The Hidden Embarrassment in Most Companies: Sales Leaders Who Make the CEO Look Foolish!

How Sales Leaders Who Can’t Sell Make Their CEO Look Out of Touch

Let’s be brutally honest: Nothing makes a CEO look more out of touch than having a sales leader who can’t actually sell.

When a non-selling sales leader is calling the shots, everyone can see it, except the CEO who hired them and is still a part of the sales process.

Reps whisper about it.
Peers joke about it.
Clients feel it.
Only the CEO is out here proudly endorsing the wrong person.

And while the CEO thinks they have a “strategic leader,” the rest of the company is watching the circus wondering, “Does the CEO not see what we see?”

Bad leaders don’t just sink teams; they embarrass the executives who put them there.

The Bad Hiring Loop

Sales leaders who can’t hire make the entire org question leadership judgment.

They pick the wrong candidates.
They ignore red flags.
They confuse charm with competence.
And when the new hire flames out?

They blame HR.
Recruiting.
The market.
Mercury in retrograde.
Anything except their own terrible decision-making.

Meanwhile, everyone else is thinking:
“How does the CEO not see this pattern?”

Every bad hire drags down performance, but it also exposes a CEO’s blind spot. And ineffective sales leaders LOVE hiding in it.

The Coaching Void

When a sales leader can’t coach, everything becomes chaos:

Inconsistent processes.
Shaky pipelines.
Wild forecast swings that make Finance break out in hives.

And who does that fall back on?

Not the sales leader.
The CEO.

Because nothing screams “I don’t know what’s happening in my own business” louder than a sales org that’s directionless, panicked, and constantly in clean-up mode.

Bad coaching makes reps suffer.
Bad leadership makes CEOs look clueless.

The Keyboard Gangster Era

The keyboard gangsters are my favorite.

The ones who write emails like they’re preparing for war… and then shrink in real conversations.

They roar behind a keyboard and whisper in a room.

And nothing damages executive credibility faster than a leader who performs strength online but collapses offline.

If your bravest leader is only brave in writing, your CEO unknowingly looks like they promote performers, not leaders.

The CEO Kiss-Up Problem

There’s a special corner of corporate hell for leaders who only lead upward.

These sales leaders treat the CEO like a god… and their team like an afterthought.

Every meeting becomes a performance.
Every idea is a compliment.
Every directive is “absolutely yes.”

The CEO thinks they’ve got a star.
Everyone else sees a politician.

And the painful part?
This dynamic makes the CEO look like someone who falls for flattery instead of results.

The Cross-Functional Fallout

Here’s the ripple effect:

Marketing gets blamed.
HR gets blamed.
Recruiting gets blamed.
Finance gets whiplash trying to forecast nonsense.
Ops are left fixing whatever the sales leader broke last.

Meanwhile, the CEO is out here talking about “alignment,” while every department is thinking:

“We’re aligned. Your sales leader is NOT.”

A single ineffective sales leader makes the whole company question whether the CEO is awake at the wheel.

That’s the real cost.

TL;DR: Audit your sales leaders because they’re making you look bad!

If your sales team is underperforming, morale is low, and every forecast looks like a weather report…

Start at the top.

Not with reps.
Not with leads.
Not with HR.
With leadership.

Because ineffective sales leaders don’t just damage revenue.
They damage your reputation.

They make your culture worse.
They make your company look sloppy.

Audit your sales leaders.
Coach them.
Replace them if needed.

But stop letting them run around making you look like the last person to know what’s going on in your own company.