This episode features a profound discussion on the evolving nature of leadership, as articulated by Jim LeDane, a seasoned sales veteran with over four decades of experience. Jim emphasizes the significance of servant leadership, a philosophy that prioritizes the empowerment and upliftment of team members, rather than the mere exercise of authority. He reflects on his personal transformation from a more authoritarian style to one characterized by empathy and active listening, underscoring the critical role of engagement in fostering a productive team environment. Furthermore, Jim shares anecdotes that illustrate the importance of humility in leadership, as well as the value of continuous learning in refining one's approach. Ultimately, this episode serves as a compelling reminder that true leadership lies in the ability to inspire and cultivate the potential within others.

Links referenced in this episode:

• salesxceleration.bullseyelocations.com/salesxceleration/advisors/jim-ledane/35586718
• LeaptoYourSuccess.com

Takeaways:

• Jim LeDane emphasizes the evolution of his leadership style from a more aggressive approach to a focus on servant leadership, understanding the importance of uplifting others.
• He stresses that true leadership is about caring for those you lead, fostering an environment where individuals feel valued and motivated to follow.
• A key insight shared is the necessity for leaders to listen actively, as this enhances engagement and makes team members feel heard and appreciated.
• LeDane reflects on the importance of humility in leadership, recognizing that celebrating team success should be done sensitively to avoid alienating others who may be struggling.
• He discusses the value of learning from every interaction, suggesting that every person has something to teach, which enhances the leader's growth.
• Finally, Jim highlights the importance of understanding different perspectives in leadership roles, particularly when working with individuals from diverse professional backgrounds.

Jim LeDane, a seasoned sales leader with over four decades of experience, shares profound insights into the evolution of his leadership style throughout his illustrious career. He reflects on his early days characterized by a more authoritarian approach, where he often resorted to aggressive tactics to elicit results. However, his transition to a philosophy of servant leadership marked a pivotal moment in his professional journey. Through anecdotes of personal experiences, he illustrates the importance of caring for team members, fostering their growth, and creating an environment conducive to collaboration. LeDane emphasizes that true leadership is not merely about exerting authority but about empowering others to succeed, thus creating a cohesive team that strives towards common goals. This transformation, he notes, was catalyzed by a realization of the significant impact that a leader's demeanor has on team morale and productivity. As he recounts instances from his career, he underscores the necessity of humility and self-awareness, which allow leaders to connect meaningfully with their teams. Beyond the mere mechanics of sales, LeDane advocates for a leadership style that prioritizes empathy and active listening, recognizing that such qualities are essential for effective communication and engagement in any organizational setting.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight - Welcome

Welcome to the podcast

Hello everybody and welcome to the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight where we hear from amazing influential leaders and their game changing insights. I'm Jaclyn Strominger, your host and today I want to welcome to our show Jim LeDane.

And he just told me he's actually a lot more German, which is great. I got some of those great ancestors and ancestry backgrounds as well. Whatever. I can't speak today, but let me tell you a little bit about, about Jim.

He is a 41 year sales veteran with a 36 year history in excellence in sales management and building sales teams.

And he has had amazing experiences in his life including meeting great movers and shakers in various roles, selling wine across the United States, visiting most of the places where grapes are grown and wine is produced. And we have that in common. Although I don't think Jim, I don't think you've come out to Reno yet to visit my winery.

So he has a wealth of knowledge and in that knowledge of sales and what he has done, leadership has been a huge part of that. So welcome Jim to the Unstoppable Leadership podcast. Great to have you.

Thank you very much, Jaclyn. I appreciate you having me on and I appreciate the chance to share my story.

Yeah. So speaking of your story.

So I love to, I love it when people you know as, as somebody with your experience, you know from sales with wine and the background that you've had. Leadership is a huge part of, of the journey.

So if you could share a little bit about the journey and how you became the, the sales leader that you, that you became and how, and I can say, or what influenced your leadership style.

Well, I, I would say that that's always a changing sort of environment, being a leader and learning how to be a leader. I will say that I'm a much different leader today than I was 36 years ago when I started.

I was the kind of guy then that would overturn tables and chairs and pound my chest and probably a little bit different style back in those days too. And then I had the fortunate occasion of moving out west where I learned all about servant leadership.

And I think the thing that a true leader does is that he cares about the people that he is leading. You can't have leaders without followers.

And if you build people up and make them to be leaders themselves, your life becomes a lot easier as a leader and you have people following you. And to me that is the critical part of how you approach leadership.

It's funny, today I was with a client in my new role and we talked about how we would change his salesforce. And I talked about culture and I talked about servant leadership.

And I think those things, people being lifted up by the boots is more so much than just somebody doing being a leader for the sake of being an ego, having an ego. And I think that exists too much in corporate America today.

And people tend to measure their self worth based on where they are in the organizational chart and not really taking a critical look about how they are as a leader.

Yeah, you know, and that's, it's true.

I think, you know, the, sometimes the name on our business card or the name on the door means more, you know, means more than what they're actually doing. But then, you know, you have to take back a step back and look at, you know, how, how do you act as a leader?

Well, well, for me, at one time in my life, the great realization came up as I counted the number of people who were in leadership positions across the company that I worked for. At the time we had 13 selling divisions. I managed two of them. Fortunately, there were 11 people that managed the other 11.

And 10 of those folks at one time or another were on one of my teams somewhere along as I went up in the organization. And that's when I realized that that's something to be proud of.

It's a huge thing to be proud of. Huge. Like, well done.

That's, I mean, what you are, just what you're sharing is, it's so important because you're creating and fostering leadership among the people that are, that, that are on your team and you're helping them rise up.

Which, exactly.

Which is something that I think that a lot of, you know, there's, that is something that, you know, if you're listening, if you can do that for your team, that is the quintessential part of being a leader. It's helping other people rise up.

Aptly put on, on the platform that we're on. Aptly put.

Right.

So, so you, you share that you were, that, you know, you were, you know, maybe turning tables and kind of the, the, the fighting kind of person or maybe more of the dictatorish person. At one point in your leadership style, what made you become more of a servant leader?

Well, some of it came from watching some of the people around me. There's an old saying that if you walk around with a hammer in your hand, everything's a nail.

And we've all been around those people that they have one tool. I'm not saying there's never a time when you hold people accountable. I think how you hold people accountable has changed, I think.

Now you ask questions and you think about training and then you think about everything being a learning situation.

But I mainly from watching people around me and also from the realization one day that at a very young time in my career that my team didn't like me very much.

And then you don't get the same kind of production out of people who don't like you and don't want to follow you that you get when you have people who are motivated to follow you and want. And the other concept of that is I think you could see leadership and I really hate the comparison to sports, but so I'm going to use the word teams.

I think you see leadership in teams that are successful because everybody's rowing the boat in the same direction. And that's what strong servant leadership does. It gets everybody rowing the boat in the same direction.

It eliminates the silos of the, of the other places that the other departments that you work with around you, they want to be with you. They want to be, be uplifted as well. And so they are. You're.

If you're building a team of people that have that value of uplifting and being servant leaders, then they're going to. That's, that's, that's, that is, that is, that's catchable. That, that's, you know, it's like Covid, you get it. But it's good. Covid.

Right, right, right. It's a good thing to have. Right. It's a good thing to latch on to. So, you know, something that you just share, shared.

You know, it's, it's that, that mentality of, you know, being part of the team and catching that and, and want to be part of that, you know, is, I think it's so important. And you, but you also said, you know, you learn at one point your team didn't like you're the people that you didn't. They didn't like you.

So how do you say, or what is like an insight to help some people or to help a leader today go from the maybe not liked so much to being that likable leader to create that team environment that has everybody working together.

Jaclyn, let me ask you a question. Would you rather talk or listen?

Well, listening.

Well, a lot of people like to talk.

And if you realize that the other person you're talking to probably likes to talk and you spend more time listening, you're going to increase engagement and you're going to increase their, their sense of self worth. They feel like, they're being heard, and they are being heard, and that adds value. And you know what? There's another thing that I.

I'm going to tell a story from very young in my career. I mean, I was a trainee. I was carrying a bag. I was 22 years old. I just somehow or another got this job selling wine. I'm 22. I could barely.

I could barely buy it, right? And I show up to the guy training me, and I happened to wear. I happened to be wearing one black shoe and one brown shoe.

Not the best look of all time. Then I also gave the guy the wrong place for me to meet him. You know, Mike, if you're out there, sorry.

We eventually found each other, and then he noted that I had one brown shoe and one black shoe, and. And then there was a spot in my tie, and I, I immediately started to apologize. Here I am my first year, and I'm, you know, and I'm here.

I'm blowing it in the first couple of weeks, and he looks at me and he goes, you know, Jim, I have never spent a single day with another person where I didn't learn something. Now, his lesson for that day for me is that he learned that I was colorblind or I dress in the dark, which could very well be true at that time.

But I think if you take that approach when you are engaging with others, whether it be in a work or home environment, that they have something to teach you and you can learn something from them, and then you can apply that something to your life to make your life better. And, And I think that that's. I think that has value, you know?

Well, you. That is a beautiful story. And it's, It's. It is amazing to learn and, and to take that.

And I, I have to share, you know, today in some of my conversations with some other people on the podcast, we've talked about learning about being able, you know, lead. You know, it's like, learn, lead, lead, learn, learn. You know, it's like you.

You learn something, you can lead, then you lead, and then you learn, and it's. You're always going back and forth. There's that dance and, and the leadership or the leader who is open to always be learning.

I think it's probably has a different mentality and mindset.

Well, and having worked with managers, hope none of you are watching, but of course it isn't you if you are.

We all, we don't name names, donate.

Having had managers in my career that, that, that, that were. Were more based on Telling you what they believed and trying to get you to be more like their mold than being yourself.

Because the other thing you learn when you learn is you learn what's unique about that person, and that creates. And then you.

Then you.

Then you acknowledge that difference, and that creates something called engagement.

Yeah.

And again, engagement is that thing that makes everybody row the boat in the same direction, like I mentioned earlier.

Right.

And that's. And we all, as humans, all need that kind of value added to, you know, we need. We need to have that value. Every single one of.

I'll give you an example about how that's important in life in general. My son was with a. When he was in high school, was with a. With. On a date with a girlfriend.

And her father and a gentleman came into a place and he wanted to.

Wanted to work a vending machine and he didn't have the money, and he's dropping money on the floor and he's getting on his hand, and the girlfriend's father was all upset that this gentleman was in this establishment because he didn't belong there. My son casually gets up, helps him with his change, and helps him buy what he wanted out of the vending machine.

In that role, that father thought he was a leader, but the real leader, by accepting somebody else and identifying their value in that sense was my son. My son is 28 years old today, and he's a manager at a major company in the United States. And I think.

And that's where using this leadership in your daily life adds value to the most important people that you're around every day.

So I think it's something that you have to always be aware of and always be aware of where your place is if you're going to assume a leadership role at all. And I'll say there are times in our lives when all of us do it one time or another.

Yeah, We. We have to. I think it. And I think that actually is something that. It's a great story because I think it's also. It's eye opening and.

And so it's a little bit to remember that we're all human and to show empathy for other people. What, what that does for somebody else lifts them up. It's a. It's those, you know, a daily act of kindness or something to support somebody else.

What it shows you as a person and of your. And your values and. And what matters to you.

And then if you show that same type of kindness to the people that you are leading and that are in your charge, they're Going to want to be around you.

And I. Not. Not to.

I think one example of that that I just saw recently on television was, I don't know if you know the story about Veronica in the Bible touching Jesus through the crowd, and she's apologizing and apologizing and apologizing. And of course, he immediately accepts her and builds her up.

I mean, by touching one thread on his cloak, knew that she would be healed and was embarrassed that she did that. And then. But he immediately accepted. And I think that's a.

I mean, given the context, it's obviously a very good lesson to learn, but it's not just a lesson to learn from a Christian or religious standpoint, but from just how you treat other people standpoint.

Right. It is. It's so important. So, Jim, you've had such an amazing career.

You're helping people right now in sales and processes and helping them grow companies. What. What is something, you know, what is like one time in your, you know, journey in your career where maybe something didn't go the way that it.

That you had planned or where you were. You're just like, wow, like that one instance really made you change.

Jaclyn. Of course, that never happened, but I'll try to make something up on the run here. I would say that I haven't.

I haven't always been as detail oriented as I wanted to be. And I think that that's. That, you know, that's something that.

And I think about an experience I had where I had just built a new sales team in my W2 life, as we like to call it. And I got back to that where I kind of got a little caught up in myself and got up and became a little brash about it. And I was also some.

And I just built this new team and we were having a massive amount of success. And I think that I let my pride get to me and I went around to the other people in the company and I was kind of showing off how successful we were.

Well, of course we were successful. We were in an environment where we never had engaged before. We were in a channel that we never had engaged before.

The expectation for us to be successful was logical. Everybody else is struggling because of the economy that they're around, and they had already built and had rather mature organizations.

And my place in that environment was not a very good spot at that time. And when I learned, when I built my next organization.

What I learned was, is just to celebrate within that team and to really be really be aware of how the people that are around you might be struggling. And rather than showing off and doing the touchdown dance in the field, I think sometimes there's a time to be a little more humble and a time to.

And to. Time to remember that everybody has times in their lives when little bumps hit the road. The client this morning need a bump on the road.

So the client this morning, and we were talking about engaging and we started talking about invariably the most tough conversation anybody has eventually comes about fees and money. And there's a comfortable way to handle that situation.

I said, look, I'm going to get more joy out of watching your success than I'm going to get out of any kind of money you give me. That's why we do the things we do. If we do them just for money, there's no joy.

Not to be trite, but the old adage that he who does what he loves never works a day in his life.

And just watching this young man who has this immature business with a ton of opportunity and being able to say to him that going to enjoy watching your success, that again, it's about creating value in him. Because now my approach to him is not, this is the guy coming in here to tell me what to do, which is practically what I'm going to do.

But he knows that the reason we're doing that is for. Has a. Has an outcome for him that is positive.

Right? You know what?

So I love that story, Jim, because that's, you know, sharing that time when you learned that maybe you were a little bit, you know, boastful, your pride and your, like that show off of, of your success and realizing how, how it had that impact on other people and how that you could then say, you know what, you know, yeah, let's celebrate it internally. But I love that. But maybe there's some other people that might want to catch what we're doing and how can I help them?

And I think that's something that, as a leader, whether you're, I mean, obviously if you're a leader of the company, you want to catch that momentum with all of your teams. But to have somebody who is leading a team to look at another team and think like, okay, we're having success, but we're still with the same company.

So even though we're not maybe in the direct team, we're still in the same. We're still in the same boat. And how do we make sure that we can help them.

I think it's finding a humble way to. Humble way to share it. On the platform I work with, there is a lot of servant leadership.

It's one of our core values, and it comes back to that servant leadership again.

And if you use that and are conscious of that every day, it's not easy to do, because we're all human and we all have pride, and we are proud of what we do, and there's nothing wrong with that. You should be. But it's how you present that and how you. How you interact with other people doing that, I think that has that showing that pride.

I think that's what. I think that's where you. An awareness that keeps you adding value to the people around you, which in turn adds value to yourself.

Yeah, no, that's true. So where. So where are you now in your journey? And what is one area that you're. That you feel that you might need to work on?

Because we're always learning.

Well, obviously, if you look at me and you can see that in my journey, I'm getting toward a place where maybe someday I want to be on a beach with a Mai Tai. But. But again, I also am not sure when that's going to be. I know that. I know that the value that I have now is helping others, I think. And that is.

I mean, even if I get. You do a lot of networking when you're. When you're. That's how we met Jaclyn. You do a lot of networking when you.

When you do these kinds of fractional things. And. And you provide those services. And I every now and then run into people who need coaching, and. And I.

I know someone else that can't help but be a very good coach, because my interview interviewer has a very good coach to me in the short time that we've known each other. And she can't help doing it. It's nothing. It's just. She just can't help doing it. And that's great because that's.

That's exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about. She's lifting people up. They're rising up. And. And I think that. Well, I. I think that the thing that I need to do now more is I need to. I need to find.

I need to be more refined about that attention to detail. I got to remember that other people don't always understand what I'm trying to tell them if I'm not paying attention to that detail.

I also need to become in the wine world we are the least technical consumer goods company in the history of mankind.

Data and analytics is not something that is very good in that industry, which is probably now, if you look up how it's performing, is probably not a mystery as to why that's going on. Leaders in that world aren't really trained that way.

I need to become more aware of that and more and adjust myself and the way I manage things by becoming more aware of the data and technical things in this world. I think that all happens to us when we get to be 48 or 49, like I am.

Right. Well, you have to. Yeah, you have to look at the, you have to look at the results and the data. Data. Data is so important. It really is.

I mean, in, in network, in direct marketing, where I, my, my journey started, it was the numbers. You know, you had to look at the numbers of your, the direct mail packages that were going out the door.

You're spending over a million dollars on something, and you want to make sure that you're going to get a certain return on your investment of the mail that you're sending out and making sure. But you have to look at the data. You can't just, you can't just pick something out of the blue and not test.

There's certain things you have to go through that you learn, and you have.

To also realize that the things that you've learned are different than the person across the table from you. Very rarely am I sitting with other people that have been involved in sales their whole lives like I have been.

I mean, my last two meetings were with engineers. I could no sooner think about doing their job than.

And not understanding that Most companies under $100 million don't even give their people quotas that line up with what their goals are. They don't. They don't. They don't.

They don't compensate their people in a way that keeps them motivated and keeps them moving forward and keeps them, Keeps their eye on the prize.

They don't do some of the team things that you and I have talked about in this conversation, the realization that those things don't happen because that person's an engineer and that's not what they've been trained to do their entire life. They did the hard part. They had the idea. That's probably not going to come from me, Jaclyn.

The idea is probably not going to be what I come up with. But what I can do and what I can do for the, for, for the people I serve is that I can put the things that I've done my entire life.

Those systems that seem to me that they are completely. There's no other way to do it. It's, it's learning that you have to learn that, that there's a difference there.

It's, it's, it's a matter of perspective and learning to understand that other perspective is something that I'm challenging myself to do right now.

That's great. I like that. I really like that. So, Jim, I could talk to you forever and keep talking to you, but I want to.

And I so appreciate your time today and taking the time to share your insights with our audience because you've got a wealth of information and knowledge. So please share with our audience how people can connect with you, find you, use your services, you know, hire you.

Well, there's several, there's several places you can do that. You can, you can, you can look me up on LinkedIn. That's probably the best place to find me. You can reach out for me there.

I'm, I'm very open to accepting people's reaches on LinkedIn. You can. There's a website that's kind of complicated, but I'd say the LinkedIn is probably the best way.

Perfect. Well, Jim, thank you so much for being a guest.

And if you have any sales challenges, leadership, please reach out to Jim today or tomorrow, look him up on LinkedIn, send that request and send him an email. And I appreciate you being here. I am Jaclyn Strominger your host, the of the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast.

If you also are a leader and you have a great story to share, please go to my website, LeaptoYourSuccess.com and go to the podcast section and fill out the application because we would love to hear your story and your insights and we want to help make all leaders rise up and be unstoppable. So thank you.

Thank you.