Beyond Business: Leading by Heart

THROUGHOUT MY CAREER, there have been hundreds of opportunities to observe different leadership philosophies. Reflecting on my own management style over the last 10 years, taking a personalized approach has resulted in outcomes beyond my wildest expectations. I lead with my heart first, followed by my gut, and take care to be compassionate and authentic. Making personal connections comes naturally to me, but for those whom it may not, some simple steps can help you build a successful team and much more.

Show with words and actions that you care

When your team believes you care, you begin to build trust. And when you build trust, they will follow. Showing you care about your employees doesn’t mean just guiding them in their professional roles. Learn about their families, passions and personal responsibilities. This has taken on even greater importance since COVID, as people have shifted and rebalanced their focus between work and home. The benefits of making a personal investment in your team brings not only the satisfaction of cultivating strong working relationships, but also the ability to support them through life’s ups and downs. The trust I’ve built with my team enabled us to make a strategic shift into a completely new market a few years ago. With limited experience, we took the leap of faith together and developed many mutually beneficial relationships.

Personal leadership doesn’t have to be limited to your team; it can benefit your customer relationships as well. I took my personal leadership style a step further with our new dealer and upfitter customers. Learning about their needs took a lot of listening, and it enabled us to build a bridge between the challenges of this market and the huge opportunity it offered. We bring our heart and soul quite literally into the business and proudly show our passion with our tagline, “We Love Work Trucks.”

Consider your sales team as VIP clients

At its core, the defining principle I have for our sales team is to hold them in as high regard as we do our top customers. Work every day to find ways of making your people’s jobs easier so they can deliver a higher level of customer satisfaction to make their relationships and results better. Another thing: Never forget that customer relationships belong to the sales reps. My title doesn’t override their ownership of the client relationship. I will coach them, but never go around them. When you empower people with confidence, the more successful and productive they are.

Some simple steps can help you build a successful team.

Find the right people

Ultimately, any leadership style is only as effective as the people it touches, so aligning the qualities and preferences of potential hires that fit your style is a must. With team-focused leadership, the expectation is that they will reciprocate with their own personal commitment and accountability. During the interview process, we talk about aspirations, goals and vision rather than previous work history. Our division has a more entrepreneurial mindset, so we look for team members who are willing to take chances. Most importantly, we look for colleagues whose highest motivation isn’t just compensation, but who want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Have fun with everything you do

The final piece is to encourage people to have fun and enjoy themselves whenever possible. My original inspiration for this was my grandmother, a teacher who would dress in different costumes every day to motivate her students. We play games or tell funny stories during weekly sales team calls, and when meeting in-person, we have snowball fights, go bowling and play laser tag. We have an annual trip to reward the top sales performers. We engage customers with comical appreciation gifts like our “We ♥ Work Truck” socks. They make quite the fashion statement!

Running up that hill

We’ve created a family environment and comradery where we want to win and see everyone succeed. Not only does it make for an enjoyable work experience, but it has shown demonstrable results. Without hard statistics or data, I gave my team the confidence to trust when we entered the work truck sector in 2019. We were going to take that hill and it would be worth it. Three years and $1 billion dollars later, we got to the top of the hill. Now we’re looking for our next hill.