I recently asked some top sales trainers who they thought were the best sales professionals that they'd ever met and two of them mentioned managers. Joanne Black, author of the bestseller No More Cold Calling, mentioned John Hoskins, CEO of the Advantage Performance Group, because "when he was my former boss, he spent time and effort to help me develop my career." Keith Eades, author of The New Solution Selling, cited Mark Tapling, the former CEO of the telecommunications software firm Everypath, "because he understands and consistently applies sales process and methods."

All things considered, my best manager was a guy named Mike Wurster. He had the extraordinary ability to look at a group of people and figure out their strengths and weaknesses, and then get them doing things that would leverage their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. He also did an excellent job at protecting his personnel (as far as it was possible) from the insanities and inanities of upper management. He now works for Sun Microcomputers. Hi, Mike!

So here's my question for you: who's the best manager you've ever worked for? And why?