Then the king said to me, “What would you request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. I said to the king, “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.”
Nehemiah 2:4-5
Good leadership can’t exist without strong salesmanship. Leadership is an exercise in persuasion. Persuasion is to salesmanship as influence is to leadership; leadership requires both. Whether you are leading one or leading many, you must develop the skills of salesmanship if you are to become an effective leader. For Nehemiah, he first set up the sale by preparing and positioning before he could close the sale. How did he do this? By leading King Artaxerxes in a way that would give him a favorable response to the requests he would make after the king said “yes” to his first “ask.” Whether you believe God used Nehemiah or Nehemiah on his own used leadership and salesmanship to accomplish God’s plans, both were necessary.
Nehemiah led the king using persuasive leadership. Many things God wants to do through you have a timing element to them, just like opportunities in life. Having emotional intelligence gives you the ability to recognize what is happening in you and around you so you can leverage the feelings in the atmosphere to move people. Taking it a step further, persuasion is the art of moving people from point A to B in a conversation or their behavior. But successfully using emotional intelligence requires the gift of discernment so you can act when prompted to. Engaging God in your plans invites Him to prompt you when it is time to influence and persuade. Consider some of the seasons of persuasive leadership Nehemiah had to discern to be successful.
SEASONS OF PERSUASIVE LEADERSHIP
There is a time to sell yourself and a time to sell others. There is a time to share the vision and a time to keep it quiet.
There is a time to seek God for strategy and a time to execute. There is a time to make an “ask” and a time to refrain from asking. There is a time for allowing buy-in and a time for leaving naysayers behind.
There is a time to pray and wait and a time to stop praying and start acting.
There is a time for pushing your team and a time for celebrating with them.
REFLECT TO CONNECT
- How do you use persuasive leadership (sales and leadership skills) in your day-to-day?
- What do you view as the most important skill when leading others?
- Of the leaders you know that successfully blend sales and leadership skills in their profession, how do they do it?
There must be a persuasive element to your leadership if you want people to follow you. Without sales skills, a leader’s potential is limited.
