A qualitative study of leader behaviors perceived to enable salesperson performance

Abstract

This study builds on and extends previous sales leadership research by exploring sales professionals’ perceptions of effective leadership behaviors. Semistructured interviews with both sales leaders and salespeople working in a global enterprise software company were examined through a qualitative analysis. Results indicated that participants believed sales leadership played an important role in influencing sales performance. When asked to describe specific sales leader behaviors that best enable salesperson performance, sales professionals – both sales leaders and salespeople – overwhelmingly referenced coaching, followed by collaborating, championing, and customer engaging. We define and describe these four key sales leader behaviors and identify four potential mediating variables (trust, confidence, optimism, and resilience), from which emerges a conceptual framework of sales leader behaviors perceived to enable salesperson performance. We examine these four key sales leader behaviors and mediators in the broader context of leadership theory, particularly transformational, servant, authentic, and adaptive leadership theories. The key contribution of this study is the identification of a set of leader behaviors that are likely to be especially effective in modern sales organizations given that they originated from the perceptions of sales professionals themselves.     

Examining the Impact of Servant Leadership on Sales Force Performance

Much has been written about the importance of focusing on customers to drive organizational success. In this paper, aspects of manager–salesperson relationships are examined as drivers of deeper customer focus in salesperson–customer interactions. In particular, managers’ servant leadership, a leadership style emphasizing genuine concern for subordinate welfare, is examined as a catalyst of parallel concern by salespeople for their customers. Salesperson perceptions of managers’ servant leadership empirically relate to salesperson customer orientation, in turn driving adaptive selling behaviors, customer-directed extra-role behaviors, and sales performance outcomes. Other results and implications for management and sales leadership research are presented.     

Manager–salesperson congruence in customer orientation and job outcomes: The bright and dark sides of leadership in aligning values

To create customer-oriented organizations, managers are often asked to promote a values-based vision. Yet, many managers struggle with transferring their values to employees making strategic value changes difficult. Despite this challenge, research has yet to demonstrate how managers effectively align values within the sales force, or the impact alignment has on job outcomes. Therefore, we develop and empirically test a conceptual framework to examine the role of transformational leadership in aligning salesperson customer orientation (CO) values. We find that transformational leadership is a strong mechanism in creating perceived value congruence, yet may have a surprising dark side. Results suggest that transformational managers achieve congruence by raising or, contrary to conventional wisdom, lowering salesperson CO values to meet the perceived values of the manager. Response surface modelling results support the importance of perceived manager values. Customer-oriented salespeople have higher job satisfaction and sales performance when they perceive their manager to also have high CO. When values are misaligned, job satisfaction increases more for low CO salespeople as perceptions of manager CO increase. Exploratory findings show that performance was higher under situations of perfect alignment but also under severe misalignment suggesting that values generate performance under complementary or supplementary conditions.     

Drivers and outcomes of salespersons’ value opportunity recognition competence in solution selling

Abstract

In B2B markets, firms seek to provide customer solutions instead of merely selling goods or services. As boundary-spanners, salespeople are pivotal for implementing this strategic shift. Yet, extant literature provides limited insights into salesperson’s resources and competencies required for customer solutions, particularly in the early phases of solution selling. This research focuses on salesperson’s value opportunity recognition competence (VOR), which is a central requirement for salespeople to be able to navigate the early phases of solution selling. Analyzing large-scale, multi-level data of 799 salespeople and their respective sales managers in 29 sales organizations, the authors investigate the role of different salesperson resources and work environment characteristics for strengthening their VOR. The authors find that salespeople need both customer and technical knowledge, but customer knowledge is more important. Salespeople also can substitute individual technical knowledge with strong internal relations, but strong customer relations are no substitute for individual knowledge about customers’ business models and processes. Formalization turned out to be a double-edged sword in the context of VOR development, while transformational leadership has positive effects only. The findings bear concrete implications for improving the selection, training, and work environment of solution salespeople.     

中国组织情境下公仆型领导有效性的追踪研究

公仆型领导以服务员工为导向, 在本质上超越了以往任何一种以组织利益为先的领导方式。然而, 国内该主题的研究还很不系统。本研究首先在中国组织情境下, 采用质化研究与量化研究相结合的方式, 探讨公仆型领导的结构维度, 建构公仆型领导的测量量表; 然后以团队及其成员为研究对象, 采用追踪研究设计, 收集“管理者-员工”配对数据, 运用结构方程模型、多元回归分析以及多层线性模型技术进行统计分析, 从而探讨公仆型领导的有效性。具体包括三个研究：(1)公仆型领导的结构与测量研究; (2)公仆型领导有效性的追踪研究—— 基于领导行为比较的视角(是否有效); (3)公仆型领导有效性的追踪研究—— 基于作用机制的视角(如何有效)。研究结果有助于澄清公仆型领导的内涵与维度结构, 识别和测量公仆型领导行为, 证实公仆型领导的有效性, 比较公仆型领导与家长式领导、变革型领导的影响效果, 揭开公仆型领导对个体绩效和团队绩效的作用机制。     

领导风格与敬业度关系的元分析

采用元分析方法探讨领导风格与敬业度的关系。经筛选, 共有148篇文献162个独立样本符合元分析标准(N = 84836)。元分析结果发现, 授权型领导、伦理型领导、变革型领导、领导-成员交换、真实型领导、交易型领导、服务型领导以及家长式领导与敬业度之间均呈显著的正相关关系, 且对敬业度的解释力递减; 不同的敬业度量表对领导-成员交换、真实型领导与敬业度之间的关系有显著的调节作用, UWES为中等正相关, 其他量表为高等正相关; 不同的研究设计对伦理型领导与敬业度的关系调节作用显著, 横截面研究设计测得的相关程度比纵向研究高; 文化背景能够显著调节变革型领导、领导-成员交换、真实型领导、伦理型领导、服务型领导以及交易型领导与敬业度之间的关系, 除服务型领导外, 东方文化背景下的相关系数均比西方文化背景下高。     

Servant leadership,leader gender,and team gender role: Testing a female advantage in a cascading model of performance

We integrate the theory of gender role congruity with extant research on servant leadership to propose and test a moderated process model in which we hypothesize that servant leadership's effects on outcomes are stronger when implemented by women, and when it takes place within teams high in feminine gender role composition. Specifically, we theorize that servant leadership's communal emphases on stakeholders and relationships align with female role prototypes, which should lead to female advantages for job performance through the proposed serial mediators of prosocial motivation and follower servant leadership behaviors. We test this moderated, serial‐mediation model in a temporally lagged field study with a multi‐organizational sample including 109 teams. We find evidence that the mediated process model is moderated at the first stage such that in teams higher in feminine gender role composition, servant leadership has greater direct effects on prosocial motivation, as well as indirect effects on follower servant leadership and performance. We do not find support for our hypothesis that a similar moderated effect would emerge for leader sex; instead, we find that the effect of servant leadership on follower servant leadership, and subsequently to performance, is stronger for women leaders than it is for men. The implications of these findings for the servant leadership and role congruity literatures are discussed.     

Influencing the salesforce through perceived ethical leadership: the role of salesforce socialization and person–organization fit on salesperson ethics and performance

With today's emphasis on building strong customer relationships in the business-to-business sales environment, appropriate leadership is necessary to instill ethical and provide the proper guidance among employees to ensure ethical decision-making and improve sales performance. This research examines the role of perceived ethical leadership as it relates to both formal and informal marketing control mechanisms (i.e. salesforce socialization) that influence person–organization fit, and how this fit relates to salesperson unethical intent and performance. Results from a study of 408 business-to-business salespeople suggest that perceived ethical leadership both directly, and indirectly via salesforce socialization, affects salesperson ethical values person–organization fit, which in turn affects salesperson performance. Based on these findings, both theoretical and managerial implications are provided, as well as directions for future research.     

It is all in good humor? Examining the impact of salesperson evaluations of leader humor on salesperson job satisfaction and job stress

Abstract

Salesperson job stress and job satisfaction have been identified as critical factors affecting job performance. Academic research suggests that sales managers can influence salesperson job stress and job satisfaction. Interestingly, a review of the sales literature finds very little research on the impact of sales leader humor usage on the stress and satisfaction of salespeople. Consequently, we explore how salespeople’s evaluation of their manager’s use of humor influences their individual levels of job stress and satisfaction. We investigate both the positive and negative roles of humor by analyzing the impact of salesperson evaluations of their managers’ use of affiliative and aggressive humor on their job stress and job satisfaction. Furthermore, we examine the mechanism by which these evaluations affect salesperson stress and satisfaction by identifying two critical mediating variables – social loneliness and willingness to cooperate. Using a sample of 299 professional salespeople, we empirically test this process model to find that affiliative humor usage by sales managers, as evaluated by salespeople, reduces social loneliness and stress for salespeople while also increasing followers’ acceptance of cooperation. Evaluations of aggressive humor, on the other hand, increase stress levels among salespeople. Both social loneliness and acceptance of cooperation, in turn, significantly affect job satisfaction.     

领导风格与员工创新绩效关系的元分析：基于自我决定视角

领导对员工创新起到重要作用。什么样的领导风格与员工创新相关更高? 实际研究中存在一定争议。为了回答这个问题, 基于自我决定理论, 我们提出一个理论框架, 来解释不同领导风格与员工创新相关系数的差异。我们使用元分析汇集432篇独立的实证研究的证据(中文研究229篇, 英文研究203篇, 样本总量达161599), 来检验我们的假设。研究发现：(1)交易型领导、伦理型领导、变革型领导、服务型领导、领导-成员交换、授权型领导、包容型领导及真实型领导与员工创新绩效之间均存在显著的正相关, 且相关递增; (2)个人主义、绩效评价方式、数据收集时间点、领导风格测量方式、创新测量方式以及发表语言部分调节领导风格和员工创新绩效的关系。研究结果符合理论预测, 研究促进自我决定理论的发展。更为重要的是, 研究结论为管理者提供重要的实践意义, 即使用合适的领导风格进而促进员工创新。     

Salesperson ambidexterity and customer satisfaction: examining the role of customer demandingness,adaptive selling,and role conflict

This research investigates the effects of sales-service ambidexterity on salesperson role perceptions, behaviors, and customer satisfaction. Using a business-to-business, salesperson-customer sample, we build and test a model which highlights both the positive and negative consequences of this simultaneous goal pursuit. Specifically, while sales-service ambidexterity positively impacts adaptive selling behaviors, it also increases perceptions of role conflict among salespeople. Customer demandingness moderates these relationships. Taken together, the results provide insights for firms on how to manage their sales force to optimize both sales and service outcomes based on characteristics of their salespeople and customers.     

Different roles of shared and vertical leadership in promoting team creativity: Cultivating and synthesizing team members’ individual creativity

Drawing on the componential model of creativity (Amabile), we examined how shared leadership and a formally appointed leader's transformational leadership jointly cultivate team creativity in two studies. We conducted an experiment with a sample of 109 undergraduate students (32 teams) enrolled in a business plan competition (Study 1) and a field survey based on multisource, time-lagged data collected from 251 full-time employees working on 64 research and development teams (Study 2). The results from both studies revealed that shared leadership enhanced team members’ individual creative self-efficacy and individual creativity, which in turn improved team creativity. Moreover, the results from Study 2 showed that a formally appointed leader's use of different transformational leadership behaviors had different impacts on individual and team creativity. Individual-focused transformational leadership strengthened the positive effect of shared leadership on team members’ average individual creativity, whereas group-focused transformational leadership facilitated the translation of teams with high average individual creativity into teams with high levels of team creativity. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Supervisory Orientations and Salesperson Work Outcomes: The Moderating Effect of Salesperson Location

Although a growing number of companies have salespeople stationed at a site other than their supervisors' (i.e., are remotely located), relatively little attention has been paid in the literature to the differences between managing co-and remote located salespeople. Accordingly, we test the moderating effect of salesperson location on the relationships between three supervisory orientations—output, activity, and capability—and salesperson satisfaction with supervisor and performance.

The results show that salesperson location moderates the relationship between supervisory activity orientation and satisfaction such that activity orientation has a positive effect on the satisfaction of remote located salespeople, but a negative effect on the satisfaction of co-located salespeople. We find that end-results orientation is positively related to the satisfaction of co-located salespeople but not of remote located salespeople. Finally, supervisory capability orientation is positively linked to the performance of co-located salespeople but not of remote located salespeople. The results provide guidance for sales managers about how to structure their interactions with remote and proximally close salespeople.     

绩效薪酬对员工突破性创造力和渐进性创造力的影响

研究分别从认知评价理论和习得性努力理论视角考察了绩效薪酬对员工突破性创造力和渐进性创造力的影响及其作用机制, 并检验了变革型领导和交易型领导对上述两条路径的调节效应。基于24家企业的364对上下级匹配数据的研究结果表明：绩效薪酬对内在动机和突破性创造力没有显著的影响, 对外在动机和渐进性创造力有显著的正向影响。变革型领导调节绩效薪酬与突破性创造力的关系：高变革领导情境下, 绩效薪酬通过正向影响内在动机间接对突破性创造力产生正向影响; 低变革领导情境下, 绩效薪酬通过负向影响内在动机间接对突破性创造力产生负向影响。交易型领导调节绩效薪酬与渐进性创造力的关系：交易型领导通过强化绩效薪酬对外在动机的影响进而放大了绩效薪酬对渐进性创造力的正向效应。针对上述结果, 讨论了本文的理论与实践意义。     

Salesperson Ethical Decision Making: The Impact of Sales Leadership and Sales Management Control Strategy

Enhancing the moral behavior of salespeople is increasingly important, but difficult, in today’s fast-paced and complex selling environment. Sales organizations need to emphasize ethical codes of conduct, but must also address the potential impact of all sales management decisions on the ethical behavior of salespeople. We expand the focus on ethical codes to include an interpersonal dimension of sales organization ethical climate and the cognitive moral development of salespeople. Relationships among sales leadership and sales management control strategy, the structural and interpersonal dimensions of sales organization ethical climate, salesperson cognitive moral development, and salesperson moral judgment are discussed and specific propositions presented. These propositions suggest specific directions for future sales ethics research and have key implications for sales organizations.     

变革型领导与交易型领导的权变分析

变革型领导与交易型领导是当前领导研究的热点。一般认为,变革型领导是比交易型领导更为有效的领导方式。然而从权变的观点出发,变革型领导与交易型领导的有效性还要受到情境因素、被领导者因素的影响。该文分析了替代领导、领导与下属的关系以及组织文化对变革型领导和交易型领导与领导效能关系的调节作用,并讨论了今后的领导行为研究中应该注意的问题。     

Individual Values and Preferred Leadership Behaviors: A Study of Romanian Managers

Relationships between individual values and preferred leadership behaviors were examined in a sample of 324 managers from organizations in Romania, a country in transition from a controlled economy to a free‐market system. We found the value dimensions of achievement, benevolence, and power to predict preferences for both transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. Specifically, achievement and benevolence displayed positive relationships with both types of leadership. In contrast, power yielded a positive relationship with the preference for transactional behaviors, but an inverse relationship with the preference for transformational leadership. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Ambidextrous Leadership and Employees' Self‐Reported Innovative Performance: The Role of Exploration and Exploitation Behaviors

The ambidexterity theory of leadership for innovation proposes that leaders' opening and closing behaviors positively predict employees' exploration and exploitation behaviors, respectively. The interaction of exploration and exploitation behaviors, in turn, is assumed to influence employee innovative performance, such that innovative performance is highest when both exploration and exploitation behaviors are high. The goal of this study was to provide the first empirical test of these hypotheses at the individual employee level. Results based on self‐report data provided by 388 employees were consistent with ambidexterity theory, even after controlling for employee reports of their leaders' transformational and transactional leadership behaviors as well as employees' openness to experience, conscientiousness, and positive affect. The findings extend previous research on ambidexterity at the team and organizational levels and suggest a possible way for leaders to enhance employee self‐reported innovative performance.     

累并快乐着：服务型领导的收益与代价——基于工作-家庭资源模型视角

服务型领导被以往大量研究证实能够对下属产生积极的影响效果。然而, 我们对服务型领导如何影响领导者自己还知之甚少。基于此, 文章根据工作-家庭资源模型, 探讨了服务型领导的收益与代价。采用经验抽样法, 对广州市76名企业单位中的主管进行为期5天的日记研究, 并运用多层线性模型进行数据分析。结果表明：主管每日从事服务型领导行为既可以产生更多的积极情绪, 从而改善工作-家庭关系, 又可能会引发资源损耗, 从而恶化了工作-家庭关系。主管感知的组织支持是服务型领导行为双刃剑效应的“门阀”, 当主管感知到高的组织支持时, 从事服务型领导行为会带来更多的积极情绪, 而当主管感知到低的组织支持时, 从事服务型领导行为可能更容易增加资源损耗。以上结果能拓宽我们对服务型领导影响效果的认识, 并为如何干预服务型领导行为提供一些新的启发。     

On the perceived effectiveness of transformational–transactional leadership: The role of encouraged strategies and followers' regulatory focus

The present research sought to examine when and why transformational and transactional leadership are perceived by followers to be effective. A series of five studies revealed that perceived effectiveness of transformational and transactional leadership is influenced by the fit between leadership style‐driven encouraged strategies and followers' preferred strategies. Specifically, we found that transformational leadership primarily encourages promotion‐focused strategies and, accordingly, creates a regulatory fit for promotion‐focused followers. In contrast, transactional leadership primarily encourages prevention‐focused strategies, creating a regulatory fit for prevention‐focused followers. As a consequence of this regulatory fit, leadership is perceived as more effective and predictive of enhanced effort. By integrating literature on self‐regulation with insights from leadership research, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the leadership process and of interpersonal influences on self‐regulatory experiences. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.