Leadership is the act of leading an organised group of people.  Leadership essentially is guidance.  Guidance  is all about giving information, support and advice to accomplish some objectives or about how to deal with the problems in accomplishing the set objectives.    Sales leadership is the act of leading a sales force, and is all about guidance through timely information, sales tools, sales training,  sales human capital management, sales strategy and so on.  But the question is the extent of the guidance provided and the style in which it is administered.  Some leaders go the whole hog to accomplish the set targets and they leave no stones unrolled when it comes to the question of guiding the team to achieve the target.  But, the majority of the sales managers or leaders adopt  transactional style of leadership in managing his  sales team.

But, why most of the managers or sales leaders adopt a transactional style of leadership?  Because, it is the most simple and basic leadership style based on the carrot and stick approach of scientific management.  Transactional leadership focuses mainly on rewards and punishments.  The team member is rewarded for achieving the individual target, and punished for non-performance.  Support for the team members are minimal and is limited to periodical performance reviews which give the performance feedback to the concerned team or individual.  In the competitive world as it exists today, any organization aiming to achieve more and grow, cannot ignore the significance of leadership, because it is going to be the single factor which can decide the success or failure of an organization.

The answer to this lies in the fact, excellence is scarce and mediocrity is in abundance. This means,  leaders who can lead a team to achieve the targets where  each individual in the team performs to their best are scarce.  A true leader makes even the least talented member in his team to perform at his best.  For this to happen, he must have the trade know how, people management skills and most essentially the life skills.  Developing a competent sales leader starts right from the recruitment process.  The emphasis should be on educational achievement and trade experience.  Cross industry experience also adds richness to the human capital of the organization.  Making him  to participate  in  various training sessions,  workshops  and seminars by subject experts and  authorities also can enrich his knowledge.  Guiding a team requires much more than managing, because only a knowledgeable person can guide someone else.   A good  leader who can enable  his team members to perform to their best in turn need the support of the senior management.