Shifting the paradigm towards transformational product launches
With a hardening global economy; tightened regulatory and pricing controls; massive budget cuts and layoffs; and numerous product challenges ,ensuring commercially successful pharmaceutical brand l
By on Mar 19, 2010With a hardening global economy; tightened regulatory and pricing controls; massive budget cuts and layoffs; and numerous product challenges ,ensuring commercially successful pharmaceutical brand launches has become a more critical and complex task for Sales and Marketing executives than ever before. Performance of a particular product or service is not only linked to performance of its sales and marketing team but more so to its leader and his or her leadership style.
Pharmaceutical sales and marketing managers have typically exhibited transactional leadership behavior. This style, and its success or failure, is based on a rewards system - where the incentive provided by a manager directly correlates to the positive or negative attitudes and performance behaviors of individuals within their assigned groups. Because this model has worked well for this and other industries, few leaders recognize that greater product success can be achieved through the addition of transformational leadership factors which unite a group of people to see beyond their individual self-interests and find a shared belief and motivation that instills in them a sense of conviction, pride, trust and a can-do attitude towards their leader, their product, their team and the mutual vision and goals to which their path has been set.
The idea of using transformational leadership factors in driving successful product launches represents a major paradigm shift for pharmaceutical sales and marketing executives with long-standing histories and practices relying on transactional leadership to create, motivate and reward their teams. Because this traditional model has worked well for this and other industries, few managers recognize that greater product success and organizational rewards can be achieved when combining key transformational leadership factors such as personal charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration with their existing transactional leadership behaviors. Unlike transactional processes that stimulate individuals through personal reward systems, transformational behaviors unite groups of individuals to form a team capable of seeing beyond individual self-interest towards a shared vision by integrating four key transformational leadership factors into the launch and team management process: (1) Having the charisma to sense opportunity and formulate a vision; (2) Providing Inspirational Motivation That Articulates and Builds Trust in the Vision: (3) Giving Intellectual Stimulation to Move the Vision Along; and (4) Engaging in Individual Consideration to Achieve the Vision. In return, the transformational team formulates shared goals, beliefs and motivations that instill conviction, pride, trust and a can-do attitude towards the leader, the product, the team and the mutual vision and goals to which their paths have been set.
In todays rapidly changing environment where product launches are highly complex and more critical than ever to the success of an organization, transformational leadership must be applied to existing leadership practices, and transformational leaders and followers must be awakened in all of us.
For more information, please contact:
Susan Dorfman, VP Global Marketing, Skila