One of my favorite leadership experts is Doug Lennick. We started working together in 1988 in multiple ways while he was an executive at American Express, and with his own company, Think2Perform. In addition to being a great customer, we have given joint workshops and created a wonderful audio series together.

Doug is an expert on emotional intelligence and has written books on Moral Intelligence and Financial Intelligence. Doug is a wonderful presenter and does so around the world.

I was having lunch with Doug a couple of weeks ago and he delivered one of his thought provoking lines that says so much.  A group had hired him to speak to a group of salespeople. In hearing about what they wanted him to present, he told them he would probably disappoint them. He said the organizers wanted “leadership proof hires“. In other words, they wanted the salespeople to perform even if they did not have good leadership.

Doug explained how that, without good leadership, you can’t expect to have a high performance sales team. In the push for numbers and productivity, it’s easy to forget that good leadership is the primary lever for accomplishing great results.