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Smart Business Growth with Nicky Miklós
TheSmart Business Growth podcast is your go-to for real talk and real strategy – grounded in over two decades of sales and leadership expertise.
Hosted by sales growth expert and TEDx speaker Nicky Miklós, this show is for ambitious business owners and sales leaders who are scaling businesses – and refuse to choose between high performance and having a life.
Expect pragmatic conversations, proven frameworks, and practical tools to shift your sales culture from reactive to revenue-driving. From systematising sales to developing your next generation of confident leaders, Nicky shares the thinking and strategies that help you build momentum that lasts.
You’ll also hear powerful insights on redefining success, breaking up with burnout, and finding your own version of healthy hustle – that sweet spot of growth without the relentless grind.
It’s time to lead smarter, sell stronger, and grow without losing yourself in the process.
Welcome to Smart Business Growth. Wherever you listen to podcasts, Nicky's waiting to welcome you.
Smart Business Growth with Nicky Miklós
Are You a Steamroller, a Shirker, or a Steerer?
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When change hits a team, most leaders fall into one of three camps. The steamroller who bulldozes ahead and wonders why no one's following. The shirker who avoids the hard conversation and hopes it sorts itself out. Or the steerer who does the harder work of bringing people with them.
In this Quick Win from her conversation with Nicky Miklós, communication expert Leah Mether breaks down all three, and what it actually takes to be the leader people choose to follow through uncertainty and change.
This is a Quick Win, a short, practical clip from a full Smart Business Growth Podcast episode. Want the whole conversation? Listen to "Steer Through the Storm: Sales Leadership" with Leah Mether, wherever you get your podcasts.
Connect with Leah Mether on LinkedIn, or find her free resources and "Ask Leah Anything" videos at her website.
Tags
leadership, sales leadership, change management, business growth, communication skills, team culture, Leah Mether, Nicky Miklós, Smart Business Growth Podcast, Quick Wins
Learn more about Nicky at nickymiklos.com
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Contact: 0403 191 404 | hello@nickymiklos.com
Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley
Nicky Miklós (00:09)
What tips do you have for leaders? Because I think what I then start to see is a couple of different behaviors come out as leaders. So it might be a little bit of tiptoeing. I don't want to upset my highest performer. I don't want to put constraints on them. I don't want to even introducing things like KPIs. There's a risk if we upset that person and rock the boat, but
Leah Mether (00:28)
Yeah.
Nicky Miklós (00:29)
they're in the old world and they don't want to come along necessarily. Or maybe they do, but it's early days. So tiptoeing behavior, bit of people pleasing, or it can even, the extreme of that, just completely ignoring and very dictatorship kind of leadership. Like this is the way it is and that's just it. What tips do you have for people that are listening or watching that might resonate with this shift?
Leah Mether (00:50)
To just build quickly on what you just said, it's funny, the same leaders who will say to me, I don't have time for that or I don't do feelings. They just need to get on board with it and you know, go, go, go, you know, that real old school command and control style. They will also be the very same leaders who will come to me and say, Leah, how do I get better performance out of my I need to get them on board. Why is all my time spent dealing with people problems that drives me nuts? And again, it's exactly that point, it will cost you time, but it will cost you more time because you're reactively then trying to put out spot fires because why aren't they just coming with me? Cause you've steamrolled right ahead.
And that's, know, in the book, I, put people into sort of three different key areas that I see leaders tend to fall into when they're leading through change. And obviously there's nuance to this, but if I had to put it into three categories, we could say the steam rollers, who are those people we've just been talking about. It's just like, this is happening, bad luck, get on board, like it or lump it. And they're steaming out ahead. But then they're looking over their shoulder going, why is no one coming with me? Right? Your change is never going to be successful if you're steamrolling.
But what I also see is a camp of people I call the shirkers. They're the people who just put their head in the sand. Avoid the conversation altogether. I'm not even going to acknowledge the resistance, or I'm not even going to acknowledge that AI could be an issue for our business. Like just head in the sand, keep on keeping on. And then they wonder why they're out of business. All their people are behaving really poorly because you just have let it go. I often see this from leaders, sales leaders included, when the change is not theirs. So they go,
Nicky Miklós (02:38)
Mmm.
Leah Mether (02:40)
Oh well! Senior management's implemented this, this is their thing. It's not my change. So I don't have a role to play. Rubbish. If you are a leader, and there is a change happening in your workplace or uncertainty around you, if you are a people leader, you have a responsibility to lead people through the change or the uncertainty, whether it's your idea, whether you like it or not, regardless.
But the middle category of people, and what I'm encouraging leaders to do more of in the book, is that role of steerer. The person, you can't do it for you. I can't make you get on board with a change. I can't, but I can influence you. And if I make the case for it really well and create the clarity, if I connect with curiosity and try to understand your concerns, if I then challenge with candor, because we do have to do that, you know, okay, so I'm going to be empathetic, but I'm also going to hold you accountable for if I'm saying you have to, I don't know, you know, keep track of your sales calls because that's one of the metrics we're going with now. If you're not doing it, well, then I have to challenge you on that, but I'm doing it after the connect with curiosity. So after that, trying to understand what the resistance is. Then I want to coach with compassion. I want to give you the opportunity to try to improve, to try to come with me. And the final element in the model is commit with consistency.