HBR Presents

I'm Yario Wilkins and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Presents Network.

I'm a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful

leaders who've hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying

their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that hopefully they can lead with a little

more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show, we have a one-time

coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing.

Today's guest is someone will call Alex to protect his confidentiality. He's been working in a sales-driven retail sector

for over a decade. So I started at the bottom and stuck with the same company for six years,

slowly working my way up that food chain and ended up in a general sales manager role, which in our industry is commonly the second person in command in any one division.

A few years ago, Alex was given the opportunity to lead a division and he significantly increased its revenue.

That success led him to take over

an even bigger division about a year ago, where he now holds an executive role. It involves a very

different skill set than what helped him rise up the ranks in the first place. Almost all of the

entry-level positions in this industry are individual production based, commission

based.

What happens a lot is people get really good at earning for themselves.

And the first typical one, two, three steps up the ladder of hierarchy are still individual

production, just producing different results

with different products, different people. And a big point of failure in our industry, or at

least in my opinion in our industry, is when you get to the level when you're a manager of people,

but all up until then, you've been only responsible for your own production.

...