What does it mean to be a good leader? Is it an individual who was hired to play the role of boss, or is it someone who truly cares about their team’s wellbeing and encourages them to go above and beyond? According to Denzyl Prentice, it’s definitely the latter. Click to learn more about his 5 P’s of leadership, and how it can elevate your company to the next level.
A great leader is someone with the ability to pilot a ship from the front and simultaneously steer it from the back. It’s someone who listens, takes criticism, participates, and who is attentive to their team’s needs. Now, imagine if your entire company was filled with individuals like I just described. You’d feel supported, less stressed, and perhaps even excited to actually go to work for once.
Denzyl Prentice, who is the owner of Door Champs, is one such leader. He teaches his team what it means to be a 360-degree leader by using his five P’s to leadership. Read on to learn more about the five stages your team members can experience, so you can support them on their journey to becoming exceptional leaders.
- Positional
During this stage, leadership is appointed, not earned. An individual who is in this stage of leadership could be someone who you hired as a manager or boss for your store. They were given the opportunity based on their job experience and educational background, rather than their character or qualities.
“When you hire someone for a job, they are a positional leader,” Prentice says. “Your employees are told that they’re the boss, and that they have to report to them,” he adds. Although one may have a title during this stage, the respect and trust of their team are not yet earned. This stage is just the stepping stone that can lead to exceptional performance down the road.
- Permissional
During this stage, positional leaders are encouraged to connect with their team and build rapport, to demonstrate that they are trustworthy and all on the same page. “A permissional leader is someone who leads by choice,” Prentice says. “And your team doesn’t just follow them because they’re the boss, but because they understand that that person is someone who has their best interest at heart,” he adds. “They are willing to do what they say because they know they’re going to be led to where they want to be. That’s permission, and there’s merit around that,” he continues.
- Performance
Once you’ve hired a candidate, and they’ve created a rapport with their team, it’s time for them to show their team that they don’t just talk the talk, but they walk the walk as well. “They have to prove that they have a track record and that track record is performance,” Prentice says.
He believes that during this stage, your leader should perform the things that they want your team to do. For example, if you own a sales company and you want your team to make $10,000 in one month, your performance leader better go out there and make sure that they’re hitting that mark as well. This stage is about leading your team by example.
“They have to constantly be practicing what they’re preaching,” he says. “It can and will create momentum, showing that if they can do it, the rest of your team can do it too,” he adds.
- Personal
“Once your leader has been established as the boss, their team has chosen to follow them, they’ve proven that they know what they’re doing and that they can get your team to do the same, now comes personal development,” he says.
This is the stage where your leader can start changing people’s lives. After gaining the trust of their team, they can develop their team’s skills outside of the job, such as their financial literacy, spiritual beliefs, or overall wellness.
“But if they go up to somebody right when they get hired, and they start talking about all these things, there’s a chance a lot of people will think they’re crazy,” he warns. “They may even pull back from your leader. But once they’ve established those three levels of leadership, they can start to help others develop their characters and also be leaders in the company,” he adds.
- Pinnacle
The final P stands for pinnacle leadership, which is about personally developing enough people to go through the five levels of leadership themselves so that they can continue to spread that influence and grow. This means that not just one of your employees exemplifies leadership qualities, but all of them do or are on route to.
“This stage is the most rewarding, as it’s about getting other people to a level where they’re spreading the influence that you’re teaching them,” Prentice says. “I truly believe that the best way to bring value to a company is to create more leaders,” Prentice says. “And the best way to do that is by creating more value in yourself, becoming that leader, and inspiring others to do the same,” he concludes.
Denzyl Prentice is the owner of Door Champs, a one-of-a-kind door-to-door sales training company based out of Berlin, Connecticut. Aside from demonstrating to his team what quality leadership looks like, he has also been able to leverage his expertise to help his customers increase sales by 2-3x.
For more information regarding Denzyl Prentice’s expertise and how he can help you improve leadership in your company, visit him on Instagram at Door Champs.
