Leadership: the similarities between teaching martial arts and leading a Sales Team.

Are you able to articulate your leadership style?

If you are applying for an external role which requires you to manage people, this is question for which you’d have to prepare.  Alternatively, if you’ve operated for several years within a blue-chip business, you may have moulded your management style to fit the company’s blueprint.

Whilst I no longer assume a management position within the FMCG industry, as a martial arts instructor I must call on leadership skills whenever I teach classes.  And in the last couple of years, I can honestly say that I’ve learned more about leadership on the jiu-jitsu mats than I have in corporate management positions.

In this article I outline 4 similarities between teaching martial arts and leading a sales team.

1. One size doesn’t fit all.

I previously mentioned company blueprints designed to mould its leaders.  If you work for a large enough FMCG business, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with these types of documents containing core competencies that they want their leaders to exhibit.

Whilst these documents can be a useful guide, when companies refuse to promote leaders who deviate from their competencies then in my opinion it creates a lack of diversity in leadership styles.  This creates significant blind spots for the business in the longer-term, which in turn can lead to a decline in overall performance and market share.

A good leader needs to be able to flex his or her style to suit the needs of the student or direct report.  Everyone has different preferences with regards to how they want to be managed or even how they absorb new information.  I have seen it too many times in previous businesses where talented employees have been made to feel hopeless in their role because they struggled to adapt to inefficient processes, and this is a real shame.

The beauty of teaching Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is that everyone can find their own path if they have the right guidance.  Unlike some other traditional martial arts which require their students to follow a syllabus, jiu-jitsu allows greater freedom of expression, and it is an instructor’s job to help students unlock their potential. 

One size doesn’t fit all particularly when you take physical attributes into account.  A tall, slim person will have a different style of jiu-jitsu than a small, stocky person.  A good marital arts instructor will find a way to help both types succeed. 

Consequently, Sales leaders need to find out a way to harness the unique attributes of their team members, rather than force them to become cookie-cutter clones.

2. Prioritize concepts over specific techniques/ methods.

This leads on to my next point around prioritising concepts over specific techniques or methods. 

I have been on a variety of sales and negotiation training courses over a 15-year career in FMCG Sales.  The best courses were the ones which prioritised concepts over specific methods. 

For instance, I went on courses which mapped out step-by-step scripts to sell or negotiate, which I always found impossible to implement in real-life conversations with my customer.  However, the more conceptual courses which allowed you to create your own open-ended questions or craft your own methods to deal with Buyer tactics left more of a lasting impression on me. 

The dynamic of a customer negotiation or sales pitch is one that is fraught with unpredictable twists and turns.  Having a script for these conversations gets thrown out the second your Buyer raises an unexpected challenge.

The same is true of any form of sparring in combat sports.  There are even more variables in a fight compared to a customer negotiation.  Mike Tyson’s famous quote: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” is spot on.

Therefore, I aim to show students concepts, i.e. the reason WHY they should be doing what they are doing.  This then allows them to create their own movement solutions, which are optimal for them.  I believe this is how you achieve peak performance from your students or direct reports.

3. Share as much knowledge to empower your students or direct reports to be better than you.

One thing that I hate to see is when Sales Leaders or martial arts instructors hoard knowledge to slow the progress of their direct reports or students.  This is often a fear-driven action stemming from an insecurity that they may be eventually surpassed by that subordinate.

In my opinion, the goal of a leader is to inspire their subordinate to become better than them.  The ability to stymie the progress of students in jiu-jitsu through withholding knowledge is almost impossible given how much instructional content there now is on Youtube and learning platforms such as BJJ Fanatics.  I have been proud to see students surpass me in ability and knowledge.

However, in the corporate world where clandestine conversations are taking place behind closed doors the practice of purposely holding people back is much more commonplace.

Of course, there will always be confidential information that you simply cannot divulge to employees at a certain pay grade within your company.   However, I remember previously working for a business whose strategy was up in the air.   I was instructed to continually dismiss requests for exclusives and promotions from my customer to the point that they eventually summoned my manager to a meeting. 

In that meeting he gave some insight into the longer-term strategy and appeased them by giving them assurances that they remained a key strategic partner and our business was working on future exclusives just for them. 

After that meeting, he chided me for not speaking up more, but I didn’t feel that I could, given that I wasn’t privy to the information he possessed.  I felt that he could have at least briefed me on some of these points before the meeting instead of riding in on horseback as the knight in shining armour.  This sowed the seeds of distrust, and it eroded our relationship.

4. When having to dish out constructive feedback make sure you have as much evidence as possible to support your position.

This one is obvious, but when dispensing constructive feedback make sure that you have evidence to support your point of view.  I’ve probably had more of these types of conversations as a martial arts instructor due to students being dissatisfied with missing out on belt promotions.

I try to give them feedback on where they can develop as well as an action plan to help them plug those knowledge gaps.  Thankfully the vast majority of these conversations have been positive thus far.

As an Account Manager I also responded best to constructive feedback when examples of my mistakes were cited, and SMART action plans were co-created to help me address my development areas.  I always appreciated the honesty from my managers who took that approach, and I left those conversations feeling more motivated than ever.

How building Mental Fitness can help you become a better leader.

Building the core muscles of Mental Fitness will give you the tools needed to become the best leader you can be.  By connecting with your most important values, it will allow you to find your authentic leadership style, not the cookie-cutter manager your business wants you to be and be more inspirational and influential as a result.

As is true of any lasting habit change, this takes at least 6-weeks of intense work.  If you are interested in this game-changing program then take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and then book a free 30-minute coaching call with me at https://www.expcoaching.co.uk/ to find out more!