Leadership - it's all Greek to me

"Leadership is influence." - John Maxwell

Of all the definitions that I have come across about leadership, this is the simplest one.

We usually overlook the simplest answers to questions in life due to our tendency to look for complex and convoluted answers.

Leadership is influence - over oneself and others.

When I interview a candidate for a role in the people practices function, I ask this question, "Why HR?" and the typical answer is, "I have discovered, while doing my MBA or MSW or whatever, that I have a flair for interacting with people and hence I chose a career in HR."

Then I ask them, "If you have a flair for interacting with people, why didn't you consider a role in the sales function?"

They squirm in their seats and display a horrified expression: "Me? In sales? No way."

I wonder: Are they rejecting a career in sales because they truly think that it does not 'measure up to their standards' or because they dread the prospect of facing rejections day in and day out!

In my view, sales is one of the most foundational professions.  I would even go to the extend of calling it a noble profession.  It is demonstrating leadership - of influencing people.

We are selling one thing or other all the time - from the parent trying to influence the child to eat nutritious food to the preacher trying to influence people to believe in their version of God.

If it is so, then why do people have such a low impression of a career in sales?

It is because of the way it is practiced.

Sales profession accepts people from all background without any entry barriers.  Many of them come with faulty paradigms about this profession.  They have been programmed to believe that they have to sell their products or services to their customers one way or other, i.e., by hook or by crook. And that's where the trouble begins.

Whenever someone announces proudly, "I can sell anything to anyone - from a pin to a plane.", I flinch and wonder: "Is this person a sales professional or a con artist!"

I have observed that this approach is practiced in other leadership roles too.

And that's when I came across these Greek words in the book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey:

Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

Ethos is character.

People are more likely to be influenced by leaders who they like and trust.

Without both these character traits, it is very difficult to influence people on a voluntary and sustainable basis; likeability increases the width of the influence and trustability strengthens the depth of the influence.

While both are important, to be trusted is more important than to be liked.  Eventually, the person who is trusted will also be liked.

Pathos is consideration.

People are more likely to be influenced by leaders who understand their needs and aspirations.

Once, 27 years ago, when I was under consideration for a larger role within the organization that I was part of, my manager threw a pen on the table and asked me to sell it to him.  Initially, I hesitated; he insisted.  Then I flatly refused.  I told him that I don't sell like that; that's not my approach to selling.  In spite of this touchy episode, I was chosen for that role.

Much later in life, in some of my workshops, I request participants to pair up and ask one of them to sell a pen to the other.  Suddenly, the whole room comes alive with people talking, all at the same time.  After patiently observing them for about three minutes, I stop them and ask this question: between the two, who was the one who spoke most of the time?  It was always the seller.  Then I ask the seller: before you started selling the pen, did you find out whether the other person is in the market for a pen?  Whether the person needed a pen at all and if yes, whether the person is happy with the existing pen and if no, which aspects of the existing pen is the person not happy about?  Or which aspects is this person looking for in a potential alternative?  The answer has always been no.

That's another misconception about selling: people think selling is all about talking or convincing.  It is not; selling is asking the right questions and listening.

Listening holistically.

There is a tendency for people to express socially acceptable needs and aspirations in most casual conversations.  Only when someone listens to them holistically or empathically, they truly open up and share their deep and inherent needs and aspirations.

Logos is conviction.

People are more likely to be influenced by leaders who pass on their conviction.

People are ready to listen holistically to the leader who they like and trust and who understands their needs and aspirations.

To develop conviction, the leaders need to:

• know their stakeholders really well - their inherent needs and aspirations, their challenges and opportunities.
• know the solution that they have really well - technical, conceptual, strengths and shortcomings.
• know that the solution that they have is truly the right solution for their stakeholders.

Only then, they are ready to pass on their conviction to their stakeholders.

If the solution that they have is not the right solution for their stakeholders, they need to have the ethos to disengage.

Ethos, Pathos and Logos are sequential - in that order.

While I have taken demonstrating leadership in sales profession to delve deep on this principle, these insights are equally applicable to any other leadership roles.