Sales Leaders Rule #16: Follow the Four Management Style Balance Steps.

Typically sales people want attention from sales leadership but also want autonomy to meet their goals. So, there's a fine line between too hot or too cold, which is micro-management or hands-off management. Ideally, managers want to create a sense of guided self-sufficiency, where people feel empowered to do what they think is best within the guidelines that the manager provided.

Striving for a middle ground management style helps to strike a balance by avoiding either extreme management style. So how can a manager identify if they are leaning to far toward an extreme style? Reflect on how you interact with your people and look for symptoms of micro-managing or hands-off managing.

One extreme is micro-managers who are detail oriented, and they're looking over their teams' shoulders. Micro-managers create an environment where people are afraid to act on their own and are fearful of independently taking a next step. That creates a challenging environment because the manager is creating learned helplessness within their team. Rather than using good judgment to move sales forward, the team is constantly worrying about validating their thought process or getting approval to do even simple tasks.

The exact opposite spectrum are the hands-off managers. Those are the big picture managers who adopt a mindset of, "I hired you. You're a professional. Tell me if there is a problem but I'll assume no news is good news. I trust you. I expect you to get your job done." The problem with hands-off managers is that the team lacks cohesive direction. Each individual is working in a silo and doesn't know whether they're doing something right or wrong or how their actions affect the sales team. In fact, the team can't even be sure if the manager is even paying attention to all of their hard work.

There are four quick things that managers should do to achieve this balanced management style. Of course, a manager could go a little too detailed or a little too big picture depending on the situation, but that's a conscious decision. That's not a style by default.

Number one, identify clear team goals and action plans. You want to make sure everybody understands what they're supposed to do and when they're supposed to do it.

Number two, make it personal. A corporate goal is not the same thing as a personal goal. Just assigning a corporate or departmental goal and expecting it to be meaningful to the team is not good enough. You've got to make sure that they understand what their role is in the departmental goal and how they will personally benefit from meeting that objective.

Number three, set priorities. Tell the team which goals are most important. It's even better if priorities are an interactive exercise where management can get feedback from the sales team on why one goal should take precedent over another. In that way, both the manager and the sales team are on the same page and the team has helped formulate a winning strategy that makes sense to them. Once you have analyzed and organized the plan, formally break goals up into priorities.

And finally, number four, collaborate and set an action plan. Once you have goals broken into priorities it's critical to break these priorities down into action items for each member of the team. You want to make sure that you have an action plan that both you and the sales person agree is designed to hit personal goals, departmental goals, and corporate goals. When you collaborate it's a shared goal that both parties have a vested interest in rather than being something assigned to the sales person.

So, ask yourself, is your management style running too cold or too hot? Either extreme risks an unproductive sales team, so striking a balance in the middle ground can eliminate the deficiencies of both extremes while reinforcing the strengths.