What have been your most significant leadership experiences? What challenges did you face,and what impact did you have?

Quarterly, my company’s sales organization selects several project proposals to implement in regional offices as part of the highly selective leadership program. I was thrilled when my request was selected to lead the Warsaw-based European markets through a quarter-long campaign I designed to pitch a new advertising feature.

I arrived expecting the Warsaw sales reps to be prepared to participate in my campaign. Instead, I was met by eight resistant market leads. My leadership program entry would be a very disappointing and public failure if I couldn’t persuade this tenured team to dedicate itself to my campaign.

Having no direct authority over the team, I shifted my approach from delegator to listener. I met with each teammate and discovered pervasive low morale stemming from dissatisfaction that the volume of their core work was interfering with their ability to invest in personal projects.

Hence, I began restructuring my campaign, eliminating superfluous core activities and tailoring the pipeline to satisfy bandwidth constraints. Gradually, I won total commitment. For the duration of the quarter, I reported progress to maintain momentum, celebrated success to elevate morale, and was resolute in minimizing required work.

These tactics proved successful. The team achieved 130% of its revenue target and senior management lauded my trip as the most successful leadership program to date. The campaign continued after I left and was adopted by other global markets.

Additionally, my role on our XYZ team has been marked by continuous leadership experiences. My division is one of eight teams comprising the Team Group (TG), which oversees the sell-side of our Small-Medium-Business sales organization. I was exceptionally junior when I landed this leadership opportunity, making me the youngest-ever female manager and one of two women on its 17-person North American management team. As Team Lead, I’ve worn several leadership hats but none as personally significant as managing the development of my six direct reports.

Our team is unlike other sales teams and its differences have presented interesting challenges. The core work and competencies of our team bear little resemblance to those of the rest of the organization. Thus, I develop people who have vastly different talents, responsibilities and career goals than mine or those of their peers. I’m challenged with finding growth opportunities that showcase their talents and promoting their accomplishments relative to their peers’ in performance calibration meetings.

I’ve managed this by identifying mentors with similar backgrounds who’ve been successful within sales-oriented teams. I’ve made a concerted effort to find leadership opportunities that partner my reports with other sales teams to maximize overall revenue gains. As a result, my reports calibrate ahead of their peers and one recently received the largest-ever rating jump for an Associate on our team.

My experiences in Warsaw and people management demonstrate my ability to Think Bravely. In the former, I believed in an opportunity and inspired my teammates to achieve more than anyone expected. As a manager, I’ve leveraged my reports’ unique skills to build a team of trailblazers who’ve reshaped sales.