The career move that let me lead without managing a team

I still remember the first few weeks after stepping into sales enablement after years in sales leadership.
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No direct reports. No team quota. 
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Yet somehow, my influence was bigger than it had ever been. My “number” wasn’t tied to my territory or my team anymore — it was tied to the collective success of dozens of sellers I didn’t manage but could still help win more.
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I’d led teams, closed big deals, and lived the end-of-quarter adrenaline rush. But this was a different game, and I had to learn to lead with influence not authority.
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Why I made the leap

I loved leading sales teams, but over time, I realized my favorite moments weren’t about closing deals myself, they were about helping others close theirs. Coaching, building training, and the refining process lit me up. The aha moments. The part where people would rush to send me calls to listen to where they implemented coaching, and wanted more of it. Those were the super fun parts. 
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Enablement offered the chance to scale that impact. Instead of managing 10 or 12 sellers, I could equip hundreds. Instead of being tied to one book of business, I could influence how the entire revenue organization approached the market.
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But I identified strongly as a leader, and a sales leader at that. I had to learn that leadership doesn’t always require a reporting line. In enablement, you can lead the business forward without managing a single direct report. It wasn’t long before I was describing my sales enablement role as “Everything I ever loved about leadership, and none of the bullshit.”
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What carried over
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How could it be everything I love about leadership? Well, some skills from sales leadership transferred instantly:
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• Credibility with sellers and with sales leaders: I’d been in their shoes and understood their reality. Further, as a former second line leader I’d been in some rooms they hadn’t been in yet and could provide context and perspective that helped them show up better at work.
• Strategic thinking: I could connect individual activities to revenue outcomes. Additionally I was well-versed in spotting patterns across my teams and addressing them accordingly. 
• Coaching chops: Guiding performance improvements one conversation at a time was my bread and butter as a sales leader, and something I kept doing as an enablement field coach. 

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Those skills helped me earn trust quickly. Sellers knew I wasn’t just handing them theory, I was bringing them tools and practices I’d tested under the same pressures they were facing. Once I learned to leverage my leadership experience I didn’t have trouble getting people to listen to me despite not having formal authority.
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What had to change
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Here’s the hard truth: in enablement, you can’t lead through a reporting structure — you have to lead through influence.

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That meant shifting from “I set the standard” to “I co-create the standard with my stakeholders.”
Sometimes it meant (and still means) co-creating a standard or a program that I don’t agree with, but will still deliver with excellence. I reconciled all of this by learning to measure success differently. I stopped looking at just my team’s close rates and started tracking adoption metrics, skill proficiency, and the ripple effect of programs over quarters, not weeks.

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Staying close to revenue

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No matter what else was going on, I made it my personal mission in Enablement to stay close to the revenue. If you are thinking a move from sales leadership means never attending another pipeline call or deal review you are sorely mistaken, friend - that’s primetime for understanding what levers to pull and at what level - individually or in group sessions - depending on the patterns you uncover. 

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I ended up hosting voluntary deal review sessions with the teams I supported and those were some of the most fulfilling meetings I’ve ever been a part of. Sellers helped each other, and got to work with people they didn’t normally interact with. My superpower in those sessions was that I was not as intimately familiar with the deals as the front line leader, so I could see it with fresh eyes. When I started getting shoutouts in the win wires for my help with closing deals, I could quantify my impact and it felt really gratifying. Nothing keeps you sharper in enablement than understanding the current deal cycles of the business, and nothing keeps you more credible with the field than being able to tell recent stories of deals you were part of. 

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Advice for sales leaders considering the shift

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1. Get curious about enablement. Partner with your current enablement team to see how they drive change without authority. Work with them to understand how they think about scalability and scope.
   
   
2. Build your change management muscle. Your ability to influence without managing is your most important skill.
   
   
3. Shift your scoreboard. Be ready to celebrate wins that don’t have your name on them and still have your fingerprints all over them.

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Looking back

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Moving from sales leadership to sales enablement wasn’t about stepping out of leadership; it was about redefining it.

If you’re a sales leader who thrives on coaching, building playbooks, and creating systems that make your team better, enablement might be the role that lets you lead at scale without a single direct report.

And if you’ve already made the leap? You know the truth: some of the most powerful leadership happens when no one reports to you.

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