Ethical Leadership

Ethical leadership

Brown et al. (2005, p. 120) defined ethical leadership “as the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making.” Trevino, Brown, and Hartman (2000-2003) conducted a study to determine the meaning of ethical leadership (cited in Brown and Trevino 2006). They interviewed twenty senior executives and twenty ethics/compliance officers in several industries to discover what they felt were the characteristics, behaviors, and motives of an ethical leader. According to Trevino et al. (2000-2003), the interviews showed that ethical leaders are honest, trustworthy,

(2005), ethical leaders have honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness. Also, for Brown and Mitchell (2010); Trevino, Brown and Hartman (2003); and Weaver, Trevino, and Agle (2005), ethical leaders communicate high performance expectations, are role models to their employees, use rewards to hold people responsible for appropriate conduct, and treat people fairly and with respect. Thus, through their actions, ethical leaders try to influence their followers’ behavior. Based upon the social exchange theory (Blau 1964), when employees perceive their leader as ethical and fair, they return this by way of good performance. Also, based upon the social learning theory (Bandura 1977), ethical leaders influence employee behavior by being role models. Hence, based upon the social exchange theory and the social learning theory, we think that ethical leaders have positive influences on employees’ task performance. Therefore, we propose the following

For Chen (2007), committed individuals will believe in and accept organizational goals and values; they want to remain in the organization and commit themselves to providing quality services on behalf of the organization (He, Lai, and Lu 2011). According to the three-component model (TCM) of organizational commitment (Allen and Meyer 1990; Meyer and Allen 1991), commitment can take multiple forms, each characterized by a different psychological state or mindset (Meyer, Stanley, and Parfyonova 2012). Affective commitment refers to the affective or emotional attachment to the organization; normative commitment revolves around an employee’s feeling of obligation and loyalty to the organization; and continuance commitment denotes the perceived costs associated with leaving the organization (Allen and Meyer 1990; Meyer and Allen 1991, 1997; Meyer, Allen, and Smith