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Introduction
The sales force is the only revenue-capturing component of an organization and the most important connection between an organization and its customers (Krafft, 1999). Given recent tendencies among firms to emphasize market orientation, the sales force has acquired increased importance, enhancing the benefits of effective sales force management (Krafft et al. , 2004). To adequately respond to the demands of this new scenario, companies have transformed approaches to industrial sales force management (Olson et al. , 2001). The radically changing roles of traditional sales organizations pose new challenges with respect to identifying superior salesperson performance, especially given the growing importance of business-to-business relationship management (Piercy et al. , 2012).
Much has been written over the past 50 years about the determinants of salesperson performance. However, the extant literature explains relatively little with respect to sales performance trends, suggesting that there is a need to deepen the understanding of sales performance and to develop new theoretical models to advance marketers' understanding of the sales performance domain (Evans et al. , 2012). In this regard, researchers have recently attempted to identify behaviors that not only improve individual task performance but also enhance group and organizational effectiveness over time (Griffin et al. , 2010). In this study, we examine salespeople's adaptivity and proactivity as two emergent behaviors that are particularly critical when work requirements are not clearly anticipated, as is typically the case in sales-related scenarios (Dubinsky et al. , 1986). Prior research has suggested that as market dynamics grow more complex, companies must be supported by employees who are adaptable and proactive and who can address complex problems (Baba et al. , 2009; Griffin et al. , 2007).
Servant leadership (SL) is an approach to leadership that emphasizes the moral behaviors of leaders. This approach differs from other theories on leadership, such as charismatic and transformational leadership (Bass, 1985). Specifically, according to Walumbwa et al. (2010), the SL approach differs from popular leadership styles in several respects:
servant leaders act in their followers' best interests and are uniquely concerned with the success of all organizational stakeholders;
SL includes a moral component; and
servant leaders engage in self-reflection to attenuate leader hubris (Graham, 1991).
Ehrhart (2004) empirically showed that SL is distinct from other leadership styles,...