Leader exemplification involves implicit and explicit claims of high moral values made by a leader. We employed a 2 × 3 experimental design with samples of 265 students in Study 1 and 142 working adults in Study 2 to examine the effects of leader exemplification (exemplification versus no exemplification) and ethical conduct (self-serving, self-sacrificial, and self-other focus) on perceived leader authenticity, trust in leader, and organizational advocacy. In Study 1, we found that exemplification produced elevated levels of perceived authenticity, trust, and advocacy in the form of employment and investment recommendations. We also showed that leader ethical conduct moderated this effect, as ratings were highest following a leader’s self-sacrificial conduct, lowest for self-serving conduct, and moderate for conduct reflecting self-other concerns. In Study 2, we replicated these findings for perceived authenticity and trust, but not organizational advocacy, which yielded mixed results. The leadership implications and future research directions are discussed.

Differences in cultures, religious beliefs, and philosophical views suggest that leadership ethics may vary between Western and Eastern perspectives. However, ethical leadership scales are mostly rooted in Western conceptualization. This systematic review explores the cultural contributions, philosophical perspectives, and underlying theories shaping the measures of ethical leadership. A comprehensive search across Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest Management, and Emerald Insight from 1990 to 2021 yielded over 3900 articles, with only 15 focusing on an Eastern conceptualization of ethical leadership. Findings reveal that Eastern ethical leadership encompasses unique dimensions, including leaders’ responsibility and concern for long-term sustainability, often overlooked in existing measures. Despite some similarities in virtues and values between Eastern and Western philosophical views, past studies predominantly employed Western theoretical perspectives to explain ethical leadership. This review highlights the imperative for measures that authentically capture Eastern cultural distinctions, crucial for advancing ethical leadership research amid the East’s increasing global influence.

Ethical leaders are those who exemplify moral behavior personally, as well as those who facilitate follower ethical behavior. Although recent attention has been given to the ethical leadership construct, there remains a lack of innovation regarding the assessment and development of ethical leaders in organizations. To address these issues, a pilot study was conducted to examine the convergent validity of an ethical leadership assessment center, as well as the efficacy of using assessment center feedback to foster ethical leadership. Assessees completed a battery of pre tests, a virtual business simulation with a novel exercise, and a set of post tests. Half of the assessees were randomly assigned to a feedback condition, whereas the other half did not receive feedback until after the post tests were completed. Due to low statistical power, quantitative results were inconclusive. Nevertheless, qualitative insights were gained that point to implications for validating assessment center methodologies when assessing and developing ethical leadership.

Drawing on early work on ethical leadership, we argue that when leaders engage in leader moral hypocrisy (i.e., ethical promotion without ethical demonstration), followers can experience psychological reactance—a negative response to a perceived restriction of freedom—which can have negative downstream consequences. In a survey of employee–manager dyads (study 1), we demonstrate that leader moral hypocrisy is positively associated with follower psychological reactance, which increases follower deviance. In two subsequent laboratory experiments, we find similar patterns of results (study 2) and explore potential alternative mechanisms (study 3). We demonstrate in a final experiment with working adults that the relationship between leader moral hypocrisy and psychological reactance is partly explained by increased perceptions of a leader’s use of power (study 4). We discuss the implications of our findings and advocate for further understanding of the risks associated with psychological reactance in response to leaders and other workplace situations.

Studies have shown that voice could be utilized as an effective method to improve organizational effectiveness. This study explores the relationship between ethical leadership and employee voice behavior by focusing on the mediating role of the error management climate and the moderating role of the employee's organizational commitment. Analysis of data collected in three phases in China indicates that the error management climate partly mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and voice behavior. Also, organizational commitment is found to moderate the relationship between the error management climate and voice behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

In this study, the effect of ethical leadership on extra-role service behavior, and the role of person–organization fit and organizational trust on this effect were examined. A multi-level research model was established in the research and hypotheses were tested within this model. The data of this research study were obtained from 205 workers of two hospitals (public and private), in a certain province in Turkey. The obtained findings demonstrated that ethical leadership strengthened the trust in the organization both directly and over person–organization fit. Moreover, based on the findings, it was determined that ethical leadership increased extra-role service behavior by means of organizational trust. The theoretical and practical implications of all of the findings were discussed and evaluated in the context of national culture.

We examine supervisor-subordinate (dis)agreement regarding perceptions of the supervisor’s ethical leadership and its relationship to organizational deviance. We find that, on average, supervisors rate themselves more favorably on ethical leadership compared to how followers rate them. In addition, polynomial regression results reveal that unit-level organizational deviance is higher when there is agreement about lower levels of ethical leadership, and disagreement when supervisors rate themselves higher on ethical leadership than subordinates’ ratings of the supervisors. Finally, drawing on social influence theories, we look at antecedents of (dis)agreement and find that supervisors’ beliefs about themselves (that they were “better-than-average” ethical leaders) and others (their assumptions about whether the morality of their subordinates is malleable or not) are associated with self-other (dis)agreement on ethical leadership.

This article introduces the second of two special issues on philosophical approaches to leadership ethics. In this issue, the articles draw on the works of Plato, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas to explore questions in leadership ethics concerning leaders’ self-knowledge and self-constitution and their responsibilities to their followers. The articles in this issue demonstrate the potential of philosophy to deepen our understanding of leadership and ethics.

The business ethics and leadership literature has paid little attention to the analysis of virtue in the Socratic dialogues, but Plato’s account of virtue and persuasion offer relevant insights for business leaders. In the Republic, Plato’s description of five types of leaders offers a new perspective on leadership selection and development using the moral psychology of both virtuous and non-virtuous leaders. In this article, I explain Plato’s account of virtue and knowledge, his three-part moral psychology, the four cardinal virtues that virtuous leaders develop, and his continuum of five leader types. I apply Plato’s model to leadership issues in today’s corporate world and explain how the model can guide leaders, board members, and investors.

This study examines the relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity with mediating role of trust in leader and moderating role of openness to experience. Data were collected from 205 supervisor–subordinate small textile firms across Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the distinctiveness of variables used in our study. The results confirmed that ethical leadership promotes creativity at workplace, while trust in leader mediates the effect of ethical leadership on creativity. Furthermore, the results did not confirm the moderation of openness to experience on the relationship between trust in leader and employee creativity. The implications are discussed.

This article introduces the first of two special issues on philosophical approaches to leadership ethics. In it, we show some of the ways that philosophy contributes to the study of leadership and leadership ethics. We begin with an overview of how philosophers have treated some of the ethical aspects and challenges of leadership. These include discussions of self-interest, the problem of dirty hands, responsibility, moral luck, power, gender and diversity, and spirituality. The articles in this issue draw on philosophy to explore a variety of ethical questions related to leadership and the relationships that leaders have with followers and others.

Given the importance of voice in ethical leadership theory, we analyze the relationship of ethical leadership to employee voice and the relationship of voice to exit intentions. Building on the theory of work engagement, we further hypothesize that cognitive engagement mediates these proposed relationships. To test these propositions, we conduct a field study to relate ethical leadership of supervisors, measured at time 1, to employees’ cognitive job engagement, measured at time 2. The analyses show that the relationship between these variables can account for supervisory ethical leadership’s association with employee voice and exit intentions. In a supplementary study using a different sample, we find that supervisory ethical leadership is related to exit intentions through voice. We discuss how these findings contribute to the literature on ethical leadership, employee voice, and exit.

In the expanding field of ethical leadership research, little attention has been paid to the association between ethical leaders’ ethical characteristics (beyond personality) and perceived ethical leadership, and, more importantly, the potential influence of ethical leadership on followers’ ethical characteristics. In this study, we tested a theoretical model based upon social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) to examine leaders’ moral identity and moral attentiveness as antecedents of perceived ethical leadership, and follower moral identity and moral attentiveness as outcomes of ethical leadership. Based upon data from 89 leaders and 460 followers in China, collected at two points in time, we found that leaders’ moral identity and moral attentiveness are associated with follower’s perceptions of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is, in turn, associated with their followers’ moral identity and moral attentiveness. We found furthermore that ethical leadership mediates the effect of leaders’ moral identity on followers’ moral identity, but not the effect of leaders’ moral attentiveness on followers’ moral attentiveness. We discuss the findings, theoretical contributions, practical implications, and future research.

This paper focuses on the individual perspective, as opposed to the institutional or operational one, towards the Fundamental Principles and their underpinning humanitarian values. It demonstrates the added value of this perspective, which goes beyond addressing challenges regarding the Fundamental Principles' understanding and application. By making the Principles and values come alive in peoples' behaviour, the individual perspective also enables Red Cross and Red Crescent staff and volunteers to inspire a change of mindset and behaviour towards a culture of non-violence and peace. Two tools created to this purpose, as well as their impact, are presented: (i) the Seven Skills for Seven Principles (747) framework, which unpacks the high-level Principles into more concrete and tangible components, values and intra- and interpersonal skills; and (ii) the Youth as Agents of Behavioural Change (YABC) initiative, which, using a non-cognitive learning approach, fosters a personal connection towards the Principles and increases participants' ability to role-model them.

While tone at the top is widely regarded as an important predictor of ethical behavior in organizations, we argue that recent research overlooks the various conflicting ethical tones present in many multi-organizational work settings. Further, we propose that the resolution processes promulgated in many firms and professional associations to reconcile this conflict reinforce the tone at the bottom or a tone at the top of the employee’s organization, and that both of these approaches can conflict with the tone at the top of other important organizations such as professional and regulatory organizations. Here we adapt Integrative Social Contract Theory’s priority rules to propose a multi-tone reconciliation process which prioritizes conflicting ethical tones based upon features of the organization and the effects on society. Using three contextualizations (overbilling, worker safety and client advocacy), we demonstrate the effectiveness of the multi-tone reconciliation process over current processes. We conclude with recommendations for future research and implications for practice.

The purpose of the present research was to investigate if and when leaders’ trait-like tendency to experience contempt would result in a lack of constructive attitudes and behaviors towards subordinates and an increase in destructive attitudes and behaviors towards subordinates. Previous research shows that increased power aligns individuals’ behavior with their trait-like tendencies. Accordingly, we hypothesized that leader contempt and power will interact to predict leaders’ people orientation, ethical leadership, dehumanization, and self-serving behavior. Across three studies, we indeed found that contempt was more negatively associated with leaders’ people orientation and ethical leadership, and more positively associated with dehumanization and leaders’ self-serving behavior, when the leader had higher levels of power rather than lower levels of power. These results are discussed in the context of corporate ethical scandals demonstrating leaders’ focus on personal gain to the detriment of the needs of their subordinates.

Ethical leadership has been widely identified as the key variable in enhancing team-level organizational citizenship behavior (team-level OCB) in western economic and business contexts. This is challenged by empirical evidence in China and findings of this study. Our study examined the relationship between ethical leadership, organizational ethical context (ethical culture and corporate ethical values) and team-level OCB. Team-level data has been collected from 57 functional teams in 57 firms operating in China. The findings suggest that although ethical leadership is positively associated with team-level OCB, ethical context positively moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and team-level OCB. The higher ethical context is found to be, the greater is the (positive) effects of ethical leadership on team-level OCB and the opposite holds true when ethical context is low. Key implications are discussed on the role of contextual ethics for team-level OCB, while managerial implications include how non-Chinese firms could improve team-level OCB in the Chinese business context.

Although prior work has shown that employees with ethical leaders are less likely to engage in deviant or unethical behaviors, it is unknown whether all employees respond this way or to the same extent. Drawing on social learning theory as a conceptual framework, this study develops and tests hypotheses suggesting that two follower characteristics—conscientiousness and core self-evaluation—moderate the negative relationship between ethical leadership and workplace incivility. Data from employees of a U.S. public school district supported our predictions. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Regulatory focus theory is proposed as offering an explanation for the influence of ethical leadership on organizational citizenship behaviors and employee commitments. The prevention focus mindset of an employee is argued to be the mechanism by which an ethical leader influences extra-role compliance behavior as well as normative commitment, whereas the promotion focus mindset of an employee is argued to be the mechanism by which an ethical leader influences extra-role voice behavior as well as affective commitment. Moreover, leader-member exchange is proposed as a moderator of the relationship of ethical leadership to regulatory focus mindsets and employee behavior and commitments. Using the data collected in two waves from 250 working adults, we tested the proposed relationships with moderated mediation bootstrap procedures. The findings generally support the hypothesized relationships and point toward important implications for ethical leadership in work settings.