical for managers to be willing and able to express their vulnerabilities in a way that enables them to connect with their people and establish the type of trust that motivates a person to go above and beyond the call of duty. Although this is a concept that is easy to resist, no one is more alarmed by vulnerability than the Perfect Manager.

THE PERFECT MANAGER

Perfect Managers are masters of their trade, product, and profession. If you need to know technical data, statistics, and how the product or service works, they are the people to call. In fact, their perfection overflows throughout every area of their lives. In their world, failure and mistakes are unacceptable.

This manager’s perfection also shows up as an expert of industry knowledge. They can tell you the who, what, when, where, why, and how as it relates to their product and how to best sell and position it in front of their ideal prospects. Perfect Managers can even discuss in detail information about their competitors’ products ...