Ron Marks

As modern day sales leaders, we should always praise our sales teams in public and give them critical feedback in private. I recently experienced one of the worst cases of a leader abusing the position of manager by calling out one of his sales people in front of the entire team. Yet he did not do this in the way that most people think of when they think of “public criticism.”

A member of the sales team was being asked to account for their activity in their sales territory. Almost to the point of “double secret probation” (Animal House fans will recognize the term) the leader was constantly asking for detail on sales calls, appointments and this person’s general whereabouts. By the end of the week this particular sales person was fed up with the big brother approach and finally decided enough was enough and threw up the white flag and resigned. The leaders’ response was a simple “Good Riddance” as if that was the objective all along. (more…)