Earle Jenkins is the Senior Vice President of Sales at Mohawk. In his 27 years at the company, he has witnessed what it means to be a good leader and an ineffective leader. In his position, Earle is responsible for 14 Regional Vice Presidents and Segment Strategists, and the roughly 100 Account Executives reporting to them.
Leadr has helped Earle's sales team increase revenue significantly.
The Mohawk sales team using Leadr increased revenue by several million dollars, while the sales team not using Leadr saw a decrease in revenue.
"The consistency of experience is actually leading to better performance. We now spend less time talking about performance, and more talking about personal development, yet performance is rising." - Earle Jenkins, Senior Vice President of Sales
As Mohawk has grown, Earle needed to find the next generation of leaders to power Mohawk’s mission. What he found was a deficit in the skillset of many potential leaders. These potential leaders didn’t know how to develop the people around them. They were more focused on self-service than serving their teams.
The Search for Quality Leadership Development Programs
Looking for a way to raise up the next generation of leaders at Mohawk, Earle began searching for a program that offered a solution to his dilemma. Here, he encountered another problem: a lack of quality leadership development programs.
“Where do you send somebody to learn leadership skills? You can send them to college to learn management. Or to a class to manage things, but leading people is completely different. And that’s a skill set that’s hard to find.” - Earle Jenkins, Senior Vice President of Sales
As Earle continued to look for a suitable program, leadership development at Mohawk was piecemeal and haphazard. When a manager stumbled on a principle or strategy that lent itself to good leadership, the hope was that it would be shared with other leaders and good leadership would grow organically within the organization.
“I think that we were hoping that, by osmosis, our leaders would learn how to lead.” - Earle Jenkins, Senior Vice President of Sales
Eventually, it became apparent that the “organic” method of leadership development was not yielding the results that Mohawk needed. So, again, Earle began looking for something outside his organization to help develop the leaders that were needed.
A People-First Approach
Leadr’s emphasis on people development, rather than performance metrics or employee management, ran counter to the standard operating procedure at Mohawk. However, there was a natural logic to the approach that made sense to Earle.
Earle began to restructure his one-on-one meetings to prioritize personal development conversations before performance discussions. Taking 10-15 minutes at the start of each meeting to learn about the motivations, aspirations, strengths, and weaknesses of his direct reports made a world of difference.
“I wanted our people to know that they matter, and that they are more than just a sales number. We want to help them become a better person, mother, father, whatever. I want our people connected to something bigger than just a paycheck. We realized that if we poured into them in that way, then we don’t have to be so heavy-handed on the performance side of it because they are going to feel like they are cared about as an individual. We’ll get the performance because they’re going to want to work for a company that cares about them and sees them as more than just the bottom line.” - Earle Jenkins, Senior Vice President of Sales
Using Leadr’s people-first format, Earle has been modeling to his leadership team how to run effective one-on-one meetings. He plans to reverse roles with his direct reports and have them demonstrate what they have learned by leading one-on-one meetings with him, before launching Leadr company-wide later in the year. He hopes that by taking the time to show his leadership team the power of personal connection, they will be able to convey this to their direct reports more than just another platform that they are required to use.
"Leadr does more than just develop leaders for the future. I cannot tell you how much Leadr does. If it’s used properly, it literally can help change the culture of your organization so that everybody is on the same page. So you're changing cultures too." -Earle Jenkins, Mohawk Group
Leadr gets you closer to your people, so you can get closer to your business
When asked what advice he would give to someone considering Leadr, Earle said:
“I have read every leadership book that you can imagine. Trying to take all of that information and compile it into a neat little spot so that you can move forward is very difficult to do. The great thing about Leadr is that everything you need is in one place. The questions you may want to ask, how you may want to ask them, all the way down to the profile… everything you need is there.”
Instead of having to rely on annual reviews or remember conversations off the top of your head that you’re having with your team around development, performance, or goals, you have it all in front of you inside Leadr.
Leadr will help you elevate the skills of your leadership team. Our people development software provides you with the roadmap and tools that you need to raise up the next generation of leaders. Request a demo to find out more about how Leadr can help you.