Ethical Leaders and Leadership Effectiveness: The Moderating role of Individual Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure/ Leader Etici ed Efficacia della Leadership: Il Ruolo Moderatore delle Differenze Individuali relative al Bisogno di Chiusura Cognitiva (original) (raw)
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While previous research has established that employees who have a more conscientious leader are more likely to perceive that their leader is ethical, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this linkage remain unknown. In order to better understand the relationship between leader conscientiousness and ethical leadership, we examine the potential mediating role of leader moral reflectiveness, as well as the potential moderating role of decision-making autonomy. Drawing from social cognitive theory, results from two samples of workgroup leaders and their immediate reports situated in Africa and Asia show that leader conscientiousness is positively related to leader moral reflectiveness, which in turn, is positively associated with employees' assessment of ethical leadership. Furthermore, and consistent with our hypothesis, results from the two samples show that leader decision-making autonomy moderates the indirect path from leader conscientiousness to ethical leadership through moral reflectiveness, such that only morally reflective leaders who have high (versus low) decision-making autonomy at work engage in ethical leadership behaviors. In our discussion, we highlight the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggest ways in which organizations can better foster ethical leadership.
Drawing from the group engagement model and the moral conviction literature, we propose that perceived leader ethical conviction moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee OCB as well as deviance. In a field study of employees from various industries and a scenario-based experiment, we revealed that both the positive relation between ethical leadership and employee OCB and the negative relation between ethical leadership and employee deviance are more pronounced when leaders are perceived to have weak rather than strong ethical convictions. Further, we argued and showed that employees' feelings of personal control and perceived voice opportunity mediated the interactive effect of ethical leadership and perceived leader ethical conviction on OCB and deviance. Implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.
Can Ethical Leaders Heal The Wounds? An Empirical Research
Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics, 2015
Leaders form the character and the nature of the organizations. In this respect ethical leaders may be the solution for organizations in corruption and employees in trouble. For this reason we treated ethical leadership as a healer, and analyzed its effects on intention to quit along with moderation effect of perceptions of organizational politics and mediation effect of organizational identification on this interaction. To that end, data were collected from 103 sales persons, who work at an international white good producing firm, in Ankara, Turkey through questionnaire. The data were analyzed with multifarious statistical techniques. The findings affirm healing effect of ethical leadership on intention to quit. In addition, as a new discovery, moderation effect of perceptions of organizational politics on healing effect of ethical leadership was found. Finally it was discovered that organizational identification and ethical leadership predict intention to quit separately.
Someone to Look Up To: ExecutiveFollower Ethical Reasoning and Perceptions of Ethical Leadership
Journal of …, 2011
Despite a business environment that highlights the importance of executives' ethical leadership, the individual antecedents of ethical leadership remain largely unknown. In this study, the authors propose that follower perceptions of ethical leadership depend on the executive leader's cognitive moral development (CMD) and, more importantly, on the relationship between executive leader and follower CMD. In a sample of 143 leader-follower dyads, the authors find a direct positive relationship between leader CMD and perceptions of ethical leadership. Using polynomial regression, they find that ethical leadership is maximized when the leader's CMD diverges from and is greater than the follower's CMD. The authors explain these findings using a social learning theory framework. Leaders who are more advanced ethical reasoners relative to their followers are likely to stand out as salient ethical role models whose ethics-related communication and behavior attract followers' attention. The authors discuss the research and practical implications of these findings. 1 Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Jeff Edwards for his generous advice and support with our data analyses. We also thank Theresa Glomb and Elizabeth Welsh for sharing insights into their analyses.
2013
Recent ethical scandals in organizations are often cited when pointing to leaders as the culprits who foster corruption in their organization; however, little empirical work examines the individual processes through which leaders may influence follower ethical decision-making and behavior. Drawing from principles of social cognitive theory and self-efficacy theory , moral self-regulatory capacities are presented as a means by which leaders may influence followers. Specifically, I hypothesize that leader influence on follower (un)ethical behavior is mediated through follower ethical efficacy beliefs and moral disengagement processes. I also suggest that ethical efficacy interacts with ethical leadership to influence behavior. Finally, I propose that the mediating influence of moral disengagement is moderated by ethical efficacy beliefs.
Can a leader be seen as too ethical? The curvilinear effects of ethical leadership
The Leadership Quarterly, 2013
Ethical leadership predicts important organizational outcomes such as decreased deviant and increased organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We argued that due to the distinct nature of these two types of employee behaviors, ethical leadership decreases deviance in a linear manner (i.e., more ethical leadership leading to less deviance), but we expected ethical leadership to reveal a curvilinear relationship with respect to OCB. Specifically, we expected that, at lower levels, ethical leadership promotes OCB. However, at high levels, ethical leadership should lead to a decrease in these behaviors. We also examined a mechanism that explains this curvilinear pattern, that is, followers' perceptions of moral reproach. Our predictions were supported in three organizational field studies and an experiment. These findings offer a better understanding of the processes that underlie the workings of ethical leadership. They also imply a dilemma for organizations in which they face the choice between limiting deviant employee behavior and promoting OCB.
2021
Ethical leadership has been investigated as a standalone area because of scholars' notable focus on ethical leaders' behaviors instead of examining other leadership styles' (e.g., transformational, transactional, charismatic leadership) ethical dimensions. The present article reviews ethical leadership literature focusing on variables driving its emergence. The area with most hanging fruits is the role of individual traits (e.g., personality traits, Kalshoven et al. 2011; and moral identity, Mayer et al. 2012) in shaping ethical leadership. However, still little is known about context's contribution in understanding leaders' important ethicality. To address this gap, based on Johns (2006) context framework, we have recognized and classified existing antecedents from a context stand, and analyzed their effect on ethical leaders' emergence. Yet, the empirical research body exploring contextual variables is focused on specific areas and is not systematic. At discrete context level, organization's characteristics (e.g., ethical climate, organizational justice) and social network have important credits in forming ethical leadership with a deficient focus on omnibus contextual variables. Our review raises calls for considering three main avenues. Firstly, we encourage more research about omnibus contextual factors specifically "when" and "who" to make the story telling about ethical leadership predictors more comprehensive. Secondly, since they are nested within the omnibus context, discrete contextual factors might be considered for their possible moderating effect on the investigated relationship. Thirdly, as contexts are dynamic, interactionist approach between omnibuses and discrete contextual variables can offer meaningful discussions about ethical leadership. A framework (figure 2) is proposed enclosing individual traits and contextual factors impacting ethical leadership.
South African Journal of Business Management
The Centre of Leadership Studies developed a model that defines and describes leadership behaviour required for creating an ethical and high performing organisation. Purposefully building an ethical organisational environment is a prerequisite for ethical organisational behaviour. To be an ethical high performance leader, a person must be both an effective leader and a leader of ethics. The purpose of this study is to develop a 360° instrument that can be used to assess the quality of ethical leadership of middle, senior and executive managers in public, private and not-for-profit organisations. The results reported here provide reasonable support for the use of the ELI. The possibility of causal influences existing amongst specific first-order leadership dimensions, however, needs to be investigated.
The Leadership Quarterly, 2015
Previous studies have established the relationship between ethical leadership and a variety of positive follower outcomes. They have investigated a number of psychological mechanisms that mediate these relationships. In terms of mediators, follower organizational identification has been found to mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and follower job performance. In this research, we incorporate a second distinct and theoretically important type of social identification process, relational identification with the leader, along with organizational identification, and examine their mediating effects on follower performance and voice outcomes. Further, we bring the implicit theory of morality to the behavioral ethics literature and examine follower morality beliefs as a moderator. Using a Romanian sample of 302 followers under the supervision of 27 leaders, we found that ethical leadership has an 2 indirect effect on follower job performance and voice (through the mediating mechanisms of both organizational and relational identifications) and that these relationships are stronger for followers who held the implicit theory that a person"s moral character is fixed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.