I’ll be there for you

In a song made popular by Bon Jovi, he sings:

I'll be there for you. These five words I swear to you. When you breathe, I wanna be the air for you, I'll be there for you. I'd live and I'd die for you, I'd steal the sun from the sky for you. Words can't say what love can do, I'll be there for you.

Or if you’re a fan of the show Friends, the theme song:

I’ll be there for you when the rain starts to pour, I’ll be there for you like I’ve been there before. I’ll be there for you cause you’re there for me too.

While you may think this is some cheesy way of tying a sales tip into Valentine's Day, the sentiments Bon Jovi or The Rembrandts are singing about amount to hope, trust, compassion and stability. As it turns out, those are essential qualities in leadership in 2025.

Gallup recently conducted a study that accounts for 76% of the world’s adult population. (It was a massive study). They asked two questions: What leader has the most positive influence on your daily life? Please list three words that best describe what this person contributes to your life.

The three words people use to describe the most positive leaders in their lives  fall into four themes. Hope stands out as the dominant need, accounting for 56% of all attributes tied to positive leaders, far outnumbering mentions of the next key need, trust (33%). Compassion (7%) and stability (4%) combined account for about one in nine positive leadership traits mentioned. Gallup defines the four this way:

Trust: Building trust is the foundation for leading. Honesty, clarity and behavioral predictability all make up trust.

Compassion: Being compassionate means caring about your followers holistically while seeing them as more than just their ability to perform.

Stability: Providing stability looks like creating space where people feel psychologically safe, like they can depend on you to answer their questions, hear their ideas and address their concerns.

Hope: Encourage people to believe in a better future. While stability focuses on today, hopefulness deals with the future. People need to see that their leaders have a clear direction in mind.

In our Leadership MasterClass and Rising Through The Ranks, we’ve seen a shift in the post-COVID-19 years of people focusing on what some would refer to as softer management skills. When I began my study of leadership some 30-plus years ago, words like love, compassion, understanding and hope were not part of the discussion. It was about accountability, performance and managing outcomes.

We know that the world is changing dramatically for sellers. It’s also changing dramatically for those who lead. Adapting to those changes and adopting the four essential elements of outstanding leadership: trust, compassion, stability and hope are not just “nice” things to have in your organization. They will be requirements in 2025 and beyond.

If you’d like to be a part of our Leadership MasterClass or Rising Through The Ranks , click on either of those titles for more information.

For some, adapting to change is incredibly difficult. Please know at RAB, we’ll be there for you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development. You can reach him at Jeff.Schmidt@rab.com. You can all so connect with him on X and LinkedIn.