The impact of salesperson interpersonal mentalizing skills on coping and burnout: the critical role of coping oscillation

Abstract

Salespeople are subjected to high levels of stress on a day-to-day basis. Over time, this can lead to burnout if they lack sufficient coping resources to handle this stress. Given the major problems associated with burnout, managers and scholars are interested in discovering factors that help salespeople cope with stress and reduce burnout. The authors argue that interpersonal mentalizing (IM) skills may be effective in reducing salesperson stress and its negative outcomes. Salespeople with greater IM skills are better at regulating their emotions, building work relationships, and understanding what others think. The authors posit that these skills help salespeople to cope with stress and reduce burnout through a process mediated by active and avoidance coping strategies. Following one surprising finding in Study 1, which involved 149 B2B Fortune 500 salespeople, the authors developed a post-hoc hypothesis that oscillating between active and avoidance coping strategies can result in a more optimal use of coping resources. Given that extant theory argues that active coping is an adaptive strategy and avoidance coping is a maladaptive strategy, the finding that oscillating between the two can be more effective is an important theoretical advancement. A second study was conducted with 215 B2B salespeople working in a cross-section of industries to increase the generalizability of the results and to test the novel oscillation hypothesis. The authors’ findings demonstrate that IM skills reduce burnout and play an important role in shaping the coping strategies salespeople employ.