As a leader, are you expecting your team to take risks and push the envelope, and yet you are operating quite conservatively? In other words, you don’t take risks and push the envelope? I see this often – the sales leader sets the expectation, encourages their team to take affirmative action, and yet when mistakes are made, instead of celebrating them, they chastise and criticise. It is as if they want the great results, but do not want to go through the ‘process’ in order to get them.

Sales leaders who adopt this approach stifle the growth and development of their team. They build a team of people who second guess themselves, don’t take risks, and seek perfection rather than progress, because of the perceived ramifications of ‘failure’. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, where results are mediocre at best and the team is barely engaged.

Exceptional leaders accept that ‘failure’ is a key ingredient to success.  Without making mistakes, there can be no real progress.