Empathy and Political Skill: Improving Salespeople’s Value Enhancing Behavior Performance

Little is known about the interface between empathy and political skill in sales. This study develops a model to reflect these characteristics and their impact on performance. Results from a study of 240 B2B salespeople contradict the a priori assumption that empathy may not be positively related to sales performance and challenge existing stereotypes that salespeople are not empathetic. Importantly, the findings show sellers employing empathy can generate enhanced outcomes. Also, this study extends our understanding that utilizing political influence spreads the benefit of empathy beyond the impact itself. Politically skilled B2B salespeople can better understand and display their empathy and then persuade and direct customers to mutually advantageous decisions. The identification of new behavioral selling tools may benefit sellers as researchers gain further insight into maximizing selling behaviors.