What's the biggest mistake new sales managers make?

The most common mistake a newly promoted sales leader makes is assuming that if their team simply replicates the leader's own exact process, the team will get the leader's exact results. Bryan Lovell, Head of Sales at Highland Mortgage, learned this the hard way 25 years ago, before he ever originated a loan — as a newly promoted regional manager in retail. His assumption: get every store manager to run the business exactly the way he did, and success would follow. It didn't work the way he expected.

Why doesn't copying a leader's playbook work?

Because ownership collapses when the plan isn't the person's own. As Lovell puts it, "if I build someone's business plan for them, it's my business plan. It's not theirs." When a team member is executing someone else's blueprint rather than a plan they built and believe in, their commitment to seeing it through drops — even if the plan itself is sound. Different people can win in different ways, and forcing one specific path onto everyone ignores that.

What is a sales leader's real job, then?

Not to produce copies of themselves. Lovell frames it this way: a leader's job is to help people uncover the best path for them, clear the hurdles in front of them, hand them the right tools and resources, and then step back far enough that they actually own the outcome. That last part — stepping back — is the hard one.

Why is this shift so difficult for leaders?

It requires checking your ego at the door. Leadership can quietly become about proving that your way is the right way, rather than about helping someone else find their own way to success. Lovell identifies this as one of the biggest mental shifts required in leadership: moving from "how do I get them to do it my way" to "how do I help them find what works best for them."

The takeaway for LOs and branch leaders

If you're coaching originators — or being coached — the lesson cuts both ways. A leader who mandates one rigid process is optimizing for their own comfort, not the team's results. And an originator who's been boxed into someone else's system, with no room to build a plan they actually believe in, is being set up to underperform regardless of how good that system is on paper.