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.     

神钟与道教

中国古钟源远流长,从石器时代的陶钤算起已有五六千年的历史,它不仅有形、有义、还有声,严格来说,钟不仅有一种声,还有阴阳多种声,而更有趣的是,与这声相和的,是天地间的吟咏和人世间的吟咏,这种大小吟咏相和,居然和谐共存了两三千年的历史,这大概也就是至今人们吟咏相和乐此不