Describe a professional experience that required you to influence people. What did this experience teach you about working with others. How will it make you a better leader?

When I transitioned to Princeton Review (PR) and became a manager of more than 200 representatives at 13 schools, I inherited a territory that previously had two separate managers and multiple issues. Jared, the prior manager for half the territory, switched to a competitor company, but still retained loyalty from PR’s more senior representatives. Many of Jared’s representatives were unwilling to do tasks I assigned and would crowd around his new table at sales events instead of bringing students to PR. I knew that to successfully manage this team, I needed to earn respect and loyalty from all of my employees. I first worked to build rapport with my representatives, creating team activities, such as regular meetings and trivia nights, working to connect with them on a personal level. Ultimately, I gained the trust of a majority of the representatives and successfully motivated them to meet our sales goals. Elsewhere in my new territory, the prior manager, Sarah, was fired for making unscrupulous decisions when selling the bar review course. By offering extreme discounts to students he favored and advertising promotions that she later would not honor, many representatives and students became distrustful of our company.

My strategy with these schools was to gain the confidence of representatives and students who had developed a poor opinion of the PR brand under prior leadership. I was candid about the situation, followed through with current and past promotions, and continually communicated and ensured that they understood the PR message and brand. These steps helped to inspire confidence in my representatives and consumers that the previous acts committed by Sarah were isolated events.

With all of my schools, I assessed each representative’s strengths and weaknesses and delegated tasks that complemented them. I asked them to fill out surveys about their job, areas they would like to improve, promotions or marketing techniques they believed would be successful and how they could best assist the team in meeting their sales goals. Creating this environment of support established trust and value with employees and helped to increase our sales and market share at most schools. Additionally, I spoke with many employees and students about my personal experience using the PR product and taking the bar exam. Adding a personal endorsement and demonstrating how the product could help with studying and stress, created an additional approach to motivating representatives and selling to students.

Through this situation I have grown as a leader and a manager. Working with my team through an incredibly difficult circumstance, reinforced for me that earning respect, being honest and passionate, communicating and supporting employees is essential in any leadership position. I will continue to employ these traits in all of my leadership positions in the future.