The concept of transformational leadership is earning increasing attention in today’s sales landscape. After all, the leaders in your business make a significant difference to how effective and profitable your sales team can be. Leaders don’t just guide short and long-term strategies, they also educate, inspire, and motivate employees on a massive scale.
When leaders are effective in their roles, studies show they can help increase profits by up to 29%. However, it can be difficult to know which leadership theory or style will drive the most benefits for your company. Today, we’re taking a closer look at the concept of transformational leadership in sales, and how it can benefit your sales team.
What is Transformational Leadership Theory?
In simple terms, transformational leadership revolves around inspiring and motivating employees, investing in their performance with a mutually beneficial growth plan. Transformational leaders aim to drive positive change in an organization, delivering intellectual stimulation, personalized support, and inspiration to every employee throughout the sales team.
Much of the success of the transformational leadership style comes from the adoption of a growth mindset. Transformational leaders believe in coaching and encouraging employees in their teams to constantly improve, learn, and experiment.
Notably, transformational leadership theory suggests leaders can exist at various levels of the organization. It’s not just the role of the CEO to guide and empower employees. Anyone can develop transformational leadership characteristics, and use them for the benefit of the wider business.
Leaders throughout various departments, divisions, and teams all have a part to play in ensuring companies can reach their goals.
Transformational Leadership vs Transactional Leadership
Often, transformational leadership is seen as an alternative approach to the traditional, “transactional leadership” style. A transactional leader generally guides team members by setting clear expectations, clarifying performance metrics, and rewarding employees for specific actions.
The biggest difference between transactional and transformational leadership is how leaders motivate their employees to succeed. Transactional leaders focus heavily on the use of rewards and punishments to encourage, or discourage certain actions.
Transformational leaders look at satisfying an employee’s deeper needs. They provide inspirational motivation based on the values and goals of each individual employee. There’s more individualized consideration involved in this leadership style.
Additionally, while transactional leaders can suffer from issues like micro-management as they attempt to drive short-term results, transformational leaders focus on long-term growth. This type of leader becomes a role model for their teams, exemplifying positive behavior.
The Benefits of Transformational Leadership in Sales
In any business landscape, the right leadership styles make a huge difference to a company’s success. Excellent leadership doesn’t just help to keep teams aligned and synchronized, it also improves employee engagement, reduces turnover, and minimizes issues like burnout and stress.
By acting as mentors, role models, and guides for their teams, transformational leaders can bring out the best in their employees. They inspire them to constantly evolve and grow, leading to improved sales performance, and greater collaboration. A transformational sales leader can even help to create the next generation of leaders for a team.
According to the book “Transformational Leadership” by Bass and Riggio, team members led by transformational leaders aren’t just encouraged to participate more actively in achieving goals. They’re also inspired to adopt positive leadership styles themselves.
Some of the biggest benefits of transformational leadership in sales include:
- Improved performance: Although transactional leadership can also help to improve sales performance, people led by transformational individuals are more likely to achieve a wider range of long-term goals. They’re more motivated and inspired by their work, which means they’re more invested in delivering exceptional results.
- Greater employee wellbeing: Transactional leadership styles can often place additional strain and pressure on employees. Alternatively, transformational leaders are often seen as more supportive and empathetic. This can mean team members experience a higher level of wellbeing, with fewer instances of stress and burnout.
- Enhanced company culture: A good leadership style has a direct impact on the overall culture of the company. It makes the work environment feel more supportive and motivational. It can also help to attract qualified candidates to a sales team, in an environment where many companies are struggling to find talent.
Bringing Transformational Leadership to your Team: Top Tips
All leadership styles require practice, strategy, and commitment to get right. Some employees in a sales team will already be naturally equipped to support a transformational leadership experience. People with high levels of emotional intelligence and empathy as well as a growth mindset, tend to thrive as transformational leaders.
If you want to inspire this type of leadership in your business, there are a few tips you can follow to improve your chances of success. For instance:
- Develop a clear vision: Transformational leaders need a clear view of the brand’s positioning, values, and mission so they can help guide other members of the team. A clear vision gives these leaders an insight into what they need to accomplish, and what kind of behaviors or competencies they should be developing in their teams.
- Discover employee motivators: As mentioned above, transformational leaders become a source of idealized influence for their employees and team members, by understanding their unique motivations. They align the goals and visions of the business to the needs of each individual employee, to help boost engagement.
- Cultivate role models: Transformational leaders are essentially role models who inspire and motivate others. They exemplify the kind of behaviors and characteristics that are crucial to a company’s success. The best leaders don’t just tell other employees how to act, they provide a clear vision into what their behavior should look like.
- Encourage learning: For employees to transform and grow in any business environment, they need access to the right development resources. Both leaders and individual employees should have access to learning and educational tools that help them to develop their skills, and improve their abilities on a constant basis.
- Establish trust: Transformational leadership can’t exist in a business environment where trust is diminished. Make sure your team members trust each other, by encouraging regular bonding exercises, as well as consistent and transparent communication. Focus on building a collaborative and communicative workplace.
Transform Your Leadership Strategy
While the transformational leadership strategy might not be the ideal solution for every business, it can deliver a number of benefits to sales companies. As one of the most popular leadership styles available today, transformational leadership focuses heavily on motivation and inspiration.
This method of leadership can bring teams together in a more collaborative and agile environment, where everyone is encouraged to experiment and grow without the risk of punishment. If you want more engaged and happy employees, and you see the value of adopting a growth mindset, the transformational leadership strategy might be right for you.
Learn more about how your leadership strategies can influence and empower your teams today, with expert guidance and gamified training here at HSE.
