A Test of Transactional and Transformational Leadership Behaviour of Salesman on Customer Relationship Marketing Behaviour: A Study of the Indian Banking Sector

The present study was aimed to test constituents as well as complete theories of Transactional and Transformational Leadership behaviour of salesman on customer relationship marketing behaviour in Indian Banking scenario. For Transactional Leadership it was hypothesized that contingency reward system and management by exception of salesperson positively affect customer trust, customer commitment and together they contribute to customer relationship behaviour .For transformational Leadership it was hypothesized that idealized influence behaviour, individualized considerate, Intellectual stimulation, Inspirational motivation behaviour of salespersons positively affect customers’ trust, customers’ commitment, customer assumptions and customers optimistic engagement. Non-Probabilistic sampling methods were used. A survey was conducted among 61 sales persons and their customers in the Indian banking sector, and the regression analysis was performed to test hypotheses. Conclusion shows that contingency reward system influence customer relationship up to a certain extent while management by exceptions is not so appropriate for maintaining the relationship with customer though it is showing correlation, while in case of transformational leadership idealized influence behaviour of salespersons positively influences customer trust, individualized consideration of salespersons, in turn influences customer commitment, Intellectual stimulation encourage creativity and changes earlier assumptions of customer and Inspirational Motivation influences optimistic engagement of customers. It was also found that the combined effect of all the constituent of Transformational Leadership theories are positively related with customers’ relationship commitment. Conclusion motivate us to think complementary nature of these theories thus points out how leadership development training can be adapted to improve relationship marketing skills of sales persons.