By identifying her best practices, Susan navigated the transitions and leadership growth with uncommon grace, maturity, and steadiness.
Customer Journey Series: Susan
This article is part of a customer journey series following “Susan,” a biotech sales executive navigating rapid organizational growth, leadership pressure, acquisitions, and team scaling.
Each post explores a real coaching conversation or leadership challenge from that journey.
This is the last post in the series.
Over the six months that I worked with her, Susan faced two inflection points at once, taking responsibility for a global team and managing a merger. Almost every week, there was a new leadership challenge she had never seen before.
Relying on good foundational skills, Susan successfully transitioned from regional sales leader to global team leader and organizational stabilizer able to integrate and leverage growth on her expanded team.
It was a huge amount of growth in a short time, and through it all, she stayed emotionally steady and relied on listening to find out what she needed to do next.
Instead of focusing solely on sales numbers, she focused her attention on taking care of her team. The more she took care of her team, the more the team responded and took care of sales numbers. That was as true for managing up as it was for managing down.
She saw the best in everyone and helped everyone grow to be the best they could be.
Five Best Practices for Leadership
Here are five best practices from Susan’s story that anyone can apply to help navigate their own inflection points.
1. Leadership is not about the leader but about the team.
Stop thinking about what you need from people and start thinking more about what they need from you to be successful.
2. When in doubt, listen.
When conversations get tense, listen to project leadership presence. Whether your boss is on a rant, a new colleague is skeptical, or a team member is having trouble, listening earns trust so that people calm down and return to getting things done.
3. Develop leadership skills in others.
Give your best performers leadership opportunities to mentor and develop a network of peer support to help your team grow.
4. Prioritize self-care.
Take care of yourself and encourage your team to rest, exercise, and take breaks so they can be fully present when at work.
5. Self-reflection promotes self-growth.
Take an hour once a week to stop and reflect on what is going right, what is going wrong, and set strategic intentions for moving forward.
By taking time to self-reflect, analyze, and see the situation clearly, Susan navigated the transitions with uncommon grace, maturity, and steadiness.
Continue the Journey
Start from the beginning of Susan’s journey.
Find all the customer journeys here.
