Emotional Intelligence and Sales Performance. A Myth or Reality?

The concept of emotional intelligence has become popular as a consulting tool as theorysuggests that individuals who are high in emotional intelligence are likely to exhibit a higherlevel of performance outcomes. In this study, we examined the impact of emotional intelligenceon sales performance. We hypothesized that the impact of emotional intelligence on salesperformance was mediated by adaptive selling behaviour. Data were collected from salespeople in the financial industries in Malaysia via the WLEIS emotional intelligence scale andADAPTS adaptive selling behaviour scale, and were quantitatively analysed using structuralequation modelling (SEM). Results were in keeping with the model. Emotional intelligencewas not found to impact sales performance directly. It impacted on sales performance througha mediating variable; adaptive selling behaviour.