Do Role Models Matter? An Investigation of Role Modeling as an Antecedent of Perceived Ethical Leadership

Thus far, we know much more about the significant outcomes of perceived ethical leadership than we do about its antecedents. In this study, we focus on multiple types of ethical role models as antecedents of perceived ethical leadership. According to social learning theory, role models facilitate the acquisition of moral and other types of behavior. Yet, we do not know whether having had ethical role models influences follower perceptions of one’s ethical leadership and, if so, what kinds of role models are important. We conducted a field study, surveying supervisors and their subordinates to examine the relationship between three types of ethical role models and ethical leadership: the leader’s childhood role models, career mentors, and top managers. We found that having had an ethical role model during the leader’s career was positively related to subordinate-rated ethical leadership. As expected, this effect was moderated by leader age, such that the relationship between career mentoring and ethical leadership was stronger for older leaders. Leader age also moderated the relationship between childhood models and ethical leadership ratings, such that having had childhood ethical role models was more strongly and positively related to ethical leadership for younger leaders. We found no effect for top management ethical role models. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Leading with moral courage: The interplay of guilt and courage on perceived ethical leadership and group organizational citizenship behaviors

This study uses a moderated mediation model to investigate the role of leaders’ moral courage and guilt in promoting group‐level organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Based on the idea that leaders model ethical behavior among followers, we examine whether leaders’ display of morally laden emotions weaken follower perceptions of ethical leadership, thus disrupting the influence of moral courage on followers. Two independent studies examined the proposed model. Study 1 used an experimental design to examine leaders’ moral displays, testing the interactive effects of leader moral courage, and guilt on follower perceptions of ethical leadership. Study 2 used a multisource field study with 100 leaders and 336 subordinates to explore how a leader displays of courage and guilt influenced group‐level OCB, mediated by ethical leadership. Consistent with our theoretical model, we find an indirect positive relationship between a leader’s moral courage and group OCB. However, we also find that this effect is weakened by displays of guilt by the leader.     

Leaders’ Core Self-evaluation,Ethical Leadership,and Employees’ Job Performance: The Moderating Role of Employees’ Exchange Ideology

With the increasing demand for ethical standards in the current business environment, ethical leadership has received particular attention. Drawing on self-verification theory and social exchange theory, this study investigated the effect of leaders’ core self-evaluation on the display of ethical leadership and the moderating role of employees’ exchange ideology in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ job performance (i.e., task performance and organizational citizenship behavior). Consistent with the hypotheses, the results from a sample of 225 dyads of employees and their immediate leaders showed a positive relationship between leaders’ core self-evaluation and ethical leadership. Moreover, the results showed that ethical leadership mediates the effects of leaders’ core self-evaluation on employees’ job performance. Furthermore, we found that employees’ exchange ideology moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and job performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

New Insights into Ethical Leadership: A Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Executive Ethical Leaders

Ethical leadership has become a thriving research field. However, on reviewing previous research, we argue that several fundamental questions remain unclear and need further investigation. (1) Ethical leaders are defined as behaving ‘normatively appropriate[ly]’ (Brown et al., Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 97(2):117–134, 2005), but it remains unclear what this entails. What specific behaviours does an ethical leader show? (2) To date, ethical leadership has focused primarily on leader behaviour towards employees. Which stakeholders apart from employees are important to the ethical leader, and what kind of ethical behaviour does the ethical leader show towards them? (3) What are further antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership? We addressed these questions by qualitatively analysing interviews with 17, mostly Swiss, executive ethical leaders. The results indicate that executive ethical leaders care not only about employees but also about other stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, owners of companies, the natural environment and society. Additionally, this study identified a broad range of executive ethical leaders’ behaviours towards these stakeholders, and, therefore, may function as a useful resource for future quantitative studies. Furthermore, we identified several antecedents of executive ethical leadership, for example ethical role models, business strategy and owner’s values, and consequences such as effects on other stakeholders than employees. Finally, our results shed more light on the processes of ethical guidance of employees. Managerial implications and avenues for further research are discussed.     

An Examination of the Contribution of Dispositional Affect on Ethical Lapses

The popular press and academic research has focused primarily on the characteristics of corporate leaders. Subordinates have been studied much less frequently than leaders and yet they play a pivotal role in destructive leadership processes. An area holding significant potential to bring clarity to subordinates?? ability to withstand (or succumb) to pressures from superiors is dispositional affect. In our exploratory study, we examine how specific affective states influence subordinates?? unethical behavior. We performed an experiment with 63 mid-level managers having significant work experience. Participants were given ethical scenarios and asked to assess their intentions to comply with their superiors?? requests to engage in unethical conduct. The participants also completed the positive affect negative affect schedule (PANAS) which provides measures of affective states. Our results provide support for theory-based predictions. The findings of our study make important contributions and have implications to both practice and theory. First, we identify certain affective states that encourage subordinates to adopt the behavior of a conformer or colluder and thus be susceptible to their superiors?? unethical directives. Second, our results suggest the need for training programs to assist employees in managing affect in the work place and consideration of organizational changes that provide a culture of empowerment of its employees. Third, unlike a large majority of prior research, we measured naturally occurring affective states rather than providing a contrived (and potentially exaggerated) triggering event to elicit affective states. Fourth, we examined specific affective states rather than examining only general positive and negative valence categories.     

A Multilevel Trust-based Model of Ethical Public Leadership

I develop and test a multilevel trust-based model of ethical public leadership, which links ethical leadership, trust and leadership outcomes both within and across organizational levels. I examine how both ethical leadership and trust relate to employee well-being and satisfaction, group organizational citizenship behaviour and perceived organizational performance. The findings, based on data collected from an online quantitative survey conducted in three local councils of the north east of England, provide evidence in support of positive relationships between ethical leadership and employees’ trust in leaders at multiple levels. This trust is in turn shown to influence employees’ attitudes, behaviours and cognitions.     

The Power of One to Make a Difference: How Informal and Formal CEO Power Affect Environmental Sustainability

This study empirically investigated the impact of ethical leadership on employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance through two psychological mechanisms: (1) developing higher levels of employee trust in leaders and (2) demonstrating lower levels of surface acting toward their leaders. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from employees of a pharmaceutical retail chain company. Analyses of multisource time-lagged data from 45 team leaders and 247 employees showed that employees’ trust in leaders and surface acting significantly mediated the relationships between ethical leadership and employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for understanding how ethical leaders influence employees’ attitudes and behavior.     

The Influence of CSR and Ethical Self-Identity in Consumer Evaluation of Cobrands

In a multi-source study, we examine how frequent change interacts with ethical leadership to reduce turnover intentions. We argue that ethical leaders enhance employees’ state self-esteem, which explains the moderating effect of ethical leadership. Results from 124 employee-coworker-supervisor triads revealed that ethical leadership moderated the relationship between frequent change and turnover intention such that the relationship was positive only when ethical leadership was low. The moderating relationship could be shown to be mediated by employees’ state self-esteem.     

A Scale to Assess Ethical Leadership of Indian Private and Public Sector Managers

Three hundred forty middle-level managers from two private and two public sector manufacturing companies in India rated their superiors on 22 items of ethical leadership. Factor analysis of the scores on such items yielded two dimensions of ethical leadership: (a) empowerment, and (b) motive and character. Items of the scale had high reliability, validity, and discriminative power. On two dimensions of ethical leadership, the superiors self-rated themselves more favorably than their subordinates rated them. This justified the proposal to consider the subordinates' ratings to their superiors in assessing ethical leadership. Subordinates perceived their superiors more ethical in private sector than in public sector. Subordinates' manipulative behavior, and cheating in performance and misuse of finance were less frequent in the presence of ethical superiors. Also, ethical superiors enhanced the job performance, job involvement and affective commitment of their subordinates but not their continuance commitment.     

Environmentally Responsible and Conventional Market Indices’ Reaction to Natural and Anthropogenic Adversity: A Comparative Analysis

Using data collected at two phases, this study examines why and how ethical leadership behavior influences employees’ evaluations of organization-focused justice, i.e., procedural justice and distributive justice. By proposing ethical leaders as moral agents of the organization, we build up the linkage between ethical leadership behavior and the above two types of organization-focused justice. We further suggest trust in organization as a key mediating mechanism in the linkage. Our findings indicate that ethical leadership behavior engenders employees’ trust in their employing organization, which in turn promotes their justice perceptions toward the organization. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and some directions for future research are suggested.     

Ethics,spirituality and self: managerial perspective and leadership implications

This paper argues that the self, as both the centre of our identity and the focus of our spiritual life, has not been given enough consideration with regard to the ethics of managers and leaders. Informed by models of self‐realisation and the Jungian process of individuation, our discussion suggests that the way we perceive and interpret our self affects our moral behaviour. In particular, integrity of the self fully participates in enhancing servant leadership and consistent ethical practice. We illustrate the argument with comments from various managers on the statement: ‘Being true to your self’.     

Ethical Attitudes in Small Businesses and Large Corporations: Theory and Empirical Findings from a Tracking Study Spanning Three Decades

This study offers a theoretical framework of ethical behavior and a comparative analysis of ethical perceptions of managers of large, mostly publicly traded corporations (those with 1,000 or more employees) and the owners and managers of smaller companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) across 17 years. The primary research provides basic data on the changing standards of ethics as perceived by leaders of large and small businesses where the cultures frequently fall into sharp contrast. Our findings reveal the extent to which the message of business integrity is gaining or losing ground within large and small companies. It does this by means of respondents’ judgments of acceptable responses to 16 scenarios profiling common business situations with questionable ethical dimensions. Based on responses from over 5,000 managers and employees (from firms of all sizes) to our scenarios at three points in time (1985, 1993, 2001), we tested two research questions. First, for firms of all sizes, have business ethics improved or declined between the years 1985 and 2001? Second, comparing responses of large and small firm executives across the 1985–2001 time frame, is there a discernible difference in their ethical standards? Our results suggest that business leaders are making somewhat more ethical decisions in recent years. We also found that small business owner–managers offered less ethical responses to scenarios in 1993 but that no significant differences existed with large firm managers in 1985 and 2001. Implications of our findings are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Linear or Curvilinear Effects?

In this study, we examine the nature of the relationship between ethical leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), defined as unethical behavior conducted by employees with the aim of benefiting their organization, and whether the strength of the relationship differs between subordinates experiencing high and low identification with supervisor. Based on three-wave survey data obtained from 239 public sector employees in China, we find that ethical leadership has an inverted u-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with UPB. As the level of ethical leadership increases from low to moderate, UPB increases; as the level of ethical leadership increases from moderate to high, UPB decreases. Further, we find that the strength of this inverted u-curve relationship differs between subordinates with high and low identification with supervisor. That is to say, the inverted u-shaped relationship between ethical leadership and UPB was stronger when subordinates experienced high levels of identification with supervisor. The theoretical and managerial implications of our findings for understanding how to manage UPB in an organizational context are discussed.     

More humility,less counterproductive work behaviors? The role of interpersonal justice and trust

Leader humility has emerged as an important topic in understanding the role of leadership in organizations in recent years. Though it was found to enhance subordinates’ work performance and positive work behaviors, we are unaware of the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions underlying leader humility and employees’ negative behaviors toward leaders. Drawing on social exchange theory and using a multistage sample including 273 employees and 55 supervisors in China, we demonstrated a negative indirect effect between leader humility and subordinates’ counterproductive work behaviors toward supervisors (CWB-S) via interpersonal justice and trust in supervisor. Furthermore, we find that leader political skill moderates the effect of leader humility on interpersonal justice and trust in supervisor. The indirect effect of leader humility on subordinates’ CWB-S through interpersonal justice is stronger when leader political skill is high, suggesting a moderated mediation model. Finally, we discuss the theoretical contributions and practical implications of this study, and highlight future directions for research on leader humility.     

Perceptual differences regarding leadership between the store manager and employees and its impact on frontline sales performance: A research note

This study focuses on the bright side of perceptual differences regarding leadership that may exist between managers and employees. Specifically, building on leadership literature, the authors propose that in situations wherein a manager’s perceptions of their own leadership are lower than that of their employees’ perceptions of their managers’ leadership, employees’ sales performance levels are higher. Data were collected from retail store managers and frontline employees in Brazil in three different contexts (e.g., footwear, clothing, and furniture). Based on polynomial regression analyses, the findings suggest that sales performance is generally higher when a manager’s self-perceptions are lower than their frontline employees’ perceptions of managers’ transactional and transformational leadership.     

For the Good or the Bad? Interactive Effects of Transformational Leadership with Moral and Authoritarian Leadership Behaviors

Although the ethical aspects of transformational leadership have attracted considerable attention, very little is known about followers’ reactions to the moral and immoral conduct of transformational leaders. Against this background, this study examined whether and how transformational leadership interacts with moral and authoritarian leadership behaviors in predicting followers’ in-role and extra-role efforts. Building on attribution theory, we hypothesized that the positive and negative effects of these leadership behaviors would be particularly pronounced for highly transformational leaders given that this leadership style elicits strong attention and sense-making efforts among followers. We tested our model in a sample of 228 individuals comprising 114 leader–follower dyads from a wide range of organizations and industries. In line with our hypotheses, results revealed that for highly transformational leaders, moral leadership behaviors related positively to employees’ in-role and extra-role efforts whereas authoritarian leadership behaviors related negatively to employees’ in-role and extra-role efforts. In contrast, moral and authoritarian leadership behaviors did not significantly affect followers’ reactions to leaders low in transformational leadership. Taken together, these findings suggest that transformational leadership, contrary to its largely positive perception in the literature, can be a rather mixed blessing. Implications for theory, future research, and managerial practice are discussed.     

A cross-cultural meta-analysis of how leader emotional intelligence influences subordinate task performance and organizational citizenship behavior

Global human resource managers need to understand which personality characteristics contribute to leadership effectiveness in different cultures for both selection and training purposes. This meta-analysis demonstrates that leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) demonstrates incremental validity and relative weight in predicting subordinates’ task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) after controlling for the Big Five and cognitive ability. The relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ task performance is stronger in collectivistic, feminine, and high uncertainty avoidance cultures. The relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ OCB is stronger in high power distance, collectivistic, feminine, high uncertainty avoidance, long-term oriented, and restraint cultures.     

Managers as developers: some reflections on the contribution of empowerment in Britain

Britain’s record for training and developing managers and employees was subject to severe scrutiny in the 1980s. Subsequently, a range of employer initiatives were launched with the avowed intention of enhancing the human capital of both managers and their subordinates. A major initiative has taken place under the umbrella title of ‘empowerment’, which purports to offer greater autonomy and discretion to employees and to provide the means to bring about this transformation through training and supportive management styles. The present study examines a number of organisations which have introduced empowering initiatives. It finds that whilst individual line managers in empowering organisations consider themselves better equipped to deal with their subordinates than those in non- empowering organisations, deeper analysis reveals substantial problems in transforming these managers into developers of subordinates. Managers appear to be undertrained and often not motivated to develop their staff. Discretion to employees was generally very narrowly defined and tightly bounded by both formal and informal controls. Empowerment for many employees was indistinguishable from work intensification. The conclusion is that the empowerment programmes under study were unlikely to stimulate line managers to develop their employees.     

How Does Ethical Leadership Trickle Down? Test of an Integrative Dual-Process Model

Although the trickle-down effect of ethical leadership has been documented in the literature, its underlying mechanism still remains largely unclear. To address this gap, we develop a cross-level dual-process model to explain how the effect occurs. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize that the ethical leadership of high-level managers could cascade to middle-level supervisors via its impact on middle-level supervisors’ two ethical expectations. Using a sample of 69 middle-level supervisors and 381 subordinates across 69 sub-branches from a large banking firm in China, we found that middle-level supervisors’ ethical efficacy expectation and unethical behavior–punishment expectation (as one form of ethical outcome expectations) accounted for the trickle-down effect. The explanatory role of middle-level supervisors’ ethical behavior–reward expectation (as the other form of ethical outcome expectations), however, was not supported. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Feeling Good by Doing Good: Employee CSR-Induced Attributions, Job Satisfaction, and the Role of Charismatic Leadership

Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gaining momentum in academic and managerial circles. However, prior work in the area has paid little attention to how CSR initiatives should be implemented inside the organization. Against this backdrop, this study examines the impact of CSR initiatives on an important stakeholder group—employees. We build and test a comprehensive multilevel framework that focuses on whether employees derive job satisfaction from CSR programs. The proposed model predicts that a manager’s charismatic leadership influences employees’ interpretations about the motives underlying their companies’ engagement in CSR initiatives (intrinsic and extrinsic CSR-induced attributions) which, in turn, influence employee job satisfaction. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 47 organizational units comprising 438 employees from three world-leading manufacturing organizations shows that when employees think that their manager possesses charismatic leadership qualities, they tend to attribute the organization’s motives for engaging in CSR activities to intrinsic values, which, in turn, are positively associated with job satisfaction. Also, the extent to which managers are perceived as charismatic leaders relates positively to job satisfaction. Interestingly, CSR-induced extrinsic attributions are neither explained by charismatic leadership nor do they predict job satisfaction. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.