Our Sales Director was our top individual producer, but since taking the leadership seat, his Predictive Index behavioral profile shows he is a highly independent hunter who struggles with the collaborative management required to lead a team. How do we use conative and behavioral data to objectively move him back to sales without destroying his motivation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is the classic trap of promoting your best salesperson to manager, only to lose a great producer and gain a miserable boss. Management requires an entirely different behavioral profile than individual selling.

Use the Predictive Index data to make this an objective, data-driven discussion rather than a personal critique. Sit down with him and review his behavioral profile alongside the job target for the Sales Director seat. Point out that the director seat requires patience, structured coaching, and administrative Follow Thru: traits that run directly counter to his natural, high-driving, independent hunter profile.

Show him how this misalignment is draining his energy and hurting his performance. Frame the transition as a strategic reallocation of his unique strengths. You want him in a high-value, individual contributor seat, such as Key Accounts or Enterprise Sales, where his natural drives are highly compensated and directly tied to revenue growth.

By using the objective data from his conative and behavioral assessments, you remove the sting of demotion. You are simply realigning the Accountability Chart to put the right person in the right seat. Ensure his compensation package in the individual producer seat is designed so that his earning potential remains high, which will help him enthusiastically embrace the move.