Influencing salespeople’s work outcomes through authentic leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between sales managers’ authentic leadership style and salespeople’s positive development. Design/methodology/approach – Multilevel regression analysis was used to examine the data from 40 work teams from several Spanish retail companies (190 salespeople and 40 sales managers). Findings – In line with previous studies, the analyses indicated that sales managers’ authentic leadership style as perceived by employees significantly predicted salespeople’s work engagement and psychological capital (PsyCap). Contrary to the expectations, salespeople’s perceptions of sales managers’ authentic leadership did not relate to sales managers’ self-ratings of authentic leadership, but instead related to sales managers’ gender (women were perceived as more authentic) and higher perceived frequency of leader–follower interaction. Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature by testing if sales managers’ variables (gender and self-ratings of authentic leadership and perceived frequency of leader–follower interaction) predict salespeople’s perceptions of authentic leadership, which in turn, predict salespeople’s positive development (work engagement and PsyCap).