Leadership Qualities: Walter White Vice President of Sales

I going to share 5 leadership qualities of a poor leader. We can all learn from our good and bad bosses. Most leadership articles refer to the top qualities of successful leaders. Some new sales leaders start new leadership roles and do everything wrong!

The impact of a bad leader is devastating to the business. They create poor engagement of direct reports which filters down through the organization, to turn over, lost business and poor results. Even after the bad leader is terminated the damage is done and it requires a long rebuilding process.

Guess what?

Walter White is your new VP of sales.

Here are some easy to recognize clues that he is on a bad leadership path. If you are Walter’s boss, you need to act quickly. If you report to Walter good luck.

5 Top Leadership Qualities of  Walter White:

1.       Walter Has No Interest in Learning the Business

Walter has come into your organization, and he isn’t focused on learning and understanding the business. He thinks his experience as VP of Sales and Marketing of a “meth lab” is all he needs to know, he was brought in as an expert and he doesn’t need to learn about the business.

He sees no need to understand what has worked well and why the organization is successful. He doesn’t see a reason to get his hands dirty and get out into the field with his salespeople and listen to what they say or suggest.

2.       Walter Will Not Meet With Key Customers

As the VP of sales, key customers would like to know who Walter is and how he is going to take care of them. Customers pay his salary. Many key customers want to be connected to the decision makers in the company.

Walter decides to stay in the ivory tower (his RV) and has no need to show customers the love. Get to know them, understand their goals and concerns. Find out how he can help them. Nah not for Walter.

3.       Walter Hasn’t Bothered to Know His Direct Reports:

His subordinates are bugging him. Yet he sees no need to build a relationship with them. They are there to please him and he is not going to share how he thinks. Who cares, he is not investing any time to get to know them. He doesn’t realise they don’t care what he knows they really want to know he cares. No one told him to reach out and get to know his people. He is definitely not interested in knowing their spouse’s name or children’s ages. Why? Know where they live, what they like, what gets them up in the morning, where they want to go and what their fears are. Why?

4.       Walter Hasn’t Reached Out to His Front Line Sales Managers

The front line sales managers are the backbone of Walter’s sales organization. These are the people who have the biggest impact on communicating change, creating sales rep engagement and ultimately driving sales performance.

Walter doesn’t see the importance of knowing and connecting with his sales managers. They don’t even report to him. The sales managers will do as they are told. They will ensure they implement what we ask. Why gain the sales managers trust? Why meet with them as a group or meet with them individually. Ignore the sales managers, and there won’t be any consequences.

 5.       Walter Doesn’t Believe in Team Building 

Most sales organizations work as a team. Walter hasn’t even made a conscious effort to build a team. Why does he need one? He is the boss!

Why does he need to understand his team’s expectations and how they like to communicate? He is the boss, and they will all align as requested.

Conclusions

There are many other pitfalls that sales leaders and leaders, in general, fall into. As I have learned over the years, do the opposite of what your bad bosses do, and you will be on the right road. As a senior manager, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of connecting with your direct reports, customers, and managers. Want to fail? Merely follow Walter’s leading bad approach.