Hope is a Sales Leadership Strategy (1)

Some psychologists identify hope as an activating force that enables people, even when faced with the most overwhelming obstacles, to envision a promising future and to set and pursue goals.

College break is over and I’m sending two students back to the university. Over break, we had long discussions on the degrees they might pursue based on the needs of the continually shifting global economy and their unique set of gifts, talents and interests. There’s much uncertainty since most of the careers as we know them will be gone in the near future – phased out in favor of new ideas and technologies.

Hope - A Leadership Strategy

Even though many industries are reporting better-than-expected sales and there’s a general sense of hopefulness in small to mid-sized businesses, we know that we’re still facing challenging and uncertain times. The paradox that captures headlines every day is this – the only certainty we seem to be sure of, is that uncertainty has come to stay.

Interestingly, research in the field of Positive Psychology now supports the power of hope. Inspiring Hope actually is an important leadership skill in the New Normal.

Look at it this way – without hope, sales teams fall into a state of status quo. They believe they have no control over anything anymore and they should just wait it out until things get better, i.e. the economy gets better, the competition goes bankrupt or the company management finally gets their act together. Of course, these beliefs sabotage the energy and creativity needed to create a sales team that can consistently win more new accounts.

I can tell you for the lessons I have learned in business as well as growing up on a ranch in North Dakota, where uncertainty was part of our daily lives, ‘waiting for things to get better on its own’, was never an option.

Rather, I was taught a sense of hopeful realism – a reasonable expectation of a good end – neither a misleading hope nor a false despair.

With intentionality, hopeful realism can become a dominant attitude throughout your sales organization.

In our next posting, I’ll share some ideas on how you can harness the true potential from hope and use it as a powerful sales leadership strategy.

SALES GROWTH QUESTION: What are you doing as a Sales Leader, to make sure your team stays both realistic and hopeful at the same time?

SALES GROWTH LESSON: Hope does not sit around waiting for things to get better on its own. Hope takes action to make things happen.