Given a description for the Director of Sales position at ACME Tools, we utilized data from our assessment tool and our proprietary AI model to analyze the leadership requirements for the position. The full position description included:
- Position Overview
- Position Responsibilities
- Position Requirements, including knowledge, skills, personal attributes, physical demands and company values.
The director would be responsible for leading a team of regional sales managers, key account and manufacturer rep agencies to develop sales in an assigned geographic area, corporate accounts, and specific channels of distribution. The Director of Sales will train, develop, and motivate the team to forge relationships with our distribution network, direct independent sales representatives, and establish strategic partnerships with major accounts.
Based on the position description, a leadership position profile was created using the dimensions and leadership behavior definitions utilized in our Leadership IMPACT Assessment™ framework. Each dimension was rated on a 7-point Likert scale with justifications for each rating provided.
Executive Summary
This Director of Sales role is designed as a growth, change, and performance engine, requiring a visionary, execution-focused, field-present leader who can build and sustain high-performing teams across complex channels. The description repeatedly emphasizes driving strategy, profitable growth, market penetration, and process improvement, which elevates vision, living (daily leadership practice), and risk-taking to the top of the profile. Given the emphasis on building, motivating, and coordinating diverse internal and external teams, empathy and coaching & mentoring are also critical, though often implied rather than explicitly named. Humility and reflecting are present more indirectly through values such as teamwork, learning from mistakes, and continuous improvement, so they matter but at a slightly lower relative level than performance and growth drivers.
Director of Sales Position Leadership Requirements Summary:
- Top Priorities (7/7): Vision, Risk-Taking, Visioning, Living
- High Priorities (6/7): Empathy
- Moderate Priorities (5/7): Assessing
- Low Priorities (4/7): Humility, Reflecting, Coaching & Mentoring
- No Priority (<4): None
Individual Ratings of Leadership Requirements
Potential for leadership is the innate leadership qualities a person possesses which provides them with a higher leadership ceiling.
Humility – 4/7
- Emphasizes collaborative teamwork and valuing each other’s contributions without strong language about self-effacement or learning from subordinates.
- Highlights reliability, responsibility, and ownership, which support grounded behavior but do not directly stress leader modesty.
- Frames the role as a key strategic contact with buying and marketing groups, which can reinforce positional authority more than explicit humility.
Empathy – 6/7
- Stresses strong interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate at all levels with kindness, openness, honesty, and valuing contributions.
- Requires maintaining positive key customer relationships and providing timely, responsive, and accurate account support, which demands understanding others’ perspectives.
- Calls for the ability to work collaboratively with internal and external teams and lead effective field sales teams, implying attention to people’s needs and motivations.
Vision – 7/7
- Requires establishing plans and strategies to meet and exceed financial objectives across channels, demonstrating forward-looking commercial vision.
- Calls for developing business plans to identify and acquire new account growth opportunities and new product suggestions, showing market and product foresight.
- Places responsibility on the Director to direct field sales strategy, channel development, and overall high-performance results in Industrial and Trade Distribution.
Risk-taking – 7/7
- Pursue new account growth and “originate sales techniques to penetrate markets and combat competitive initiatives,” accepting market and performance risk.
- Make pricing, channel, and promotional decisions that balance gross margin goals with aggressive growth targets across industrial and trade distribution.
- Travel extensively, represent ACME at trade shows and buying groups, and commit to innovation, which embeds business and reputation risk in the role.
Practice of leadership is determined by how the leader manifest their potential for leadership into a daily execution of the leadership process.
Assessing – 5/7
- Requires strong understanding of customer and market dynamics and sales processes, indicating regular assessment of external conditions.
- Involves ability to assess sales and business results and identify operational issues to resolve with internal teams.
- Relies on strong business acumen and basic finance knowledge, suggesting the role must continually evaluate performance and context.
Visioning – 7/7
- Demands establishing plans and strategies for Industrial and Trade channels that align with total company interests, consistent with crafting a clear, actionable leadership vision.
- Involves developing annual promotional plans and business plans focused on key product categories, new products, and new accounts, requiring a coherent strategic direction.
- Requires partnering with VP of Sales/Customer Service on sales process improvement, indicating alignment of personal leadership approach with broader organizational vision.
Living – 7/7
- Expects excellent communication skills, time management, organization, and follow-up, all of which reflect daily execution of the leadership approach.
- Requires leading, training, motivating, and developing a high-performance field sales team, using tools like coaching, motivation, and observation in day-to-day work.
- Emphasizes “sense of urgency,” “let’s get it done” attitude, and results orientation, showing consistent, visible enactment of leadership philosophy.
Reflecting – 4/7
- Review sales results, promotional effectiveness, and trade show outcomes to refine plans and processes for “continuous improvement.”
- Focuses heavily on action, urgency, and results without explicit reference to deliberate review, journaling, or structured after-action learning.
- Emphasizes deadline pressure and extensive travel, which can crowd out regular reflective practices unless intentionally built in.
Coaching & Mentoring – 4/7
- (Team) Requires hiring, training, motivating, and developing a high-performance field sales team, which is core coaching and mentoring work.
- (Team) Stresses superior product demonstration skills with the proven ability to train others, clearly linking expertise with developing people.
- (Self) Missing any direct or indirect language about having a coach and a mentor, seeking structured feedback on their leadership behavior, or engaging in ongoing developmental relationships focused on their own leadership practice.
NEXT STEPS
Requirements Modifications
Dimensions with leadership ratings of 5 or less, should be reviewed to determine if the score is appropriate for the given position or if the position requirements should be modified. Humility, Reflecting and Coaching & Mentoring are important leadership behaviors and modifying the language in the position requirements should be updated to reflect their importance.
Individual Alignment Review
Determine how well the incumbent leader aligns with the current or revised position description. When we apply the current or revised role profile with individual assessment data, leadership alignment becomes visible and actionable. In the ACME example, Pat Smith is misaligned to the Director of Sales position because key leadership dimensions fall below what the role requires.
By contrast, Chris Jones is closely aligned, with assessment results at or above the mapped dimensions in the model, giving ACME more confidence that Chris is a better fit for this specific role. Using this framework, organizations can avoid costly missteps, have clearer succession conversations, and ensure that promotion decisions are anchored in leadership data instead of gut feel.
The organization should determine if the leader’s alignment can be improved through coaching of if they would be better aligned elsewhere in the organization.
Organizational-Level Insights: Beyond One Role
The same analysis can be scaled beyond a single position to compare individual leaders and role profiles to our overall Population Average and to peers at similar organizational levels. This broader lens helps you see systemic leadership gaps, identify pockets of excellence, and refine your leadership pipeline strategy.
By following this framework consistently, organizations can reduce misalignment, increase team engagement, improve performance, and lower regrettable turnover. Over time, leadership decisions become more transparent, repeatable, and aligned with your strategic priorities.
Environmental / Situational Analysis
ACME Tools should also evaluate the environment the new Director of Sales will be leading in to ensure the position description reflects any known leadership challenges the Director may be facing. Some important considerations include:
- Is the team they will be leading well established or fairly new?
- Is the team comprised of high performers, average performers or low performers?
- Were there any leadership capabilities missing in the previous Director?
After a comprehensive situational assessment has been performed, then the position description should be reviewed to ensure that it addresses any special situational needs. These steps are critical to help select the right person with the right leadership abilities for the right role at the right time.
By following this analysis, ACME Tools can reduce leadership misalignment resulting in higher team engagement, better performance, and lower turnover.
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