Leading by Example: Sales Leadership, Worthiness of Being Followed, and Salesperson Behaviors

摘要

Studies on the relationship between ethical leadership and salesperson performance have offered mixed results. Drawing from research on leadership styles, social learning and attribution theories, sales ethics, and worthiness of being followed, this study develops and tests a theoretical framework of the intervening mechanism by which salespeople are likely to be influenced by sales manager's ethical leadership. The framework proposes that sales managers' ethical leadership induces salespeople's behavior, when salespeople perceive that their managers are worthy of being emulated. In addition, the framework demonstrates that ethical leadership enhances salespeople's perceptions of their manager's charisma as well as salespeople's attribution of performance to their managers, which in turn, enhance a manager's worthiness of being followed. Two aspects of the ethical climate prevailing in the organization-ethical responsibility and peers' unethical behavior-are included as control variables.