Selling for a Cause at NPR
One thing that the current staff of NPM pride themselves on is their sales success. When NPR hired the current CEO for the branch, they gave her the goal of raising $100 million in sponsorship that year. That was more than double what they had sold the year before so they task seemed almost impossible. As I was sitting in our CEO’s office last week though, she happily announced that she had just received notice of their $110 millionth dollar in sponsorship already for the year, which doesn’t even close until September. One of the most interesting parts about listening to the pride the company shares over reaching such an out-of-reach sales goal, is comparing their change in success to the change in leadership.
I have spent a lot of time with the CEO, Gina, as I am doing some projects under her direct supervision. This has given me the opportunity to sit in on many calls between her, other upper level managers, lower level managers and more junior level employees. One of the things that always peaks my interest is her leaderships style. While the sales industry has a very transactional rewards system, due to commission based pay, Gina has highlighted the importance of supporting NPR’s goal with a sale, instead of the extra income that it brings. People are selling an opportunity to support NPR and align with NPR’s mission, not just any advertising that brings them a pay check.
I’m not entirely sure what the company CEO’s leadership strategy was before Gina arrive a few years back, but what I can say is that her transformational strategy of leadership, providing something to support, rather than a relying on solely transactional reward system, seems to be working much more effectively for the company. They have grown, immensely and are helping NPR grow as well, which shows how essential having an effective leader truly is. Using a combination of transactional, the commission on sales, and providing some transformational leadership as well, leads to a successful team. One reason I think adding transformational leadership has helped NPM, is it may help the team members work together to complete a sale to support NPR, rather than competing for the sales commission. One problem with applying this theory to the situation however, is that while I know Gina’s leadership style involves both transactional and transformational motivations for hard work, I am not entirely sure what was done before she arrived. While it seems her leadership style is quite effective for the company, it is impossible to fully know whether the huge increase in the company’s success is due to Gina’s transformational and transactional mix of leadership or something else about her style
Sounds like it has certainly been a transformational transition between the two different periods of leadership. As you’ll need to dive deep into a theory for the paper you’ll write in the fall, I encourage you in your remaining weeks (though you technically don’t have to blog any more) to think about Gina’s behaviors that illustrate the four main elements of transformational leadership (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration). Should transformational leadership be the theory you want to write about this fall, you’ll need concrete examples that illustrate the various elements. Good to acknowledge that you are missing some data and so you cannot exclusively identify if the combination approach is the key; should consider to ponder that as well as you continue given that you’ll need to also include in the fall paper any instances where the theory you select falls short, etc.