Ethical Leadership and Its Relationship with Sales Force Performance Mediated by Trust of Sales Employees on their Leaders

Abstract

Leadership sets the ethical code of conduct which acts as a guide for the employees in an organisation. The sale force is the key driver of revenue for most of the organisations. Yet, less empirical research till date has focused on establishing the relationship between the ethical behaviour of the leaders and its relationship on the sales force performance. The present research focuses on studying the relationship between the varying degrees of ethical leadership and the sales force outcome mediated by the level of trust they have on their leaders. A primary survey was conducted of 147 sales employees from different sectors mostly from Maharashtra, India. The findings indicate that ethical leadership has a considerable impact on sales performance of employees and there is a substantial increase in sales outcomes when trust acts as a mediator between them.