Transformational Leader Self-Perception And Objective Sales Performance: The Potential Moderating Effects Of Behavioral Coping Ability

This research reports results from an exploratory study that examined the relationship between salespersons’ self-perceived leadership styles, behavioral and emotional coping abilities, and objective sales performance. The direct sales staff of a financial services firm provided the data for the study. The self-rater version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X, short form) was used to capture the sales personnel’s self-perceptions of their leadership styles with respect to transformational and transactional leadership. Two main scales from the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI) were used to assess the behavioral and emotional coping abilities of the participants. Data analyses indicated a significant relationship between active transactional leader self-perception, transformational leader self-perception, behavioral coping ability, and sales performance. This was not the case for passive transactional leadership or emotional coping ability. In addition, behavioral coping ability moderated the relationship between transformational self-perception and sales performance such that those sales personnel who perceived themselves as transformational delivered enhanced performance when behavioral coping ability was good rather than poor.