In every leadership role, one fact remains non-negotiable: the way you lead directly determines whether your teams deliver sustainable growth or not, whether your team will thrive or struggle.
Sales is not just about numbers on a dashboard. Strategy, process, and technology all matter, but people make the difference. At scale, your leadership style becomes the multiplier (or limiter) of your team’s performance.
Strategies matter, processes matter, but how you lead will always influence whether those strategies succeed. When I shifted my focus from simply managing results to leading with intent, I noticed a dramatic change in how my sales unit delivered.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to share my experience with other leaders about what it really takes to drive growth through sales and how managers can build teams that are both productive and resilient.
Here are five leadership principles that transformed how my teams performed:
1. Communicate Vision, Not Just Targets
It’s tempting to throw out numbers and expect people to deliver. But numbers alone don’t inspire.
Before I assign a target, I make sure my team understands the bigger picture: why the target matters, how it connects to the company’s growth, and what role they play in achieving it.
When people see the “why,” the work becomes personal. Hitting a target shifts from being “the company’s win” to “our win.” That shift builds ownership, and with ownership comes motivation.
Practical takeaway: Don’t just say “Here’s your quota.” Show how hitting it helps the whole team and organisation move forward.
2. Master the Art of Active Listening
Salespeople are trained to listen closely to customers. You listen to their words, nonverbal cues and uncover those needs they have not even verbalised: The same applies to leadership.
As a manager, you need to listen with intention: not just to hear concerns, but to spot opportunities. For example, one of my team members once pointed out inefficiencies in how we tracked leads. As soon as they broke down the gap they had detected, I reviewed that particular process, and we ended up redesigning: that course correction saved us from an inefficient system.
When people feel genuinely heard, they become more engaged and more committed.
Practical takeaway: Don’t just wait for your turn to speak. Ask questions, listen deeply, and act on what you learn. Also, encourage your team members to speak out.
3. Balance Accountability with Support
High-performing teams thrive on clarity and ownership, not micromanagement.
As a manager, it’s your job to set clear expectations and then provide the support needed to meet them. This means:
Explaining how each person’s role contributes to the bigger goals.
Being clear about rewards and consequences.
Giving your team a safe channel to share strategies or challenges, and offering guidance when needed.
Encouraging autonomy, so people can make decisions and grow.
When accountability and support work together, you create an environment where people take ownership and push themselves to succeed.
👉 Practical takeaway: Hold your team to high standards, but back them with the tools, resources, and trust they need.
4. Build a Culture of Curiosity and Continuous Learning
Sales is constantly changing: new tools, new customer behaviors, evolving customer requirements, new competition. If you keep using yesterday’s strategies, you will lead your team to redundancy.
I train my managers to remain curious, try out new approaches, and learn continuously. For instance, when we adopted a new sales automation tool, I made it a point to test it with the team and show how it could reduce manual work. Within weeks, adoption skyrocketed because curiosity and learning were already part of our culture.
👉 Practical takeaway: Create space for your team to experiment, share lessons, and explore new technology.
5. Lead with Empathy
Empathy in leadership doesn’t mean being “soft.” It means understanding your team’s challenges and guiding them through with clarity and confidence. Your can be firm and empathetic, these two words are not mutually exclusive.
I’ve found that incorporating empathy helps me inspire trust in my team members. And when people trust you, they’ll follow you through tough targets and difficult quarters.
👉 Practical takeaway: Show your team you’re invested in their success, not just their output. That builds the loyalty and collaboration needed for long-term results.
Overcoming Challenges: The Reality of Leadership
No leadership journey is smooth. I’ve faced moments when:
Motivation across the team dipped.
Targets looked unreachable.
Competitors gained an edge.
In those moments, my role wasn’t just to push harder. It was to reframe these setbacks as learning opportunities and build a strategy to overcome these setbacks. I often share my own past mistakes with my team: not to excuse failure, but to show how to bounce back stronger.
Encouraging a growth mindset and focusing on solutions helped us keep momentum even in tough times.
👉 Practical takeaway: Don’t shy away from failures. Use them as teaching moments and opportunities to build resilience in your team.
What Next? Invest in People
If you’re managing a team today, remember this: processes and tools can only take you so far. People deliver the results.
Improve your communication skills.
Balance firmness with empathy.
Practice active listening.
Create a culture of continuous learning.
The Bottom Line
Sales success is not just about chasing numbers. It’s about practicing genuine leadership.
That sometimes means making tough calls, even when you’d rather be liked. Many new managers struggle here but real leadership is about making those decisions that will help your team succeed long-term, not just in the moment.
Do your team members see your targets as their goals too? If not, that’s your first leadership challenge to solve.
Isoken Aigbomian is a consummate professional who serves as Regional Sales Manager, Enterprise Network Sales Division at Moniepoint Inc
