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Success in the global marketplace depends on a manager’s ability to provide leadership. Exceptional success depends on sustaining extraordinary performance. Are there universal behaviours which are consistent around the world? Are there subtle differences of emphasis which vary across different nationalities or corporate environments? Senior executives were polled in two major divisions of a global petroleum company and from its major subsidiaries around the world. They were asked to describe examples of exceptional organizational performance and to identify the key leadership behaviours which they saw as explaining or accounting for the extraordinary outcomes. Content analysis led to a few key leadership behaviours being identified. The major finding was that the main dimensions of leadership for extraordinary performance are universal. Only a few variations in emphasis existed among six different regions of the world. Also there were some clear leadership differences, long established in the folklore of the company, associated with different corporate cultures in the two major divisions.

The purpose of this study is to identify and explain how leadership behaviors of sales managers can enhance the development of salespeople within the context of those interpersonal connections and interactions that is the sales ecosystem.

The authors collected and analyzed qualitative data from in-depth interviews with a sample of 36 sales professionals. Over 47 hours of interviews were transcribed and analyzed via NVivo. The statements were labeled as particular leader behaviors using the Miles and Huberman (1994) coding system.

The study identifies coaching, customer engaging, collaborating and championing as the four key leader behaviors that are relevant to the sales ecosystem. Specifically, coaching and customer engaging enhance the individual microsystems of salespeople; and collaborating and championing enhance the corresponding mesosystems. Analysis of the interview statements further revealed that trust, confidence, optimism and resilience are four relational elements that tend to coexist with these leader behaviors in the sales ecosystem.

This study provides a structure for sales organizations to strengthen their sales ecosystem through targeted interventions and training for those that manage salespeople. Past research finds that sales organizations too often neglect this type of managerial training.

This is the first study to examine sales leadership through the lens of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory. Further, the qualitative methodology, which is relatively unique in sales research, provides rich data that is particularly useful for exploring how and why things have happened.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the impact of sales education on recent graduates' career preparedness and understand how sales programs might prepare students better for successful sales careers. We investigate the known competencies leading to sales success that were, or were not, adequately developed by their university sales programs.

The authors collected and analyzed qualitative data from in-depth interviews with a sample of 20 recent university sales graduates working in a sales career. Over 23 h of interviews were transcribed and analyzed via NVivo. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework was applied in this study to code the data.

The study identifies that while respondents are positive about their overall sales education and feel confident about their knowledge of the sales process, they are not always confident in their ability to deal with ambiguity and the unknown. This study revealed that constructs of self-leadership and career choice self-efficacy deserve further consideration as components of the university sales program curriculum.

As with all exploratory research, there are limits to generalizability; however, this study revealed that the constructs of goal setting, self-leadership and self-knowledge hold promise for further study as a means to increase sales-related self-efficacy and career readiness.

Respondents were positive about their overall sales education experience but identified a need for more effective sales education in cold calling, prospecting and the inherent level of rejection to be prepared for inside sales positions in which sales graduates increasingly start their careers.

Lower turnover and better educational preparedness of sales program graduates clearly will accrue socioeconomic benefits.

This is the first study to examine the impact of sales education on recent graduates’ career preparedness and the first study for this journal to focus on sales as an area of professional competency and related sales pedagogy. Further, the qualitative methodology, which is relatively unique in sales research, provides rich data that is particularly useful for exploratory research to help provide a structure for universities to strengthen their sales programs through targeted training to help students enhance self-leadership and career preparedness.