Leader Member Exchange as a Driver of Results among Sales People
Servant leadership focuses on followers as the primary components while organizational gains are peripheral. Six characteristics have been associated with servant leadership: empowerment and development of people, displaying authenticity, humility expression, stewardship, providing of direction, and interpersonal acceptance (Graham 107). However, the characteristics overlap with other leadership models thus the specification of two unique distinctive aspects: serving first and being selfless. A servant leader will recognize the uniqueness of each person. A servant leader finds interest in follower’s values and beliefs by focusing on the followers’ growth aiming at advancing both financial and non-financial terms of the organization like profit and employees’ growth (Grisaffe et al. 53). The followers consider the servant leader as trustworthy when they depict honesty humility traits.
The current research contributes to leadership theory by investigating the impact of servant leadership on honesty humility leadership. The work examines the actual value of the leader and subordinate relationship as a driver to results, precisely customer orientation and performance of sales professional. Leveraging the leader-member exchange theory as the basis for examination, the study aims to establish the outcomes of the research. The crucial contribution to this work is tying leadership theory to leadership exchange to develop a connection to bridge varied approaches to leadership theory.
Honesty and humility leadership serves with the organization as a primary element with a strong commitment to the employee in the peripheral. Honesty-humility is associated with job performance. Employees are likely to give a higher rating to a leader who possesses honesty and humility. Leaders who portray honesty-humility traits publicly acknowledge their imperfections and mistakes without being dependent on social views, acceptance or rejection. A leader will positively accept criticism and followers’ views thus resulting in reduced work delinquency and ethical violations and increased employee integrity (Ashton and Lee 1220). Humility contributes positively to job performance especially when there is the need for understanding and patience since it positively affects the outcome through increased coordination, cohesion, and cooperation.
Leader-member exchange is based on role development and differentiated roles. It is inherent to study an organization’s nature of functions and its definition and development (Dienesch and Liden 621). Leader relies on policies and rules to facilitate adequate performance (Eva et al. 119). To adequately understand the roles and distribute them successfully a leader will need to understand the follower’s unique traits to accept and respect one’s views (Owens and Hekman 1089). The moderating effect of servant leadership on honesty humility leadership will have an increased impact on leader-follower exchange. Consequently, a positive effect on leader-follower exchange will result in better job performance due to improved trust towards a leader as well as more creativity (Volmer et al 462). The sales quota directs selling behaviors. With leader-follower exchange positively affecting customer orientation, the sales quota will impact positive selling behaviors hence encouraging salespeople to put customers first, which, in turn, lead to improved customer satisfaction.
Servant leadership is defined by two unique distinctive; serving first and focusing on others’ needs selflessly. A leader guides the employees on being responsible moral agents. Meanwhile, even the top management will at times need transformation with subordinates displaying servant leader attributes that would help prompt developmental process in an organization. Companies are required to promote employees’ integrity by providing a hospitable environment and appreciating diversity (Hunter et al.328). A servant leader not only encourages employees’ skills and intellectual development but also enhances moral reasoning capacity. A manager prioritizes the workers’ personal needs, goals and interests above his needs (Hunter et al. 318). A manager needs to take an interest in staff’s background aiming to advance on both financial and non-financial goals of the organization and the staff’s growth. Directors are self-motivated and self-driven and do not expect any service in return, which is an aspect emulated by the workers (Graham 111). Servant leadership has a positive impact on employee retention resulting from the intention of a worker to payback.
Consequently, servant leadership is negatively related to workers disengagement. Staff members tend to be more committed to tasks and develop positive attitudes resulting from managers’ commitment (Hunter et al. 318). Workers associated with a servant leader are less likely to be disengaged and withdraw psychologically from their jobs. Servant leadership impacts helping behavior positively through serving for the benefit of others (Grisaffe et al. 53). Workers will display more support to practices, policies, and procedures within the organization to promote better customer service outcomes and the creation of a favorable service climate (Eva et al. 119). Being a servant leader will inspire the staff members to help their colleagues the same way they have received help from the directors. Workers supporting each other facilitate effectiveness in functioning within an organization (Hunter et al. 318). Fostering a good relationship among employees leads to improved performance outcomes, customer value co-creation, and quality customer service and customer satisfaction (Hunter et al. 318). To this end, servant leadership enhances goal implementation and team potency.
Organizational resilience, learning, and high-quality humility are founded on humility. Essentially, a leader needs to be sincere, fair, free of corruption, unassuming, and modest to portray desirable personal trait. Honesty-humility is related to different personal factors, such as emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience (Ashton et al. 139). A humble leader positively impact performance in the workplace, especially in an environment that requires understanding and patience. Honesty-humility leads to increased employees’ integrity, low delinquency in work, and reduced ethical violations (Ashton and Lee 1220). Workers positively rate supervisors if the latter possess honesty traits. Humility requires leaders to focus more on subordinates’ concerns and needs. An adaptive and learning culture requires that a manager to acknowledge different aspects they may be ignorant in to demonstrate humility. Honesty-humility fosters team humility thus positively impacting team performance and outlining the team members’ strengths (Owens and Hekman 1090). Honesty-humility attitude creates a teachable environment in employees to create better organizational and team performance.
The accurateness in the description of a humble leader is one who has defined personal limits and acknowledges mistakes and faults. A manager needs to appreciate workers contribution towards achieving the company’s goals and objectives and spotlights the strengths of the employees (Downes et al. 205). Humble leaders will not only take fault for personal mistakes but also the failures of the teams by understanding that it is their role to effectively guide, prepare, and offer sufficient resources for a successful project . The honesty-humility atmosphere helps promote the development of workers by assuring them that everyone is bound to mistakes; thus, it is an opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes. Honesty offers psychological freedom and increases staff engagement to accept responsibility. By accepting others’ criticism and views, humility will lead to positive and continuous changes in the company for its development (Owens and Hekman 1089). Leader sincerity is vital and it will result in competence as workers view one as trustworthy (Wright et al. 5). Overall, honesty and humility are co-values that determine employees’ performance and achievement of an organization’s goals and objectives.
Works Cited
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