If you read this week’s selling effectiveness article (https://go.sellingeffectiveness.com/LI.10.28.PM) then you know that the number one sales success trait mindset/behavior is Openness.

But what does that mean for you – the sales manager, team lead, shift lead, director, executive?

We will discuss each trait, one at a time, from the perspective of you – in yourself, and for what you are looking for and wanting to encourage in your team.

The Critical Role of Openness for Sales Leaders

With Openness being the first and most important one, let’s talk about you. Why is this important for you as a sales leader?

For the same reason that its critical for your team to have a mindset of Openness. If you aren’t open, as a leader, then you won’t want to listen or do what your leadership is asking of you. It usually comes in the form of resistance to change.

The new CRM, phone system, reporting process, pricing structure, marketing content, etc.

Old Habits and the Comfort Zone Trap

Maybe this is a holdover from when you were a salesperson, before you got promoted. Then the company moved you up the org chart for some of the skills and the success you had in the role but unfortunately you brought with you a low level (or lack of) Openness. More of an attitude of: I know how to be successful.

And that is a fair point and makes sense from a survival standpoint.

Most sales leaders were once salespeople. They were in a group/cohort of others, many of which they watched fail and leave the team and/or company. Only a few made it, figuring out how to succeed enough to keep going. Once you find something that works, you don’t want to change it. Especially if what you did worked while what others did failed.

Comfort Zone vs. Openness: What’s Holding You Back?

This survival formula will then set the edges of the comfort zone for that salesperson promoted up to leadership. “Here is how I did it. This seems to be the key to success. I don’t want to try anything different. That could lead to me failing and losing my job. I want to keep doing what I have always done.” Unsaid part: “My ego and identity (and probably my budget/lifestyle) is wrapped up in my success in sales – and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

That is not Openness. That is very much a closed-minded approach.

The comfort zone might be bigger and give the illusion of success, but it’s still a limiting comfort zone.

As I have written about before, organizations much evolve. Customers, markets, economies, governments, competition, technology is constantly in flux, which means you must always be in a state of evolution.

That is why Openness is the first one of the Sales Success Traits. As a leader if you are not open to change or new ideas, you will stay stuck. You might even try to defend the status quo as a way to protect you and your team – since you might view change as something that will ‘break’ what is currently working enough. Enough for you and your team to get paid, even if the company is actually losing.

Openness is being in the here and now and having a growth mindset. I read something interesting about Elon Musk – that you never hear him say “Back when I was at PayPal.” You hear him say “When we get to Mars.” A sure sign that a leader is not completely open is when they constantly refer to their past jobs/roles/life in reference to what should be done now. Bringing in some of that experience can be good, but not as the main anchor to where the current organization should be headed.

Self-Reflection: Do You Have a Mindset of Openness?

Do you have a mindset of Openness?

Are you willing to objectively listen to what the company needs to do or from you as a leader, and then do you honestly give it all you can to implement it?

Or do you resist it – internally and/or externally?

Do you tell your leadership team that you will do “it” (Whatever “it” is), but then to your team you either give the change lip service or tell them to ignore it as long as possible?

A Cautionary Tale: When Openness is Lacking in Leadership

I once had a Sales Manager who would agree to rolling out changes, but then with his team – when leadership wasn’t around – would tell them to disregard the required change and that he would buffer leadership from the team as long as possible. His view was that any/every change being made would lead to less sales results, which would mean his team wasn’t making money. Of course that would mean he wasn’t getting paid, but more so his loyalty was to the team and their happiness.

That lack of Openness to the changes required – some for compliance reasons, some to increase selling effectiveness – leads to the whole team and company suffering.

The Choice to Embrace Openness for Success

Again, do you have a mindset of Openness?

If the answer is no…or sorta…or it could be better…then the next question is: do you want to be successful?



If that answer is Yes (and hopefully a Hell Yes!), then you can develop a mindset of Openness. It can be learned. You don’t have to be born with that – or any – mindset.