Is it advisable for the sales department to apply the "laissez faire" leadership style?

I don't see it as an essential in Sales Deptt.

Since People Lack the knowledge and requisite skills to accomplish the task.

As a sales manager, I believe you you should let your team go. Sales people are facing many different customers in many different conditions that you cannot list in books. You cannot ask your employees in the field to keep calling you with the question "What should we do?". You should define an authority matrix in which they will act depending on their skills and every particular situation.

If you have high-skilled team, motivate them, make them feel responsible and trust them. If you do so, they will be will be able to make decisions that suites their daily situations better than anybody else, sometimes better than you.

 

As mr. Pathiyil said, with less skilled team, this leadership style may cause some problems, but to minimize these problems, lower the authority you give to these employees and keep monitoring them.

It might be in some cases but not always because sales policy is generally designed keeping in mind many parameters like competition profits Debtor RnD supply chain logistics company vision market share etc

Thanks for the invitation

In my point of view No, not is sales for sure

and i do agree with both answers given

by Mr.:Pathiyil & Mr.:Vrindavan as well too

 

Managers and supervisors who adopt the laissez-faire leadership style delegate responsibility for the accomplishment of work objectives and decision-making power to their employees. For example, a CEO of a large, new-car dealership may allow departments -- such as new car sales, used car sales and service -- to operate on their own without his direct supervision. In this case, the CEO sets expectations for the departments' operations, revenues and costs and provides the needed resources to accomplish particular business objectives. However, the department managers and employees determine how they will achieve the objectives. This laissez-faire system works best in groups of experienced, educated and highly skilled employees -- such as staff specialists or consultants -- who are accustomed to working in team environments. In our example of the car dealership, the new car sales, used car sales and service department teams each possess specific skills and have received specialized training. So each team may work best when it establishes its own work schedules, works independently and makes decisions as a group, rather than at the direction of its CEO.

No, not is sales.

 

Laissez-faire leadership is only ever appropriate when the employees are subject area experts, and they are capable of responsibly executing their duties. It is usually adopted when dealing with consultants or other field specialists.

 

Materials are equivalent to pure money. What are the precautions to be taken for handling money is also applicable to mercantile and the sales persons who primarily deal with the products, whether it is intending, storing, reselling or wholesale, adequate controlling is essential, and in my belief and experience   Laissez-faire leadership is not ideal in the sales department.

Laissez-faire leadership can be suitable for a sales department if the group members are highly skilled, motivated and capable of working on their own. It can be applied in situations where the group members have high-level of passion for their work.

Laissez-faire leadership is not ideal for a sales department if the group members lack the knowledge or experience they need to complete tasks and make decisions.

In my opinion Laissez - Faire leadership is suitable for a non for profit organisations where you don't need to drive the people for fund raising / any marketing activities for their respective non for profit / charity organisation, it comes from their hearts if they are responsible enough and care for some cause which drove them to join such organisations. Laissez - Faire leadership always recommended as non productive style by the leadership community and always risk prone style where you can not hands off every time because the nature of any group is often tend to follow one person  among themselves ( any attributes which attracts the group), which allows the group to think and come to complete biased results. Hope I made my point and I prefer either paternalistic or Transnational leadership style which is most productive and result driven styles. 

every leadership style has its disadvantages, my view on this is decisions and actions taken must promote the growth of the organisation not vice versa. 

Though this style will depend & var from Industry to Industry, this style has been successfully implemented in Innovative, Technology & IT company but not suited for Retail or FMCG segment.